Kittens Will Have to Suffice
Tonight I am picking up 3 fuzz-ball kittens from the Humane Society and taking them home with me for foster care. They are 7 weeks old, and will need to stay with me until they are 8 weeks old and weigh 2 pounds each. At that point, I will return them so they can be vaccinated and adopted. I know this routine well - I've done it twice before. The first time was for 3 kittens, and the second time was 5. I swore off doing foster care for kittens because I figured a bunch of kittens running around as well as my 2 cats would not look good to a visiting social worker doing a home study.Now I am ready to have fuzz-balls again.
Our social worker e-mailed me back. She says we are definitely on the list for when a child comes in who fits our profile. But she says things have been oddly slow lately, and that is a good thing. Who can be sad to hear that children are not being ripped away from their birth parents for horrible reasons? I'm glad that life here in Lexington is going well for families. Even when we do get our placements, it will be with much concern for the birth families.
The holidays are usually a tough time for families, and recovering from the holidays financially can bring on all kinds of problems. We will have to wait this one out.
In the meantime, Michael has agreed to teach a class during Winter Interterm (a 3-week fast and furious mini-mester) as well as a 4-week class during the first summer term in early May. Each of these sections will pay him 10% of his salary. Granted, a professor in the communication department isn't raking in the dough, but 10% isn't too shabby. We figure that we will be able to save a lot of that income and use the rest to pay off a bill or two. By summer 2006, we should have saved up enough money to start pursuing private adoption or hook up with an agency. We figure we can get started in that direction once we have at least 10K saved up. The rest we can put on credit cards as we need to, or we can always take out a small personal bank loan for the rest.
We don't want to try to control this situation ourselves, but we are trying to do everything we can in our power to allow God to work in our lives. If we never take the financial steps we need to, God can't do what He needs to do. If we prepare ourselves and open up the possibilities and our hearts, the more prepared we will be to take action when we need to.
I so badly wanted to put a timetable to this adventure. I asked Michael if we should set a deadline for foster-to-adopt - say, a year from now or January 1, 2007. But at the same time, I didn't want to put limits on God. So, I figure instead of putting God on a schedule, we will just dedicate ourselves to being as financially stable as we can be, looking for a house to buy, paying off as much debt as possible, and improving ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If save all this money and end up getting a child placed with us, we will then have money to dof or the child all we would want to do, and to pay for bus tickets for my in-laws to come visit (they don't/won't fly).
So, I'm thrilled to be picking up the kittens tonight after work. Until we have children, they will be my foster-kittens. I'll post pictures tonight.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 10/20/2005 01:56:00 PM
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