Hey, let’s take a break from the negative portion of our lives and poke fun at people who just don’t get it!  I offer the following excerpt of a letter to the editor of our local paper:

Why should we put children into foster homes when it costs so much money to keep them there? I have heard that foster homes get a stipend for each child plus medical assistance and food stamps. And if the foster homes adopt the children, they still get assistance until the child reaches 18 or 21 if they are still in school.
  So why can’t we raise the Family Independence Program to keep the children with their parents so that the parents can raise their own children rather than tearing a family apart and messing the kids up by removing them and sending them to live with strangers?
  Because if the taxpayers should have to pay the money out, why can’t we put our money to better use and help the parents support their children until they can get on their feet? Let’s take the taxpayers’ money and put these parents through school so that they can better their lives and be able to take care of their children on their own. We should use the money so that the parents can put their children into day care and better their home living. The government should be there to help but instead all it seems to care about is removing children and putting them into foster care where the foster parents don’t work and get state aid. Why not do that for the parents rather than the foster homes?

Yes, because that’s EXACTLY how it works.  DHS takes children from PERFECTLY GOOD homes just so that they can “tear families apart”.  And of course, foster homes are just in it for the money.

Who else wants to point out all the flaws in this letter?

No, we REALLY aren’t in it for the money.  No surprise, Iowa needs to raise its rates AT LEAST 50% to meet the costs of raising a child.

We’re holding off on calling the placing agency for foster care.  With things that have happened in the last week, there’s a little too much craziness going on around here.  I leave on a business trip mid-month, and after I get back, we’ll hopefully be at a place where we can accept a placement again.

I apologize for having one more password-protected post, but this will hopefully be the last one.  Most of you already know what’s been happening in our area, but I still need to keep some details behind a password.

Same password as before.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts in last week’s post.  We really appreciate it.

We’ve done some thinking, some talking, and a little planning.  We’re not ready to back out just yet.  Like I told T late last week, if we don’t go back, we’ll always wonder “what if?”.  And I’m not ready for that yet.  My thought is that we do it one more time, get our hearts broken, and be done.  Hopefully, that won’t be the case, but we don’t want to be a revolving door, you know?

So, on Saturday, we opened a new checking account that will solely be used for foster care.  We’ve added some money to it already, and hopefully, we’ll be able to have enough to cover a couple weeks of daycare.  At least just until we get caught up from DHS.

At this time, we don’t think that the placing agency knows that we’re empty.  We’ve had all of 2 calls since J left us in early June.  And I know from other families that homes are still needed.  So after Labor Day, I’ll be giving them a call to let them know we’re empty, ready, and willing.

You might have noticed that I haven’t written much lately.  And you might also have noticed that we have not had a placement since J left in early June.  You’re probably wondering why.

At this point, we’re debating on whether or not we want to continue fostering.  There are several reasons for our hesitation.  Right now, the biggest one is money.  As you may recall, we had a chase down a lot of money while J was in our care.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  We’re NOT involved in this for money.  But when daycare costs $150/week, and DHS is months behind on reimbursement, it hits us hard.  We’ve heard stories of families being 3-6 months behind on daycare costs.  We didn’t have huge problems with daycare reimbursements (especially after J started going to his aunt’s for daycare), but we had lots of problems with maintenance payments.  If we had our own child, we’d qualify for reimbursement plans through work, tax credits, etc.  We just don’t have an extra couple thousand in our pockets for some of this.

Another concern is our health.  T recently re-injured her knee (first time was an old softball injury a year or so before we met), and is in physical therapy.  I’m diabetic, and worried about my own health.  Joining WW 3 weeks ago will help, we know that.

There are other things to consider:  our ages, our want to travel, constraints on our house/time, etc.  Also, we’ve been on this quest to have a child for over 2 years now.  It’s consumed so much of our lives, and we’re wondering if we should just not do it anymore.

We’re not out, by any means.  We know that there is a great need for foster homes.  And yes, part of me still very much wants to have a child in our home.  We love children.  And we know that we will make very good aunties (assuming bro and gf get married and provide us with nieces & nephews). 

So don’t get upset, this isn’t an ending.  Just an explaination of a dialogue going on in our home right now.