How to Become a Foster Family (Step By Step)

I am excited to announce that our home study was approve by the state and that we are officially a licensed foster family!

In honor of finally becoming a legally recognized foster home, I'd like to share what the process looks like. The process will vary greatly from state to state, county to county, and even agency to agency, so your experience may be completely different. But I hope that by sharing the step by step process, I can give you a glimpse into what becoming a foster family looks like. I will also include dates so you can get an idea of the length of time that licensure can take.

1) Contact an agency
July 26, 2018
It all starts with a phone call or email. I was given an email address from a friend to contact a worker at the agency who recruits and leads orientation for prospective foster parents. After a few emails back and forth, we set a date for a personal orientation in our home.

2) Attend Orientation
August 16, 2018
The worker came to our home. She gave an overview of the agency, foster care, and answered any questions that we had. She did not pressure us at all! She was very careful in use language such as "if you were to become foster parents" or "if you would decide to go with our agency." Half way through orientation I actually stopped her and said that I appreciated how low pressure she was, but that we were positive that God was calling us to become foster parents and to go forward with their agency. At the end of the meeting, we received a pile of paperwork and a feeling of confidence that this was the agency that we were meant to work with. We confirmed that we wanted to move forward with the process.

3) Training
August 23, 2018-October 6, 2018
Every state requires foster parents to complete training hours before they are licensed, and to continue to attend trainings while they are licensed. In our county, we are required to complete the Presley Ridge curriculum. This included 12 units, each taking about 2.5-3 hours. We had to attend each of these trainings in person. So for about a month and a half, one to two days a week we had to go to the agency for training. It was a lot of information packed into a fairly short amount of time. We learned regulations, how to parent children who have experiences trauma, what is required of us, and got to hear some current foster parents share their experiences.

4) Paperwork 
August-November 2018 
Becoming foster parents involved piles of paperwork to be completed. We had to have our fingerprints scanned, backgrounds checked, financial statements and all of our bills copied, proof of dog vaccines, insurances copied, medical forms signed off by our doctors, lists of our prescriptions, etc. It was overwhelming to look at the long list of required documents, but our licensing worker helped us every step of the way to make it more manageable.

5) Egress Window
October, 2018
This is not a step that every family will need to take, but it was an unexpected and costly requirement for us. Due to use having a finished basement, if we planned on using it as any kind of living space more than storage or laundry, we needed to install an egress window. Even though we do not have anyone sleeping in the basement, our state requires this.

6) Home Visit and Interview
November 13, 2018
Our licenser came to our home to inspect it and interview us. She had to take photos, verify we had smoke detectors, a carbon monoxide detector, tap water that wasn't too hot, beds/cribs, medicine locked away, cleaning supplies out of reach of children, and overall assess that our home was safe. She also interviewed Brad and I about our marriage, childhoods, family, religion, parenting styles, and everything else in between. She had to get as much information as possible so that she can complete a written home study all about our family. At the end of our visit, she confirmed that she would be recommending us to the state to become licensed.

7) Home Study Sent to the State
November 27, 2018
After our licenser wrote our home study and received all paperwork, she sent her packet on us to the state. This was a little delayed due to an issue with our clearances (we recently moved to a new state, so our they had to be rerun and a new hard copy had to be sent to the agency before our packet could be sent to the state. It was tedious and I was getting impatient, but I tried to remind myself that God's timing is perfect and will set us up to receive the placement that he has meant for us.

8) Approval
December 17, 2018
We received notice that we are an officially licensed foster family! The state approved us, and as of now, we could get a placement at any moment.

Becoming a foster family is a lengthy and involved process (as it should be). I can't say that it was without tears, stress, or financial strain. But I can say that I felt God's hand moving us through each and every step. And now, we sit and wait to see what He has in store for the next piece of our journey.

If you have any questions about foster care, becoming foster parents, or how to help anyone involved in the system, please don't hesitate to reach out!

Love and Blessings,

Annmarie

Why We Are Becoming a Foster Family

As many of you already know, we are expecting! Except that it may be an infant, a one year old, or a toddler. We also have no idea where they will be born, what their name is, how long they will be with us, or who their father is.

That's right, we are becoming foster parents.

This journey has been a long time coming. I have wanted to adopt for as long as I can remember. As I became more aware of the foster care system, through my schooling and work as a CPS investigator, Brad and I decided that we would become foster parents at some point in the future. This was early in on our marriage, well before we knew we would have fertility problems. At that time, we planned on having a few biological children first, and then to become foster parents and adopt our last child.

