Foiled again!
Seriously?! This whole process of trying to adopt/foster has been three steps forward, two steps back. Sometimes three or four steps back. Or five. You would think I'd be used to it by now, but no... I'm an optimist, I'm afraid. Which means hope springs eternal, but is punctuated repeatedly with short periods of heartbreak when everything goes wrong.
I finally got hold of our licensing worker at DCFS, after months of not being able to reach her because she was on leave, in a conference, etc. And she basically told me that they were not going to be doing any new licensing for quite a while due to understaffing. She suggested transferring to a private agency. Square one. Or at least it feels that way.
After I had a little anxiety attack, I remembered that we had talked to one caseworker who had seemed quite helpful, and I called him. And bless his heart... he's advocating for us. (Something about how he was going to send some emails and irritate some people.) He's not sure what the response will be, but will let us know what comes up.
So the bottomline is... we're currently in limbo. Again. We may or may not have any shot at fostering this year.
Sometimes I feel like this whole process is turning me into a much stronger person. And other times I think it's just going to turn me into a quivering mass of jello. The jury's still out...