Potential adoptive families who passed the application screening are generally notified by a letter of the decision to move ahead to the Home Study phase. You’re then assigned a social worker who will be your licensing specialist, and depending on your state’s regulations, may or may not also be part of the placement procedures.

It seems a bit backwards that the person who gets to know you during the home study may not be the person who connects you with a child, but that is often the reality. Their job is primarily to be a resource while you’re moving forward towards getting licensed, and to create a folder (in international adoption terms: the dossier) which houses all the information and legal documents they’ve collected.

The home study process can take anywhere from 8 – 16 weeks (or longer) depending on how quickly all the background checks and CPS records come in for review by your family’s social worker.

This time frame and what precisely is included in the home study is probably what varies most from state to state so it may be helpful to review your state’s regulations. As an example, I was recently talking with a friend from Texas who said the social workers in her county actually open cupboards and look at how food is being stored, which is much more extensive than anything we encountered.

Regarding this step, the Child Welfare Information Gateway says:

“Flexibility and a sense of humor are vital characteristics when raising children, and they can be useful during the home study process as well. With perseverance and a positive outlook, you will be able to team with the social worker to make this a valuable learning experience—one that will help you do the best possible job in parenting the child who will eventually join your family.”

The cost of a home study

Unlike in international adoption where a home study can cost $1,000 – $3,000 or more – in foster adoption it’s free. However, it does have a shelf life (usually of 12 months) so that families must continue to move forward or face having to start over because the state and/or local agency wants to make sure that all the information is current.

What to expect from your foster adoption home study

Your licensing specialist will essentially ask you all the same kinds of questions that were in your application to gauge the readiness of your family to move ahead with the adoption process, and to facilitate a good match once it comes time for placement. Be prepared for 3 to 5 visits to:

1. Assess the condition of your home and make sure its in compliance with applicable laws + regulations
2. Interview all residents living in the home
3. Arrange for pre-placement training

Basic home requirements

A big, fancy house is not required. Here are the things that stood out to us that our social worker was looking for:

• Working smoke detectors in every bedroom, stairway and on each floor of the home
• At least one operable land line (we signed up for Magic Jack because we only had cell phones when the adoption process began)
• Stair rails for every set of stairs
• All bathroom doors need to be able to lock, and the lock can be opened from the outside in case of emergency (which we were able to have overridden because our doors + locks are originals from the 1890’s)
• All windows are screened
• Anything potentially hazardous to children must be stored in a non-accessible area (especially guns – although we don’t have any)
• At least one ABC rated fire extinguisher

Here in Wisconsin these are the laws regarding the adoptive child’s bedroom:

• A minimum of 40sq feet per child
• Must have a door for privacy
• Must have a dresser and/or closet
• Is not shared with an adult if the child is over the age of 1 (unless there’s a medical reason)
• Children under 7 can’t have a bedroom in the attic, basement, or third floor of a home
• Children ages 6 and over can’t share a room with a child of the opposite sex

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Step 1: Getting the facts + going to an informational meeting

Step 2: The application

Thanks to Johnson & Johnson’s Health channel on YouTube for sponsoring the series!

What can I say – I’m a proud mama.

Many people fear the application – the length, the depth – but think of it as a learning process. The application is helping you weed through potential issues in your own life that may be obstacles to a successful placement – whether they’re financial or emotional. What’s nice is that filling out the application takes time and if you’re married, it requires both people participate which makes sure that you’re on the same page.

Baby Jude is excited to show his new sister or brother how to eat cake

It’s one thing to talk theoretically about bringing another child into your life, but it’s another thing to sit down and fill out the necessary paperwork that officially starts the process and the time clock.

Here in Wisconsin, once an application for foster adoption is received the state is now working towards licensing the individual or couple within 120 days. So, filling out an application means you’re ready to commit to potentially being placed with a child in four months.

Being placed with a child doesn’t mean the adoption process has ended – in fact, placement is when it just begins. Foster adoption requires that the family foster until the termination of parental rights (TPR) has occurred, which usually takes between 6 – 22 months.

