Let the journey begin...

Yesterday I received a call from the County of San Diego's Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) regarding foster care (hello...God?).  I spoke with this particular woman a couple weeks ago regarding our interest in becoming foster parents and she called to see if we were still interested as orientations are beginning next week.  I told her that we are still interested and we were just deciding about when would be a good time to make it to an orientation.  Well she went on to tell me about one that is taking place on October 11 that is an all day event. Basically its the required orientation, TB test, finger printing, CPR certification all in one 8 hour day. This makes getting everything done extremely convenient (if you don't count the baby sitting fee for the kids or having to pump enough for two bottles for our 5 month old - ugh). 

I am feeling so nervous about all this for a few reasons:

1) The obvious fear is our family getting so attached to the kiddo only to have her (we're requesting a little girl) taken away.  I can't imagine how difficult that would be, but we have to go through this with our eyes wide open, knowing that reunification is always the goal.  

2) I'm also really nervous about how our 4 year old daughter, Emma, will react to having another little girl in the house, especially since the two will share a room.  We have spoken to her about this and she seems really excited about having a "sister" as she already calls her (leave it to our super outgoing, presumptuous daughter to already deem the kiddo her "sister"; again, this references fear #1.)  I'm a little nervous about the sharing issue, the attention issue, etc. Even though we have two kids, there is almost a 4 year gap in between the two and our 5 month old son doesn't pose much threat to Emma since she doesn't have to deal with him playing with her stuff.  I'm sure this will mostly be a non-issue since Em is very giving and typically easy-going.  But kids are kids...

3) Navigating the foster care system as a whole is very  intimidating.  From what I've heard and read, the system itself is very frustrating and sadly, many times the best interest of the child is not what is the priority.  I am praying that if this moves forward as planned that God will bless us with a competent, caring and punctual social worker/case worker so that things run smoothly, at least most of the time.

So that is where we are at currently.  We continue to pray for God's will and hope that He will use us for the glory of His Kingdom.