God sure had other plans.

We had difficulty conceiving Elijah. It required medications, injections, treatment, and monitoring for many cycles for us to conceive our miracle. We are so blessed that God gave us the honor of being parents to this incredible little boy.

Brad and I enjoy being parents so much. As Elijah grew from an infant into a toddler, we started discussing when and how we should grow our family next. The odds of us conceiving naturally are extremely low. So our conversations turned to whether we should start treatments again, or if we should look into becoming a foster family.

These were some tough discussions. The hardest part was that they were both options that we were comfortable with and wanted to do. Fostering was never an "if we should do it" thing, but a "when should we do it" thing. And we had already gone through fertility treatments. While they were painful, expensive, and emotionally draining, they were so worth it to have Elijah as our son.

When we in the stage of having our discussions and gathering information, I contacted a friend of mine. She lives local to us and has fostered and adopted children. I had asked which agency she used, and she highly recommended a local agency that I was not familiar with.

The next day, I was driving up the highway. I was praying to God, asking him to lead us to which decision he had planned for us. I asked him whether he was calling us to foster, or to pursue fertility treatments. As I was praying that, an electronic billboard flashed an advertisement. It was for the foster care agency that my friend had just told me about the day prior, and it said "We need foster parents"! If that isn't God giving us an answer, then I don't know what is!

After discussing this with Brad, he agreed that it was a sign from God that He wants us to become foster parents, and that He wants us to start the process now. We want to be the safe and caring home for a child, no matter how long they are with us. We want to love on them and show them God's unconditional love. We want to pray for and support their biological family in their goal of reunifying. And if that in unable to happen, we would love to adopt them.

We know this won't be easy. We are putting our family out there financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our plan is to love on any kid with us as hard as we can, even if it's only for a season.

James 1:27 says that "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." This call looks different to different people. For our family, we feel so convicted that God is calling us to look after "orphans in their distress" through becoming foster parents.

It's a scary ride we are about to embark on, but also one of the most exciting journeys of our lives.

Please feel free to ask ANY questions about foster care, becoming foster parents, supporting foster families, etc! We are so excited to share this journey in hopes to show others what foster care really looks like in the day to day, and want to be as transparent as possible.

Thanks for all of the love, prayers, and support that we have already received. We couldn't have done this without the encouragement and help of our friends and family.

Love and Blessings,

Annmarie

My Labor, Induction, and Birth Story

As it got closer and closer to my due date, I scoured the internet for birth stories. I wanted to see how other births went in an attempt to have a better idea of what to expect for my own. And as soon as I found out that I would be induced, I specifically looked for induction stories to try and get as much information as possible. So in an attempt to give other future moms another experience to read, as well as to document my birth, here is our story.

During my 36 week appointment, my blood pressure measured high and I had elevated protein in my urine. I also complained (for the third week in a row) of intense itching so bad that I was making myself bleed by scratching my hands so much at night. My feet itched so bad that I would take off my shoes while driving and scratch them against the brake pedals.

After being sent to labor and delivery triage for monitoring and testing to make sure that the baby was okay, I was diagnosed with Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP), and told that I had indications of preeclampsia. ICP is a condition when liver function is affected, causing the flow of bile to be slowed or blocked. This causes it to flow into your blood stream, which after about 37 weeks of pregnancy increases your odds of fetal distress and still birth. It was decided that I would be induced 4 days later, at 37 weeks and one day.

On the day of induction, we were scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 10PM. We were checked in and sent to our labor room. The nurse asked me an array of questions, had me change into my gown, and hooked me up to an IV and stomach monitoring.

My last belly shot before Elijah was born

A resident came in to check my dilation. This took her two attempts and was painful, as I was not dilated at all and was only effaced about 15%.

Next a pill called Cytotek was inserted vaginally. This is a pill that helps with dilation. I was told that I would have to wait for about 4 hours and then would be checked for progress. The resident warned me that it is fairly common to need a few rounds of this pill, so I was prepping myself for up to 16 hours of this.

Brad and I watched TV and tried to get some sleep. Around 4AM I was checked and found to be dilated to one centimeter. Due to how much I was contracting, they could not insert another pill as they were worried about stimulating me too quickly and being unable to control this medication.

The next step was the foley bulb. Oh my goodness, I swear this may have been one of the worst parts of the labor. I was so glad that the nurse talked me into getting a shot of dilaudid ahead of time. The foley bulb is a balloon attached to the end of a catheter. It was inserted past my cervix so that it was between the baby's head and my cervix. This is supposed to put pressure on my cervix every time I have a contraction, making me dilate more quickly. It took the resident two tries to insert it correctly.
Then the balloon was inflated. The other end of the catheder was attached to my leg.