What to expect in the foster adoption paperwork

The application came to us in multiple parts. We thought the original 10 pages or so was the full application, but in fact, that was only the first part. In total, we probably filled out about 20 pages of paperwork – although some of it turned out to be repetitive information.

Each state’s application looks different, but here’s the questions you can expect:

• General information about the household with questions about contact information, education and income.
• Your family’s history with drugs and alcohol and psychiatric treatments – not just your household’s history but those in your extended family as well.
• Marriage and relationship history – about divorce, co-habitation, and to some degree, your sexual history.
• Whether child neglect or abuse allegations have ever been filed against you or a family member.
• Financial worksheet that details what you are worth and how much you spend. This includes all monthly expenses and how much is in your various bank accounts 401(k), investments, and what your properties are worth. It also includes questions regarding debt on mortgages, loans and credit cards.

In addition, along with the application you’ll submit:

• Health reports. Every member of the household needs to see a doctor who will fill out a health report detailing if you’re all got the required immunizations and are in good health.
• Fingerprints. Each member of the household above 18 will have to participate by submitting to an extensive background check that includes finger printing that gets cross-checked in the state database as well as the FBI database.
• Copies of all birth certificates, marriage certificates, Social Security cards, and driver’s licenses.
• Copies of recent pay stubs and tax returns.
• Releases so that previous counselors or social services workers can be interviewed.
• Autobiographical questions about your relationship with your immediate + extended family, details about childhood experiences + traumas, and reasons for deciding to go the foster adoption route.
• Several references who have known you for several years and can speak about your character – including a reference from your employer.

AdoptUsKids.org – an excellent resource also adds that applicants are responsible for:

• Being open and honest in filling out the paperwork
• Cooperating with the criminal background check and protective service checks
• Asking for help if you don’t understand something
• Agreeing to maintain confidentiality about the child and their birth family
• And agreeing to provide nurturing, safe and affectionate care for the child

Watch the video to hear what to expect from the adoption application process:

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Step 1: Getting The Facts + Going To An Informational Meeting

Thanks to Johnson & Johnson’s Health channel on YouTube for sponsoring the series!

Sharing our foster-adoption journey

We started the process in December ‘09 and are just a few weeks away from getting licensed, and once we’re licensed we’ll start getting offers for placement right away. Since we’ve been asked so many questions along the way it seemed best to create a series of posts + videos explaining our entire journey. The series will be broken down into 7 parts, each one posted every 2 weeks.

Johnson & Johnson’s Health Channel heard about our desire to create this series and graciously wanted to sponsor it – so thank you J&J for helping us spread the message about foster-adoption.

Wanting to adopt domestically but don’t know where to start?

It’s a stream-lined process and although it varies state-to-state, it’s pretty similar everywhere in the US.

Let me be clear: there is no right or wrong way to adopt. Every child from every corner of the world deserves a safe + loving home. Too many folks get caught up in the domestic vs. international, foster vs. private disputes. Arguing over those personal decisions is futile and hurtful. And it seems no matter what you choose there’s someone waiting to point out why you should’ve gone a different direction.

We initially planned to adopt internationally from Ethiopia. Maybe someday we will. But after weighing all our options we decided what was best for our family at this time was to first pursue foster-adoption.

I thought adoption was expensive?!

Most people are surprised that adopting domestically through foster-adoption is free. Yes, FREE.

In fact, we were shocked to find out they pay us (a very rough estimate being $300/mo per child) and in many cases, even after the adoption is complete the state will continue paying the monthly stipend until the child is 18. Why? Because there are a lot of waiting children – especially sibling groups of 2+ which are considered “special needs” since they’re harder to place.

If you thought adoption had to cost thousands that’s because when considering options, adoption agencies often come to mind since they have marketing budgets for advertising – and they do charge. Sometimes a lot. Usually $20,000+.

There are agencies that focus on international adoption, agencies that focus on domestic adoption, and agencies that do both. The benefit of going the agency route in domestic adoption is they buffer your risk by seeking placements from across the country. They also work outside of the foster care system – meaning, they place pregnant women with potential families.

