Why Charlie Brown?
When my husband and I got married, my brother kept asking "when's charlie coming, when's charlie coming." One, because he thinks he's funny and two because he swore he was going to call our kid Charlie Brown. As I was thinking about this blog and a title a few different names went through my head. I settled on this because for one, we can't use any names or pictures until an adoption is final, and two because for us it will just fit in with our inside joke.
We don't know what our child will look like, if our child will be a boy or a girl, or what age our child will be. We have specified for under two years old, and we have complete control over what we will and will not accept into our home, as awful as that sounds. However we may get called with a sibling set and have more than one child come into our home at a time. We have been licensed to accept five children. (YIKES) Again, we get to set the parameters, but when you are thinking about this, and wanting children in your home, it can sometimes be hard to imagine that you will say no to any child or group of children. However, we also know what we can and can't handle.
Our best case scenario at this point would be to receive a child whose parents' rights had already been terminated on other children. When a parent's rights are terminated on children, any future children they have are already terminated. In this case the adoption process would go very quickly. It is even possible that we could pick up a baby from the hospital at that point. While these cases are not the norm, they are possible. In a scenario like this the family that had adopted that birth parent's other children will get "first dibs" on that child as well. The same would go for us. If we adopted a child and that mother had other children they would call us first. Again cases don't always work like this, but that would probably be our "best case" scenario.
Here is what will most likely happen:
We will get a call for a child or children.
We will say yes or no.
Yes, we pick up those children from a hospital, or the center, or they get delivered to us. Then the craziness starts!
We will have social worker visits, doctor appointments, possible therapist appointments, and birth family visits. It can be a long process. There will be many court dates that, thank goodness, we don't have to go to. Our birth parents will have a plan set by the judge to follow. Then, the time line begins. Birth parents have nine months to make what a judge sets as adequate progress. Depending on how things go, after that nine months the adoption process can start. Sometimes it isn't that easy. It can be very messy, and complicated, and confusing, but people are rarely neat and simple.
Many times in our county foster children do not return home, simply because families cannot make adequate progress, or the situation is more complicated than was originally known. However, it is also a possibility that the children placed with us could return home to their birth families. Again, it will never be simple, easy, or quick. We just have to wait and see and be flexible and prepared.
This process will be a journey. We are both excited and scared. However we know that this is what we are supposed to do. Hopefully a child will be placed with us soon and we can start this roller coaster of a process. But we know that God is with us no matter what happens.
One day we will be bringing home Charlie Brown, for good.
We don't know what our child will look like, if our child will be a boy or a girl, or what age our child will be. We have specified for under two years old, and we have complete control over what we will and will not accept into our home, as awful as that sounds. However we may get called with a sibling set and have more than one child come into our home at a time. We have been licensed to accept five children. (YIKES) Again, we get to set the parameters, but when you are thinking about this, and wanting children in your home, it can sometimes be hard to imagine that you will say no to any child or group of children. However, we also know what we can and can't handle.
Our best case scenario at this point would be to receive a child whose parents' rights had already been terminated on other children. When a parent's rights are terminated on children, any future children they have are already terminated. In this case the adoption process would go very quickly. It is even possible that we could pick up a baby from the hospital at that point. While these cases are not the norm, they are possible. In a scenario like this the family that had adopted that birth parent's other children will get "first dibs" on that child as well. The same would go for us. If we adopted a child and that mother had other children they would call us first. Again cases don't always work like this, but that would probably be our "best case" scenario.
Here is what will most likely happen:
We will get a call for a child or children.
We will say yes or no.
Yes, we pick up those children from a hospital, or the center, or they get delivered to us. Then the craziness starts!
We will have social worker visits, doctor appointments, possible therapist appointments, and birth family visits. It can be a long process. There will be many court dates that, thank goodness, we don't have to go to. Our birth parents will have a plan set by the judge to follow. Then, the time line begins. Birth parents have nine months to make what a judge sets as adequate progress. Depending on how things go, after that nine months the adoption process can start. Sometimes it isn't that easy. It can be very messy, and complicated, and confusing, but people are rarely neat and simple.
Many times in our county foster children do not return home, simply because families cannot make adequate progress, or the situation is more complicated than was originally known. However, it is also a possibility that the children placed with us could return home to their birth families. Again, it will never be simple, easy, or quick. We just have to wait and see and be flexible and prepared.
This process will be a journey. We are both excited and scared. However we know that this is what we are supposed to do. Hopefully a child will be placed with us soon and we can start this roller coaster of a process. But we know that God is with us no matter what happens.
One day we will be bringing home Charlie Brown, for good.
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