DeSoren Family

“Please wait outside. The council will now meet in secret, debate your personality flaws, and come to a final decision.” Hairspray

Stress, nervousness and that sinking feeling you get in your tummy. Monday morning was a very emotional morning. The committee meeting was set for 1:00pm. Just to recap, we are not allowed to attend the meeting, only our caseworker. So we stupidly went to work and tried to function like it was a NORMAL day, which is was not. If there is a next time, we are taking the day off.

Here is a discription of how the committee process works, shamelessly stolen from www.afamilyforeverychild.org

“The committee consists of three members who are usually DHS caseworkers, retired caseworkers, or social workers experienced in the adoption field.  The committee meets for three hours, usually 9-Noon or 1-4 p.m.  Occasionally it lasts longer, but not often.

Committee starts with a presentation of the child by the CW.  Sometimes the child’s foster parent, therapist, court appointed special advocate (CASA), or attorney, is also present and invited to tell about the child as well.  The CW usually brings pictures, or the child’s Life Book, so the committee can view photos.  The goal is for the committee to have a thorough understanding of the child’s identity, personality, and special needs.  The committee members may have questions during this time about the child based on what they hear, read, or otherwise observe.

Once the child has been presented, any representatives for the child, except the CW, are dismissed and the AWs for the families each have a turn telling the committee about the family they represent.  Again, the committee members may have questions for the AW based on what they hear or what they have read in the family’s home study.

The committee members then remark on or list the strengths they heard or read about each family and the concerns they have about each family.  Then they vote.  If the two junior members each vote for a different family, the chair must break the tie with a vote for one of those two families so that we leave committee with a decision.  We nearly always leave committee with a decision about who will adopt the child.

When committee ends, the families receive a call informing them whether or not they were selected by the committee.”

We got the call from our caseworker at 4:45pm, Anthony took the call on the cellphone as he was stepping on to the MAX.

The results, Second place. The committee liked us and it was a tough call. But they decided to place the kido with the other family due to our age and because we lived in Portland which would mean the kido would have a bigger change to deal with (new doctors, daycare, school, ect…). The other family lived close to where the kido was currently living.

We did get picked as the back up family. Which is like being the runner up at the Miss Americia contest…. if Miss American can not fulfill her duties… yadda yadda. If the other family backs out before they do the placement we would become the primary family. But at this stage it is very very very rare for the primary family to back out.

So we are back to square one. The whole event was emotionally like packing your bags, flying to Disneyland, walking up the front gate, getting your ticket out to get scanned and instantly being transported by some sort of super science fiction transporter device back to your desk at work and there is a large pile of nasty work to be done.

We both wanted an out for dinner and headed right to our own comfort foods. Anthony got taco bell, Josh had Spam and eggs..

Wednesday night on June 9^th we got a phone call from our caseworker. She left us a voicemail. She wanted to let us know that if we approve we would be going to committee on a kido Monday afternoon June 14^th. We called her back and quickly arranged a impromptu meeting at our house for 8:30pm that night.

We should add a little background information here. Normally potential families submit their homestudy’s, if the caseworker thinks the family might be good match then the caseworker sends a larger amount of information back to the family to review. Time passes and when the caseworker feels she has a few good matches she then sends one to three families to committee. From that committee one family is picked and one is picked as a backup family. This process takes time.

Well we submitted our homestudy on this kido about two months ago, and were not in the top group picked. In fact we never heard back or got any additional information from the caseworker, which is pretty typical. It seems the caseworker picked three families to go to committee and just this week two of those families dropped out of the process. Our caseworker was able to get the kidos caseworker to look at us again and she liked us enough to offer to send us to committee with the one remaining family. Another family tried to get in for the third spot, but the kido’s caseworker said no to them. So we might not be the top of the list, but we are not on the bottom.

Getting ready for a committee in 4 days is insane. We had to fill out one more questionnaire, which we did Thursday night after dinner and then about 40 emails the next morning back in forth between the two of us, polishing the questionnaire until it shined.

Saturday we drove around and got some last minute photos of some playgrounds and the local elementary school for our hello book (The hello book will be given to the kido IF we are selected Monday).  The rest of the weekend was spend trying very hard not to think about Monday. We played video games, watched tons of TV, even redecorated a bathroom.

Because  of the speed of the this and the emotions that are happening right now, we have decided not to go public with this part of our adoption story until it’s over. We decided not to post on Facebook or tell friends yet. No reason to get anyone excited until we know for sure. It’s not uncommon to go to committee several times before you are selected and this is only our first time.

We don’t get to go to the committee meeting, only the 3 committee members and the caseworkers involved will be present. We did the hand off of the Hello book to our caseworker Sunday night. We could tell she was picking her words very carefully with us not to raise or lower our hopes any. She did say all the hard work was done and it will be down to which family can offer more to the kido. Reading online seems to make us think they can be selected over the smallest things.

It’s really hard not to doubt yourself in a time like this. But we keep trying to push those type of thoughts away. Pretty sure Monday is going to be a hard and emotional day for us no matter what the out come. But we are really trying to see this in a good light, even if we are not picked this will give us some really good information for next time.

Committee meeting is at 1:30pm and should last about 3 hours, so by 4:30pm on Monday the 14th 2010 we should be getting a phone call that may change our lives forever.