Baby Jude is excited to add to the family

Risks of foster adoption

All kids in the foster system have experienced some kind of neglect in order to be removed from their birth family, unless they fall under the “safe haven” provision which allows parents who no longer feel capable of caring for their child(ren) to relinquish custody without penalty.

Unfortunately there’s a stigma that’s been placed on kids in foster care. Hopefully positive images like Sandra Bullock’s movie The Blind Side will help change that because children are surprisingly resilient. All kids deserve a chance to have a family no matter what mistakes their birth parents have made.

Just how many kids are waiting in the US? Where we live in Milwaukee County alone, on any given day there are 2,300 kids needing foster homes and only 700 families. The latest estimates (Oct ‘09) place the wait list at 123,000 kids here in America… waiting for a mommy. [Ever see those photo galleries with kids? Access to the full database becomes available to you online after you've been licensed.]

In the case of Wisconsin, in order to adopt we are required to also be licensed foster parents as well. This means that we take an inherent risk of losing the children we’re trying to adopt because there are no guarantees until the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) is complete, which generally takes at least 6 months after they’ve been placed in our home. Essentially every placement in a pre-adoptive home in our state is considered a legal risk placement.

“Until a termination of parental rights is ordered by the court, the child remains in a foster care placement… this may require revealing your identity and address to the birth parents, and having the child available for visitation with biological family members or other important people to the child. However, if and when the court legally frees the child for adoption, barring any unforeseen circumstances, your home will be considered the first choice for adoption of the child.” – Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin, “Legal Risk Placement” handout

Once you’ve determined that you’re prepared to take the leap of faith required – it’s then safe to officially advance to Step 1.

Adoption Step 1: Check requirements + attend an informational meeting

Odds are that you fit exactly what the state is looking for because – let’s be honest – the standards are pretty easy to meet.

• You must be 21 years of age or older.
• You may be single, married, widowed, or be in a long term partnership. No pending separations or divorces.
• You must be in good health and be willing to provide documentation from your doctor’s office.
• You may have children or none at all. If you have 5+ you may need a special request document.
• You can own or rent your home.
• You have to have enough space in the home. Children 6+ years old can’t share a room with the opposite gender.
• You have to have enough income to be able to provide for the child. They’ll look at your debt-income ratio but there aren’t specific income (must make X dollars) requirements.

Other things to note:

• You need to have a home study conducted. This includes complying with safety checklists.
• You must provide proof of homeowner’s or renter’s insurance as well as automobile liability insurance.
• You have to pass a criminal background check.
• You need at least 3 non-related friends to vouch for your sanity.
• You must agree to comply with state and national regulations, such as their “no corporeal punishment” policy.

{Disclaimer: All information provided is based on our experience of the foster-adoption licensing process in the state of Wisconsin. To find out more, contact AdoptUsKids.org.}

It launched two weeks ago and it’s called ShePosts.com. The tagline is “Curating buzzworthy social media news + gossip for your viewing pleasure” and it’s the first blog that tracks and reports about what’s happening throughout the mom blogosphere.

Not to toot my horn, but… if you haven’t visited ShePosts yet – please do. If you’re marketing to moms or are a blogger or are fascinated by the subculture, it’s the place for you. And if you don’t fit any of those qualifications but you like me – then you’ll probably like it.

I had initially planned to roll out a soft launch and then add on down the road but the response has completely exceeded my expectations. So, because I’m a business woman – I’m trying to capitalize on the buzz and push on to the next phase as quickly as possible.

Okay… enough about it.

Today baby Jude turned eleven freakin’ months old! He’s almost a YEAR. Gah.

I put together a little family update video, chock full of cute footage of my darling:

The thing about sharing your life + thoughts online is that you have to be ready for the push back. You have to be ready for the accusations that will inevitably come from an anonymous commenter – the person who judges every inane action and proclaims to the world that you’re a bad mother.

I say this because I’ve experienced it many, many times. So I’m here to say it gets easier. But it remains part of the gig.

Blogging has been an incredible outlet and I’m always enthusiastic about seeing new & creative folks join in but one thing I rarely mention is that at times, this whole social media thing can be very painful.

