You take the good, you take the bad....

Ok, I know that it is a little corny to use a "Facts of Life" reference for the title to this post, but I felt it was appropriate for this update! Friday was the last day we had our first foster child in our home. Her case worker came to pick her up around 3:30 pm and then she was gone. That's the bad...who knew you could get so attached to a little one in just 9 short days? Patrick and I both cried for a good solid hour (almost two!). Then we picked ourselves back up and said "we can do this!". Though I know we will never forget the children that come to stay with us (as is evident by the impact this first one has had on us in such a short time), we also know this is what God has lead us to do. We have to be ready for the next little one that needs us - no matter how long that may be. We reminded ourselves of the blessings we have been given to continue on this journey and remember the support we have from all of you to keep moving forward. So this weekend we took that attitude of just that...moving forward. There will be a special place in our hearts for all of our foster children and we know what that feels like now. We know we will miss them all dealy when they leave us, but are better prepared for how that will impact us going forward. We know we are ready for more!

So this morning I informed our case worker that the pick-up went well on Friday and we were "vancant" again (they have a vacancy list that they put our names on when we are ready to take another child). I told her to go ahead and add our names to the list and we would make ourselves ready for the next one (emotionally and physically). Our case worker emailed not too much longer after that about a 10 month old healthy girl who is considered a legal-risk placement. That means (we discovered) that the parental/guardian rights have been terminated and the parents/guardian are appealing that decision. In the mean time, because this little one had been placed with a grandmother, she needs a home to go to while this is all sorted out. We have submitted our home study for consideration and hope to hear something by the end of this week. This particular situation means this child may be up for adoption if the appeal is not granted. So we leave it in God's hands this go round. If she is to be our special little one, then we will gladly take her. If she is supposed to just stay with us for a ltitle while, then we will enjoy her while we can! We hope to know if we are chosen to have her in our home soon and will keep you all updated. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we take this one week at a time (and one day at a time most of the time!).