Our foster care orientation meeting last night was two hours long. There were two other couples there; both were at the first adoption information meeting with us. One couple had just had their medical exams and home visit, so we figure we're about a month ahead of them.

There are a few things we have to do before we are approved to do foster care. The thing requiring the most planning is infant CPR and first aid classes. We can take a free class at the agency in March (too far away and too busy of a time at work for my husband), go to the Red Cross, or take a class online. I have to do a little research to figure out exactly what to do to get this training.

The person who did the orientation is the birthmother counselor. It was interesting to hear more about adoption from her perspective as she really gets to know the birthmothers and has worked at the agency for 7 years.

Today when I got home there was a call from our social worker wondering if we had any questions about the orientation. She also asked how our profile was coming along since there is a potential birthmother they plan to show profiles to next week. She said the only thing that we might be not sure about is how many visits the birthmother wants. This birthmother would like two to three visits per year until the child is eighteen and has felt this way all along. Our case worker said to discuss our openness with one another and to get back to her. She also said that her goal is to get our assessment written by the end of next week. YAY!!

There was also a message on the answering machine that the girls' club meeting at church tonight is cancelled (due to snow and sickness). When I heard that, I decided to go and get the copies of the profile made. I made three color copies of the profile: two for the agency, and one for us to keep. Color copies are expensive! It cost me $42!

My husband came home later as I was putting the profiles together into binders. We decided that since this is so soon, that we won't agree to anything more than what we have already planned. We feel comfortable with one visit a year, possibly more during the younger years. Maybe we will change our mind a year from now. We do want to adopt more children, and I worry about having too many visits to coordinate and fit in our lives. As my husband says, "We're homebodies."