Due to the pain meds, I easily fell asleep. Occasionally the nurse would come in and pull on the catheter to get the balloon to hit my cervix more intensely. After a few hours of this, the nurse came in again to pull on the catheter and the balloon came out. This was a good sign that I was dilating, so after a bit I was checked again and was dilated to four centimeters.

After that, the Dr. broke my water (which was painless) and contractions started ramping up. Brad was so gentle, supportive, and encouraging during every contraction. I could not have done with without him.

Pitocin was put into my IV, which is a medicine to induce contractions and labor. I also got my epidural at this time. The anesthesiologist took THREE TRIES to get it into the right spot. At this point I was crying (emotional and physical exhaustion at this point). But my wonderful nurse was sensitive and incredible at comforting me as I leaned against her chest, ugly crying. during the insertion.

Once the epidural was complete, only one side of me was fully numb. I was feeling contractions on the left side of my uterus. The nurses tried rolling me back and forth to disperse the medication more. This worked for a bit, but I kept feeling contractions on the left side. And if I was getting an epidural, I wanted to be as comfortable as possible!

The anesthesiologist came in and gave me more medication into my epidural. That did the trick. I would still feel the pressure of the contractions, but not the pain. This allowed me to get some sleep and let the pitocen do it's magic.

My blood pressure did drop some (fairly common with an epidural), so I was given a super cute oxygen mask to rock.

Oxygen mask for the win!

After a few hours I was checked again and had dialed to 8 cm and was 100 effaced! I slept a few more hours, and then when I was checked I was fully dilated. My OB told me that she wanted to wait one more hour to give the baby a chance to move down a little more. I was at a station of 0 at this point, so baby was right at the cervix.

I started getting very shaky and nauseous around this time. I threw up twice and was given a cold wash cloth for my forehead. Once the hour was up, my OB said that the baby had moved down one whole centimeter and that it was time to push!

My OB told Brad to hold one my legs and a nurse to hold the other. I asked Brad if he thought he'd get queasy doing that because I was terrified of him passing out, but he said he was fine and did great. The nurse told me when a contraction was coming on the monitor, and then told me when to push. I could feel the contraction pressure myself, but it was nice to have extra reassurance from the nurse.

My OB was at my feet during the entire time I pushed. She was so encouraging and honestly made me feel like I was the only person in the world that have given birth and that I could do this. She let me know she could see the head, and Brad kept telling me how each push was getting the baby closer and closer.

Although it was encouraging, many people close to me who had their babies heads get to that point ended up needing a c-section. I was still very prepared for that possibility. My mom, her sisters, and my grandma all had c-sections, so I was pretty convinced that that was how the baby would be born. It wasn't until my OB said that I was at the point that if the baby got stuck, she would use forceps before a c-section, that I started getting excited that I might actually birth this baby vaginally! And while there is nothing wrong with a c-section, I felt so empowered that I might be able to have one piece of creating this child and bringing them into the world without so much intervention.

Most notable during my pushing was when my OB informed me that I was crowning, to which I shouted "I KNOW I CAN FEEL IT I CAN FEEL IT!"  After about an hour total of pushing, baby was born at 4:48PM.

Brad announced that the baby was a boy, and he was placed on my chest. I could not believe it! After all of the time, money, stress, appointments, medications, injections, and prayers, our son was here! Elijah Joseph Jordan weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces. I'm extremely glad I ended up needing to be induced early because this baby was a tank!

Elijah Joseph Jordan, 6/6/17, 4:38PM, 8 lb 5 oz

Once the umbilical chord stopped pulsing, Brad cut the chord. During this time, I did about an hour of skin to skin with Elijah and also breastfed him.

Brad cutting the umbilical chord

Skin to skin snuggles with our miracle

There are so many induction horror stories out there. And in some ways, it makes sense. Your body is being induced to do something that it was not ready to do yet. But overall, my induction and birth experience was amazing. I look back on it with nostalgia now, and am so thankful that we were able to get my sweet Elijah out before he was in danger of still birth.

Our first family photo

Brad and Elijah snuggle for the first time

Our sweet boy, swollen and bruised up from the rough ride he just endured

Did you have a positive or negative birth experience? Share your story in the comments, I'm obsessed with birth stories!

Love and Blessings,

Annmarie