Phew

We just got home from orientation.  I am so grateful to have had someone to take care of our kiddo's while J and I got started on our first step.  Orientation was........draining.  Most of what they spoke of tonight were things I had already read on-line.  I was anxious to hear new things.  I was not anxious to hear the statics about these children.  12,000 kids are in the system here.  85% of them have been sexually abused.  I listened tonight as they pleaded for people who already had their minds made up to just adopt to reconsider and think about fostering.  I heard these women speak of individual kids who are needing help right now.  Our state is so overrun with kids and there just aren't enough foster families.  Just last night they had a 6 day old little girl who needed to be placed and they have no where to put her.

So what do they do with kids that don't have family to go to?  They first try foster families, then shelters, and when there is still no where to go.....they sleep in the cps offices.  It's heartbreaking but there is something more devastating than that.  Our state is so overrun that there are kids who need to be taken from their homes but they are being left there because there really is no where else to go.

I can't imagine having  the jobs that these ladies have......knowing the stories of these children and not being able to help them.  They must lay in their beds at night with minds full of horror stories and neglect.  Since we have decided to do this I have thought several times how grateful I am that J talked me out of a dream I once had.  Because of my past I wanted t be a social worker.  I wanted to be the one to go in and save the day.  I was naive.  My mind hadn't thought of the heartbreak over the children I couldn't help or the grief I would witness when the children didn't want to be taken from their abusive families.  But my baby knows me and he knew it was something I couldn't handle.  I spent many moments of the night being so grateful for my husband who would hear a static or story and immediately place his arm around my shoulder and give me the support he knew I needed in those moments.

Now all I want to do is get everything finished immediately so we can be there to love the children God places in our home.  It's gonna be a long 6 months.