closer

hello blog land. Im back from vacation in Northern California, and feeling mostly refreshed for it. Brian and I had our final homestudy interview with the foster/ adopt certifier on Friday. Whew.. what an invasive process. Every regulating body in the state of Oregon is totally nuts. We continue to inch closer to certification/ placement but its sort of slowed down to a crawl. This coming Thursday is the final saftey inspection, and walk through. We have a check list and its my job these next few days to be sure that everything is ticked off. Most of my vacation time was spent chatting with my stepmom, who had a TON of interesting info to share about the child welfare system and what is likely to happen with our adoption attempts. She has worked for the agency for 22 years. She said that sadly, family is ALWAYS given prefrence for adoptions these days. Even if its super extended family. Even if the child is already comfortable in a foster care setting and has been since birth. That said, often family members interested in adoption, wont be cleared or wont pass a homestudy. My certifier explained it as the apple does not fall far from the tree theory, but they do have to give family a chance. Adpopting through the state is possible, but not as easy as it was a few years ago, when they did give current caregivers some clout. My stepmom mentioned that she was pretty sure they would have us in mind as medical foster parents. This hadnt crossed my mind much, because I am not a nurse. I know a few practical nurses that do this for a living and I thought you had to have nursing skills. Ive been told that because of what I have done for work, caring for the elderly in their homes with nursing delegations for certain things like G tube feeding, medication admin, and wound care, that I can easily be put on the list to take infants that require a little extra care. Of course they wont give me anything that I cant handle. At least I hope not. Anyhow, the certifier confirmed that this is what she was planning to do, and she told me to start buying stuff for an infant! Finally ordered a crib Friday night and it should be here in a few days. Nursery room is getting totally douched out and we are setting up a shelving unit for plastic bins in the dirt basement. I plan to post some before and after pics in the next few weeks. Its a lovely feeling, knowing that our child is going to live in this nursery, in this house. Im still keen on embryo donation and might try it sooner than later. Perhaps this spring, even if we have foster kids. Nothing wrong with trying to complete the family in one fell swoop, is there?