lets start at the very beginning

i wanted to start this blog for the purpose of keeping track of the process that we are going through to become foster parents. it is always nice to look back and see how far you have come and to actually know the dates of when things happened.

this has been something that started as a little seed of thought in my heart about a year ago.

when we were told two years ago that our chances of having any more children were slim to none it was beyond devastating to me. heartbreaking news to say the least. you think your life is supposed to be a certain way and then bam it doesn't go that way. at the same time we were told that news everything else in our life was falling apart. chris had lost his job and it seemed like he was never going to find a new one. there was a lot of stress and tension going on between us. a trying time for sure. here is a post that i wrote around that time on little miss pearsonality, it touches the surface of what we were going through.

we moved back to maple ridge last summer and slowly but surely life started to get back to a happy place. chris found work last december and the relief was so wonderful. he is still enjoying his work - he works for a company that produces health supplements and vitamins. he does all their web work. so one of the perks is we have a lot of protein powders and supplements in our house. chris has been learning so much and is becoming quite the health nut - one day it will rub off on me. even sophia enjoys her protein shakes in the morning.

so as we gained back our happy place status we began trying for a miracle. of course month after month no miracle happened. even knowing there is little to no chance you still hold on to the thread of hope that a miracle will happen. we got pregnant with sophia on the first try. so perhaps a miracle would take place. as each month passed my heart kept sinking and i kept thinking well if i cant be a mom to another one of my own children how can i still love and care for little ones? adoption would be amazing, but our limited income can not afford the price of adoption. then one day as i was playing with sophia in her playroom it was like a little thought got placed right in front of my eyes - fostering. foster little children laura. i didn't even know how fostering worked all i knew is that i had to look into it and my heart would not let this go. i processed these thoughts a while and wasn't sure how chris would react. i thought perhaps he would think i was crazy and unrealistic. of course as he always does he surprised me and he was so on board with it - never even a hesitation about it. every time i thought about fostering i would start crying. not in a bad way - i think about the children suffering and i hurt for them. i want to gather them up in my arms and care for them. i think about the children we may never have naturally and all the love i have to give and i think i am meant to be a foster mom to those children. even typing it out my eyes are watering and i am keeping the lump down in my throat.

so where do we even start this process? i knew one of the ladies in our church sheila was a foster parent and has been for many many years. i talked with her one night to get a better idea of what it was all about. i wasn't aware that you got financial compensation - i thought it was something you volunteered for. chris and i were pleasantly surprised. doing what our hearts told us was right would also help us financially. i wont have to go back to work when sophia goes to kindergarten. another relief. we are lucky to have sheila i know she will have our back and help us along the way.

i called the ministry of children and family development (mcfd) and booked us in to attend an orientation night. we left that meeting more convinced that this is what we are supposed to be doing. no second guessing ourselves. that meeting was in october ( i forgot to write down the actual date and threw away the calendar page it was written on) i will keep better records from now on. after the meeting we filled out the initial application and mailed it away. we were told it would take about 6 weeks for a resource worker to contact us. well the same day the resource worker received our application ( two days after i mailed it )she called us and set up a day to meet with us. we met with her that week. she came to our house after chris came home from work. it was an initial meeting to meet us and to make sure our home would be acceptable to care for a child. not going to lie i was nervous. i wasn't nervous about meeting her i was nervous about our teeny tiny house. i was so worried that the process would stop because our house was too small. her name was august hart and she was lovely. she recognized that yes indeed our house is quite small but since we would be caring for young children she thought that it would be ok. she had to confirm it with her manager and told us she would call us to let us know what the verdict would be. the next day she called and said our home was approved - hooray! we filled out the formal application, criminal record check, doctors notes saying we were healthy and capable of caring for foster children and reference letters.

once we were approved the process would look like this:

-8 week training course
-after the training is complete we would begin the homestudy - which could take any where from 1 to 3 months depending on how fast you resource worker is.
- a safe baby training program

since we were wanting to care for children 0 -3 years old we are considered priority. there is a huge need for foster care for the little ones. a lot of people want school age children. the other in need group is troubled teens.

we also are in demand because i am a stay at home mom. when you are caring for young ones the mcfd ideally want a parent who is home full time and would not place the child in a daycare.

two weeks ago november thirtieth chris and i started our training class.

on monday december fifth i got a phone call from august our resource worker saying that she got approval to start our home study at the same time we are undergoing our training. great news. i wasn't even aware she was trying for this. she wanted to start that week but our week was already full and so we scheduled our first home study meeting for december fifteenth.

we are so excited because this means we will be done that much faster. i will know more when we meet with august next week.

the training classes will be taking a break for christmas holidays and will resume the second week in january. we have two classes under our belt.

and just so you know sophia is really excited about becoming a foster sister. she has a good understanding of what it means. we know she will be great. we are not naive and we also know there will be many challenges. we will face them when we are faced with them. we are a resiliant family and roll with the punches.

i will update this blog next week after our first home study meeting!