YouTube is a particularly harsh audience and putting my body + weight on display has allowed for an endless stream of comments like “you may have lost the weight, but you’re still fugly”. The drivel of internet troll hate usually makes me laugh – it doesn’t affect my self-esteem, and if anything, it’s given me a chance to fine-tune clever comebacks that showcase their jackassery.

I thought I had developed a thick skin, until baby Jude came along.

Then I realized the worst comments were yet to come, and they would arrive from among my peers… from women, and moms… comments about my parenting. They’d be related to choices like putting my son on the internet, opting not to have him circumcised, trying for a home birth, and taking him to oh-so-dangerous places in the world.

“You’re a bad mother” is what some have said. And I’d be lying if I claimed those words didn’t hurt. They’d finally found my Achilles heel and managed to penetrate through to stab me in the heart.

The good news? I’m learning to let it go. To agree to disagree. To be kinder and less judgmental when I see other moms yelling at their kids in the grocery store because maybe that’s not an accurate or complete picture of her mothering skills.

So this past week when I was at the Mom 2.0 Summit and there was a panel made up of three brilliant women I admire and the topic was self-proclaimed bad mothering – I knew I had to attend.

While they also talked about marketing issues and working with brands, I edited together pieces where they shared their personal journey:

This week two milestones occurred: (1) getting his first tooth… and trust me when I say having your nipple chomped down on by a sharp tooth feels even more painful than it sounds; and (2) trying his hand at crawling up the stairs.

The first I expected, the second I did not.

It’s like he knows this makes our life more difficult.

We no longer have the luxury of looking away for even a split second… because if we do, it’s a mad dash to the staircase to tempt fate and see how far he can climb before the inevitable tumble down to the hardwood floor below.

Since the sheer thought of him falling down terrifies the bejeezus out of me, and we’ve yet to put up a safety gate like good parents do, we’re stuck with being ultra-observant until we get our baby proofing act together.

Watch as he tries to make his way up:

My freshman year of college was the worst year of my life. I was depressed, at times suicidal, and living an isolated existence. It was light years from how I’d envisioned my collegiate experience.

Halfway through the year I quit attending classes altogether.

Suffice it to say I was drained, wallowing in pity with “I’m a failure” stuck on repeat in my head. I had pushed my Dad hard to let me move across the country to attend that school, and with cancer wracking his body I was guilt-ridden and embarrassed to return home.

At the time I chose not to tell my family I’d quit because I knew it’d open a can of questions I wasn’t emotionally prepared to answer yet. So I stayed through the second semester and just sat in my room – most of my daily interactions occurring online.

In the midst of my swirling sadness a simple pop-up via Yahoo! Messenger opened up on my computer screen. A seemingly random question, “Are you from Corvallis?”.

I figured it was another guy looking through local profiles – I was used to these kinds of conversations.

His name was Josh and he shared a bit about his story – he’d just moved from Ohio to Corvallis, Oregon with his cousin; he was bored and looking for new friends in town.

I’d done the same kind of thing when I’d moved from Oregon to Indiana for school. Although I was 2,000 miles away it just so happened that he shared a connection to a town nearby – his cousin had attended a university in Valparaiso, Indiana… a place I’d recently visited. That kept the conversation going long enough for us to add each other as friends, which ensured we’d chat again.

Months later when the bottom dropped out and I moved back to Corvallis we were still in contact. By the end of the summer me, Josh and his cousin Zach were hanging out regularly.

That fall when Josh invited me to check out a Christian ministry on campus with him, I reluctantly accepted… it’d only been a year since I had left the uber-conservative church I’d grown up in and was pretty sure I’d never be a regular anywhere again. I wasn’t even sure I believed in God, let alone Christianity.

On the days I thought I might still believe in Something, all I could really manage to say was that I was mad as hell at It for all I’d been through.

But that first night I attended Something happened, I started to cry. From the depths of my soul I pleaded: For help. For guidance. For some damn relief.

