Skip to main content

Entire Adoption System Rant

This is the email I just got from our Adoption social worker:

Listed are the items I need from you,



-          Fingerprinting

-          Local clearance form for you

-          Alternate caregiver form

-          Family assessment questionnaire

-          Utility bill

-          Verification of income

-          Your health insurance card

-          Car payment statement

-          Car insurance statements

-          Mortgage/rent statement

-          Behaviors Checklist

-          Birth Certificates for (husband) & you

-          Social Security Card (copy/picture) for both (husband) & you

-          Health Information Sheet for both (husband) & you

-          Health Insurance Info Sheet

-          Physical Exam for you/Theo & form for doctor to fill out

-          Physical Exams for James, Gus & Seth (physical form filled out by doctor)

-          Copy of Health Insurance Card

-          Adoption Assistance Rate Negotiation/Determination Worksheet

-          Updated Pet Vaccines

-          Unusual Incident form (signed by both parties at the bottom, I handed to you to keep)

-          Updated Driver’s Licenses

-          Central Registry forms for you, Theo and alternate caregiver with ID attached


For the items listed above, the forms from licensing are either expired or we cannot use those forms as they are (name of foster care agency) forms.  Let me know if you have any questions! 

So we pretty much have to do every single thing over again because the adoption agency does not accept forms from the foster care agency. To explain further: our foster care agency chose the adoption agency for us and, in fact, requires us to use them because they are sister organizations under the same umbrella. But they don't accept each other's forms.

Can someone explain how it's possible for our birth certificates and social security cards to expire? Pretty damn sure they've been the same since we were born.

Stupid little people with stupid little forms. Seriously.

So I forwarded the email to our agency supervisors and pointed out that I'd been assured by them the process to become foster care parents would roll over if/when we decided to become adoptive parents. Because I'm not trusting the word of a 22-yr-old bureaucrat who can't even understand her own forms.

Update: at the end of my email to the supervisors I mentioned that we'd been chosen by the Dept of Health and Human Services to participate in an audit of our foster care agency and that that visit was scheduled for two weeks from now and that I'd be discussing the outcome of this issue with the auditor. Well, that got a reply. Suddenly the top supervisor is giving me her personal assurance this will be investigated promptly and instructing her underlings to CC her on all emails and giving them a 24 hr deadline for responding. Fascinating.

I was kinda pissed when we were contacted that we had to participate in the audit (really, one more social worker walking thru my house testing my fire alarms and no doubt giving me more forms to fill out?). But now I'm a little bit pleased.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Lied.

For the very first time I lied to a birth family member. I've been brutally honest even when it caused an uproar. I've been honest because I was personally committed to always telling the truth. Until now. Because this lie may actually be the best way to preserve Jane's relationship with her birth family. At our last video call with Grandma Jane seemed uninterested, unengaged, not showing any real emotion. I struggled to find things to prompt her to talk about. Over the next two weeks I waited and she never asked for another call. In the third week I casually brought up the topic and she did not really respond, certainly didn't ask for another call. Finally, yesterday I point blank asked if she wanted to do a video call and she said the word yes but her whole body language said no. It was clear that she was saying yes because she thought she was supposed to, not because she wanted to. So, I took her body language rather than her words and made the decision that we...
Post a Comment
Read more

So What About Mother's Day?

I was looking ahead on the calendar to our next visit and suddenly realized it fell during Mother's Day weekend. A flood of mixed emotions hit me immediately. Mother's Day is not a deeply important holiday to me. It's nice and all but I've never had super big emotions about it.  The girls can't know what it is yet and won't have any big feelings this year. But...years from now...will this be a uniquely difficult holiday?  So if no one cares right now can I just kinda slide this one under the rug and avoid all the drama? Please, please, please someone confirm this is a real option!?! Ugh, but what about the birth family. Is this a big deal for them? Are there major traditions? Will this be a minefield of potential hurt feelings? Is there a tactful way to call them up and say, so, on a scale of 1 to 10 how invested are you into making this a big rigamarole? While thinking this through I did some googling and found that the local zoo does a special Mother...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why This but Not That?

I've been thinking about how I react to everything the three toddlers do. After years as a special ed teacher and 16 years of parenting I feel like I'm pretty relaxed most of the time. I would generally describe my parenting style as: pick your battles and, really, are there that many battles worth fighting? But lately it seems like I'm having big reactions to some things that the three littles do. For example: they were all three playing in the front yard and Kate opened the gate and got out into the driveway, even though I'd made a big deal about only mama opening that gate. Walking outside and finding her outside the fence (the gate had swung shut behind her) was about the angriest I have been since the girls came. I went absolutely ballistic...to the extent that I won't even describe here what I did to teach her this was extremely dangerous behavior. We live in the country but our house is near a road that people go flying down because it's so quiet. No...
Post a Comment
Read more