Family of Four!

He is here! We got our first foster placement on Tuesday, October 15th. This Tuesday our little guy will have been with us for 4 weeks.

Let me start at the beginning. Last I left you we were open and I was carrying my phone everywhere waiting for it to ring. Waiting for DHS to call was almost physically painful. Once we got to the point where we were open all three of us just wanted to know when we were going to get that placement and what he/she would be like and how old he/she would be.

On Tuesday, October 15th we were in Fayetteville watching Alea play volleyball. I happened to be playing on Facebook (bad mommy) and saw that the private Facebook page for The CALL that we were added to when we opened had a message asking if someone would be interested it taking a four month old ICWA baby boy. (ICWA stands for Indian Child Welfare Act...this act was created to keep Native American children with Native American families. In the past white people were known for taking Native American children away from their families and sending them to boarding schools or adopting them out to white families in order to save them from their "savage" people.) I turned to Davin and asked if he wanted a four month old boy. We were open for girls age 6 weeks to 7 years. We were open for girls only because Alea gets annoyed by little boy (cousins mostly) touching her stuff (i.e., treasures). As time had gone on we had become more and more open to the idea of a baby. Davin was open to the idea of a baby so I left volleyball and called the case worker who had the baby. She was able to tell me much of his story about why he was going in to care. We knew that working with ICWA would bring an additional challenge but since our goal was not adoption but just to help we were open to working with ICWA and learning more about the law and the tribe. We pulled Alea out of the game and headed home to meet the worker. We got the pack and play out of the garage and set it up in our room. We did not have a single baby item. The only toy we had was a small stuffed cow from Chick Fil A. :) When the worker showed up we knew as much about the baby as we would know for the first week...except his name. When the worker showed up I asked his name and believe it or not his name is the same name we were going to name Alea if she was a boy. That was pretty cool. You would think calling him that name would have been easy but instead I called him Reed, my nephew's name, for a week and a half.

I took off on Wednesday and figured out WIC and daycare. I also went to The CALL closet which is a place that foster parents can go and get clothes and other items that they need for their foster children. It is free. I got our little guy some clothes, wipes, bibs, etc. Within the first two weeks we got donations of clothes, baby toys, a swing, bottles, etc. This week was the first time I have gotten to the bottom of our laundry baskets since he got here. The donations have been AMAZING! Although we had 7 months to prepare to become foster parents we couldn't really prepare fully because we didn't know if we would get a baby or an older child, boy or girl.

Davin has been working on sanding the baby bed we were given so he could paint it white to match the baby's room. Today he finished this project and tonight our little guy will sleep in his own room in his big bed. We did move him to his room last night from our room so tonight will be his second night in there.

We are all totally in love with this baby. I know that is dangerous but really there is no other way to live. If we don't love him completely and teach him how to love then I worry about the kind of person/man he will grow up to be.

I have been to court once to observe what is going on with his families case. Court is an interesting place. Last week we had a staffing which is where the create the plan that the parents have to follow to get him back. Again...an interesting time. Davin went this time. I think he was pretty amazed at the whole thing.

Our little guy's ICWA worker seems nice but I don't ever want to be on her bad side. I actually like her a lot but I know that someday down the road, one way or another, she will be the one to take our little guy away from us. She will either be part of returning him to his parents or she will place him with another tribal family. Of course, this will be a decision of the court but the tribal workers have a lot of power since Native American tribes are independent nations. Not only are we working with two states we are technically working with two nations....make that three...mom and dad are of different tribes so actually have two ICWA workers plus our state worker.

The next court date is in December. It should be interesting as well. I am still trying to process the staffing form Friday.

He is such a good baby. He has grown since he has been with us. He is bigger and chubbier. :) Alea is loving on him and is such a good big sister.