I’d kept my anguish to myself, and it was there, surrounded by a handful of strangers that the tears started to fall. They were friendly, but not pushy, and in their midst I felt a much-needed reprieve from the pain.

So, the next week I went back. And then again. And again.

It didn’t happen overnight, but in time, those people saved my life. They walked with me as I dealt with the feelings I’d tried to bury – anger, depression, hopelessness. We had a ‘come as you are’ – no judgments allowed kind of policy, and that freed me to find myself. Those friends became my family through college, Josh included. And the rest of my college years turned out to be fabulously fun, just like I’d originally envisioned – 80’s parties, winter retreats up in the mountains, and lots of hanging out eating pizza and drinking beer (or in my case, wine – because let’s face it: beer tastes like pee).

Our chance encounter on Yahoo! enabled Josh to bring me into a whole new community.

Without that connection I would never have found my tribe. And without those friends, I wouldn’t be the me I know today.

Footnote: Josh (on left) and his cousin Zach (on right) were ushers in our wedding. Nick was a member of the same campus ministry in Wisconsin, and that common link was what initially brought him to my blog and into my life.

The power of connecting online

For more, check out the original inspiration for this series on people I’ve met online who’ve changed + bettered me.

{Links will be added below as the posts go live.}

Part 1: The Great Depression: How I survived college, with a lot of help from Yahoo! Messenger
Part 2: Internet Dating: Meeting my husband through my blog
Part 3: Finding Business Partners Online: Establishing trust through YouTube
Part 4: Mom Bloggers: Sharing heart + passion with other parents

You are the love of my life.

I am honored to be your wife.

When I was a little girl and dreamed of what an amazing Daddy would look like – the kind of man I wanted to marry – I wasn’t sure of all the attributes to include. Funny, sweet, caring, intelligent, handsome.

You’re all of those and more.

So for Valentine’s Day this year I wanted to give you more than the cologne you missed from Christmas. Here’s my gift from the heart:

lyrics of: “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green

And for a stroll down memory lane… I just came across this Valentine to you from 3 years ago:

Our wedding day.

My sister-in-law just started a blog to document her experience as an American student in Prague. Reading her first post gave me a flashback to 2004 when I first started writing here. The initial purpose was to chronicle my travels and keep up with friends while spending a year working on my Arabic at the University of Jordan.

I started out simple. I had no idea that participating in this online community would alter my worldview, change the course of my career, cause me to move to the Midwest… and turn a commenter into my husband.

I got online in 1997 at the age of 14. It was before the parental hysteria had broken out about the potential danger of online predators so I was pretty much given free reign. With a computer in my room I spent most evenings dialed in to chatrooms and instant messengers. I had lots of ‘real life’ friends (who did not get my obsession) but I also bonded deeply with the folks I met online.

But it was more than that.

Those digital relationships shaped me… probably in ways I’ll never fully understand.

My first date was online – like most people remember the name of who they first kissed, I expect I’ll never forget his AOL handle. We dated from 15-17yrs old and only met in person once when I was 18, after we had broken up. We were both early adopters and while most of our peers thought we were weird & geeky for spending so much time on the computer – we got each other, and believed someday the wall between the virtual and concrete would come crashing down.

And we were right.

Now nearly every person I’ve ever met uses email, and most have Facebook accounts.

Even my mom.

So, thanks to my first internet boyfriend I stuck around this place. Made it my home. Even saved up & bought a webcam in ‘99 so we could talk face-to-face… which was less like live streaming and more like taking a series of photos.

Many of the people I’ve met online through the years have provided life-altering interactions. They’ve also become my best friends.

So, in order to honor those people and do the stories justice I’ve decided to turn this into a series of posts. {Links will be added below as the posts go live.}

Addicted to being connected

Part 1: The Great Depression: How I survived college, with a lot of help from Yahoo! Messenger

Part 2: Internet Dating: Meeting my husband through my blog

Part 3: Finding Business Partners Online: Establishing trust through YouTube

Part 4: Mom Bloggers: Sharing heart + passion with other parents

*This post was inspired by SOBCon’s BlogIt EarnIt question for #SOBCon2010