Worried About Fit

What are the questions we should ask when we get the call?

Will we seem too worried about getting a good fit if we ask too many questions, or, will we seem aware of the potential challenges?

Can I make a confession?

Every time I get caught up to real time on someone's blog I get disappointed that they aren't posting as often anymore. Of course, it's really just that I read 2-5 years worth of posts in the preceding month or two. But, it feels like they've stopped posting!

I need to find a new one to get wrapped up in.

The Original Plan

Our original plan was to have 1-3 biokids, 1-2 adopted kids and then foster. Overall, I think we were thinking that we would foster 1 at a time with the possibility of taking a sibling pair.

That plan is gone and we're working on figuring out the new one. For now, we're hoping to foster siblings who need a home that can take them all.

Beginnings

Growing up, I knew a family that always had 3-5 teens around and yet people would say that the couple had only one daughter. It confused me, I didn't understand what I was missing. Eventually I got old enough to have friends who were growing up in foster care and I figured it out.

I had always respected those foster parents, even before I understood that that was what they were. So, I had a desire to "be like them" in the way that children decide things.

As a teen, I had 2 classmates in long term foster care. In one case, her mother was just unable to care for her and in the other her entire family died in an accident which she survived. The experience cemented my desire to someday be able to provide the family that they had so desperately needed.

As an adult, I've discovered that a surprising number of the people around me spent some time in foster care. It seems to be a taboo subject and something that people are ashamed of mentioning--it's like a hidden part of their history. But, when you mention that you are thinking of fostering the information is suddenly there.

The combination of emotions that they describe run the gamut and few are terribly happy about the families they gained during their fostering experiences. But, most seem to be aware (in retrospect) that there was some new degree of safety at the beginnings of their experiences as foster kids.

So, as an adult now, I come to the spot where I plan to foster. We're talking about taking teens--which is apparently rare--and we're hoping we're not too naive to be successful.

Thinking....

When the blogging revolution began I didn't understand the attraction at all. In the last year though I've relied on fostering and adoption blogs as a source of information to get me thinking and send me to resources.

We've spent time traveling a lot of the paths that others describe and we've spent a lot of time thinking about how our society defines a family and how our ideal differs.

I always (since I was a teenager) meant to foster someday. That day appears to be imminent. And, I'm thinking that all the blogs I read create a sounding board and venting space that is safely anonymous. So, maybe I want to give it a try.

But, then again, what if someone in my real life learns about it and starts reading, or, what if I pick up trolls? So, maybe I want to revert to an old fashioned journal instead even though it doesn't have the ability to respond.

Basically, I'm thinking that I may test this out in a very general fashion and may try posting a few comments in some of the blogs I've been following and see how it goes. Anyone have advice on why you'd choose to think online versus in private?