So I have been MIA for awhile now but we have exciting news. Obviously I cant post these until everything is final but I want to keep up on all the excitement. We would like to Welcome Damien to our family!!!!!!! He is now three years old and will be adopted into our home in June. He is a little brown boy with black hair and black eyes! Here is the story of how he came to be apart of our family.
So as most of you know we started the Foster Care System with the option to Adopt. We want a family it didn't matter if they were a baby or not but we want a family. So the first night of class we arrive to see a lot of people! One of those people being Maria. Who spoke little to no English. Unfortunately the teacher for the Spanish was out on maternity leave. She was a little lost and Ben told me he wanted to stay after to help her. I said ok. So after class I told our teacher that he would stay and help her. Our teacher was about in tears. So he translated for her and we got it all done. After she said I had no clue you guys were bilingual. I said well Ben is I try but well that is another story.
A few days past and I get a email from her asking us a few questions such as. Are you Interested in Adoption? What would be your limit on special needs? Would you keep fostering? Our answers were YES!!! Our limit on special needs would be as long as I (Tiffany) could care for them on her own since I am a stay at home mom. And yes as long as it was safe for a child we would keep foster.
She then replied saying she had a little boy who needed a forever home and she thinks we would be perfect! She wanted to meet with us the following day to give us more information. So we went and we were set that we would do what we could to bring him home. So she informed us of his situation, she also told us he was 4 and some scary things about him. I was nervous but we still felt right saying yes. So she said ok she would work on setting up a meeting. I told her we were leaving the following week so maybe we should do a meeting after so we all don't get our hopes up.
So after we returned she emailed us to set up a meet and greet. It took some work but we made it happen. We met Damien. Who by the way was 2. A boy we had been told who didn't like people, who never talked to anyone, and never smiled, but definitely wouldn't ever let someone hold him. But by some miracle within five minutes we were playing with him, reading stories, holding hands, talking, and going on a adventure. It was a wonderful time! We told them instantly we wanted him, what did we need to do to bring him home, could we have him on the holidays?? They said yes and started to cry and say they never thought they would find him a home.
So generally after a meet and greet DES/CPS they ask to do 6 weeks in the office. Mainly because it is somewhere the child feels safe. Then we do 6 weeks of in home visits 3 times a week so they can become normalized to the home.
Well they asked if we would be OK skipping the 6 weeks of visits. And just starting in home visits. Of course we said yes. With that being said we didn't think we would get him for Thanksgiving because it was only a week away. So we continued our Foster Care classes because we knew we couldn't adopt unless we finished. So one night we happened to be in Sierra Vista for class and Daisy called us and asked if we would be ok to have Damien for Thanksgiving we were stoked and said yes. She then informed us that he would be staying two nights with us as she would drop him off the Day before Thanksgiving and pick him up the day after. So in a rush we bought a carseat, a bed, mattress, sheets, etc. We realized we had nothing! But we managed to get it all done. We even got the missionaries to help us set everything up since we didn't have much notice.
So Thanksgiving came. It was amazing. He was a little nervous at first but he calmed right down. And we went to the park with Rick and Jess and the kids. He hadn't been to a park so he just kind of sat with me and took it all in. The next day was crazy. Normally we do a HUGE Thanksgiving, but this year we only have two clothes families come by because we didn't want to overwhelm him. So we had dinner and it was a success. so much Damien fell asleep on my lap. The next day was the worse we had had so much fun. But i knew come 3 they were going to take him back to his Foster home. That I would have to say goodbye and that we would be going back to daily visits and I couldn't protect him there. He didn't want to leave either. He knew he was leaving. It was terrible. DES felt so bad they wanted to leave him with us. They then asked us to attend court the following week.
We then kept with the visits until the day of court came. We were so happy to be there. Hoping for a glimpse of him. But he wasn't there. But something magical happened. The DES worker asked the judge if DES could place him with us due to his advancement with connections. The court ruled YES! So pending the background check we would have him living with us. So a day passed and they called for the information. And then we got the call that the next day Damien would be coming to live with us (Dec. 5) and so it happened. On Dec. 5. Our son came to live with us. And our life has been complete ever since.
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