Our journey continues...

I know a lot of people are confused on how fostering to adopt in the state of NC works so I am going to break it down here for you so y'all know what our journey entails :)

In order for us to adopt out of the foster care program in NC we have to be foster parents for a year. So we attended and information session back in 2013. One of the steps is you have to be "invited" to attend the training class after attending the information session. Those sessions are held at DSS (if you would like info just shoot me a message on facebook). From there we had to go through the training classes which are about 10 weeks long accompanied with home visits. After our foster parenting training classes our social worker had to put together a packet of our life to present to the CCDSS (Cumberland County Department of Social Services) committee. The ins and outs of the Wilhelm's. As a couple and individually; all based on our home visits and their assessments of us throughout the training classes. To help give the CCDSS a better look at our lives they requested we do a photo album or photo book to put with our packet. That took some time for our social worker to do but on October 15th 2013 CCDSS approved us to be foster parents & go to the next stage which is state approval (the licensing of us to be foster parents)

Jeremy was still deployed so I decided to surprise him :)

Shortly after that Jeremy returned SAFELY home (THANK YOU GOD!!) and we ran into some "speed bumps" with his career. As my previous blogs have stated we have been trying to figure out what his job will hold for him. A 2 year tour to Kuwait? or Korea? or PCSing from NC? We don't know. So we had to put our other trainings and prerequisites for the licensing process on hold. After months of no answers I just couldn't stand it anymore. My heart was broken. I was in so much distress and terrified that we would loose all we have worked for with the NC foster parenting association. So we made a tough decision. If he has to PCS; I will stay here locally & foster on my own (as long as the state would allow that without interfering with our eligibility to adopt after a year). Jeremy & I may have to be apart from each other for 3-5 years but it is a sacrifice we are willing to make. We don't want to wait any longer to have our family. We know this is where God needs us. Something so divine & perfect cant be against His plan for us. Everything has fallen into place so far & brought us peace and a joy that we never thought we could have.
 

 
Our next step was to talk to our social worker and find out if that was doable without it effecting our overall goal to adopt. We didn't know if the state would see that as "cheating" since we both went into the certification and licensing process together but only I would be fostering if he had to PCS (where talking about the state here so there is no telling ;-) haha) The last thing we wanted to happen was we make this difficult sacrifice and cant adopt after the year time frame for some reason. But amazingly enough our social worker came back with some WONDERFUL news! They will allow me to foster on my own for a year if need be and it will not effect our eligibility to adopt after our 1 year of foster parenting (PRAISE!!!) I BAWLED my eyes out, called Jeremy and fell to my knees thanking God! We were back on track :)

So where we are at right now is doing the last little things we need to for our final approval with the state who will license us as foster parents. We have to have our fire inspection done, medical history done and our final walk through to make sure our weapons, medicine and ammo are all locked up in separate cases. Once that's done our social worker can send all of our information to the state for the final approval & licensing. It can take up to 45 days for them to even get to our packet (we will need lots of prayers during that time lol). Once that is in the processes; while we wait we have to do our CPR/First Aid certification, medicine administration/blood born pathogens training class (did that last week) & the dog assessments. So far we have our medical history done, our carbon monoxide detectors came in yesterday (putting them in this weekend) with our medicine lock box, we are still waiting for our fire escape ladder (all for the fire inspection) and we have to set up a land line (all for the fire inspection as well) and then we will be ready to give the paperwork to our social worker and have her send it off :) EEEEKKK!!! Almost there y'all! :)

ALMOST THERE Y'ALL! KEEP CALM! ;-)