The Waiting Game

You are finally done with all the training, inspections, questions, paperwork and you have your license proudly displayed for all to see.  Now, you wait.  In training, you heard about the families that got a placement the day they were approved.  You hope you will be, too.

As  a PRIDE trainer, I will remind you that it takes 9 months to have a baby, even if you get pregnant the first time you try.  Foster and adoption are often the same way.  As a foster and adoptive parent of 20 odd years, I will tell you that I still carry the phone to the bathroom with me so I don't miss a call.  I still call my worker and remind her that I am anxiously awaiting a call.  Oops!  I forgot to call her today.  

Since our second placement in 1992 and through 2007, we were never completely empty.  In fact, we have stayed full....at capacity...no more room in the Inn....most of the last 20 something years.  Except I have no placement now.  I am going crazy! 

My own five kids are not enough.  I kissed my last placement good-bye as he went into adoption on April 16.  I am lost.  I am a fixer.  I NEED a placement.  I WANT a broken baby.  Don't misunderstand, I don't want someone to break a baby for me.  I know there are those already broken that need a mommy like me. 

I don't want the placement worker to leave her computer screen or her phone till I get that call.  I want her to eat at her desk and check her e-mail every 3 minutes.  I want her to keep her on-call phone with her at all times.  I prefer she not shower till I get a placement.  A bath is acceptable as she can answer the phone during a bath.  I promise you she wants a placement for me as bad as I do.  She will be very glad when I no longer call her daily to whine about needing a placement.

I'm thinking of printing business cards with my name and number on it so I can go to the hospital neonatal units and the PICU's and pass them out in hopes that a CPS case workers will put my name on one of those babies. 

I am not patient.  I don't want to be patient.  I WANT A BABY!

Can I get an Amen?

Judy