About 90% of this blog is the glass half full side of things. It's the "Pollyanna" version if you will—as it should be and as it shall remain. But y'all, let me be honest. This process can be hard. It is trying and frustrating, and there are days when I wonder if it might just be too much. There are several times when I wonder if we're cut out for this type of commitment. I've heard more than once, "Wow, they sure make you go through a lot to do this." It's true. I'm not saying it's not warranted. As we've covered before, we are being entrusted with other people's children if you really boil it down. Wouldn't you want to make sure people are vetted and trained? Think about how well you research your pediatrician or a childcare facility. You don't just flip through the phone book (I know, old school), choose a name, and think yep, that'll work. You do your research! Maybe you ask for recommendations, references, or site visits. It's not that different, really. Still, there are days when it's just plain hard. I've said to a confidant before: Sometimes I think they are trying to pick the weak ones off from the herd. They are seeing who really has what it takes. Getting my parents approved to be around our future foster child has been a nightmare. Having them understand the purpose behind background checks and fingerprints was difficult enough but then...well, it went downhill quickly. They were coming to town for another event so I wanted to have fingerprinting done at the same time. "I took us 10 minutes," I assured them. "In and out." To start with, the place William and I had gone to right down the road apparently "no longer offered that service." Okay. Scheduling them for that particular weekend was more difficult that I anticipated, but we found a place.
When we arrived, our technician was less than knowledgeable. We all grew agitated as she tried over and over to take their prints with no success. Over two hours, people. We sat. We waited. Tech support tried to help her. People with other appointments waited in the lobby. I felt terrible. Not only was this not helping the unimpressed situation on their side, now we were holding up other people who undoubtedly had also expected to only be there a short time. (Also, we had pre-purchased tickets to see Instant Family, of all things.) After a gross amount of attempts to solicit fingerprints, the technician on the phone settled for partials and did a system override in order to submit. They told us several times that if this didn't work they could come back, we in turn explained (multiple times as well) that they did not live here and could not just come back. They needed to make this work. Fast forward about two months and my father gets a notification that he has 30 days to remedy his "situation" or they will suspend his process and he has to start over. What is going on? We have heard nothing and presumed no news was good news. No such luck. For some reason, it was the crack I needed to almost break. I needed this to work. You see, my parents had recently become grandparents for the second time when my sister gave birth to her second child. They didn't have to go through any of us with her. It was "easy." They got the call, they went to the hospital, and ta-da! There was the baby! They could hold her, feed her, cuddle her—whatever they wanted. No questions asked. The only step they had to go through was being buzzed into the maternity ward by saying who they were there to visit. This was not the case with us. There are invisible hoops that we are jumping through in an effort to help kids. Help families. Maybe eventually grow ours, but there are no guarantees. Breathe. I made phone calls, sent emails, researched websites, and eventually found a report telling us he needed a reprint. Thankfully he found a local place to try again. (Same problem.) I thought I would choke on my own broken heart. We'll see. I don't know yet what the next step is. I'm not sure how we navigate around this, I just know we have to. I know that tomorrow is a new day, and we have to keep going. I may not be the champion of the heard, but we've come way too far to fall back now. If the enemy is trying this hard to get in our way, God must have really big plans ahead. When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 59:19 xoxo
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AuthorWriting is really my outlet, so you'll mostly see my prose on here. But William might occasionally make a guest appearance. Archives
May 2021
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