Monday, June 18, 2018

Part 2: Our Journey with J...a multi post about fostering a child with chronic illness

Thank you for your patience! Part 2 is here...this part is what I explain as God's hand. I'm not here to debate God with you. You can chose to believe or not to believe. As for me and my family we chose to believe that God's hand was guiding our journey.

If you haven't yet read Part 1 you can do so here.

To refresh you; I left off with coming home from my run asking my husband if he wanted to foster one of my camp kids to which he said, "Yes" without hesitation. But let me fill you in on the backstory as to why this was somewhat frightening. My husband had just been let go of his job of almost 20 years just a month before. While he did get a buyout package we were in no way financially set to take on another child; let alone one with Type 1 diabetes, mental health issues and unknowns. I remember talking with him about this and how awful the timing was...how this was the last thing we should be doing.

But we both felt led to do this and at total peace in the decision.

The next day I went into work and contacted her Court Appointed Social Advocate or CASA. I emailed her and asked what she thought about having J come live with us. She of course was super excited and contacted some people at Jobs and Family Services or JFS. I received a phone call from someone at JFS who drilled me on my relation to J, what I was wanting to do, if I was in the "system", foster parenting classes, kinship and a host of other things that I had no clue about. All I kept saying is that we wanted to get her out of the hospital. I  hung up the phone a little deflated as it seemed like this was going to take a looonnng time. The thought of foster parent classes, certification, home studies; etc. It appeared as if it was going to be another 2-3 months before we could even get her out of the hospital and that was too long. Our only hope was kinship. Since I had an established relationship with her previously through camp this was our angel.

I am a do-er. Those that know me well know that when I am set on something I go for it. I'll attack it at every different angle to get the desired outcome. My wheels were spinning. I have a friend who had fostered to adopt. I called her to bend her ear...thirsty for information, answers and hope. I explained our situation. Told her everything about J and she literally began screaming. I was thinking to myself that something must have had happened to her but no...you see this is where God's guiding hand comes in. You see; over the years my friend had gone on to get her master's degree in social work. She was currently employed by the hospital where J was staying AND... J was her patient!!

There are no coincidences.

She went into action. She did everything professionally. Told us who to contact, get our background checks. paperwork filled out. She checked with supervisors, got us a visitor code and got things in motion and then excused herself from the case due to conflict of interest. She was amazing!

Within a few weeks we were able to visit J, give her hope that she had a life outside of the hospital. That there were people fighting for her and ready to help her get where she needed to be.

Our number one goal = get her out of the hospital!!

We were getting closer to that goal.



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