Issues of Living in a Tiny House

As I've stated earlier, I live in a small 400 sq. ft. house. While living here alone, I've had to make certain adaptions to things because everything is so much smaller than what people consider a "typical" house. For example, I have a 24 inch opening to allow for a stacking washer and dryer, which would normally not be a problem, right? Just get a 24 inch stacked washer and dryer available at Home Depot or Lowes and you have a fairly normal sized washer and dryer. Well, here's the catch with my home. The company that designed it set up the laundry area for 110v, and even stacked washers and dryers usually run on 220v at least for the dryer. That makes it complicated to find a complementing set for my laundry. So I turned to what RV dwellers would have... a combo washer and dryer which is 24 inches wide and runs on 110v. I have to do smaller loads of clothes, but it works for now. I recently found a large separate set, through the same company, that I think will work much better. It will be here within the next 2 weeks.

Now, the issue of baby gates in my home has come up several times, long before my decision to adopt through foster to adopt. I have a small loft upstairs that functions as my bedroom, while leaving the full size bedroom on the bottom floor open for my potential child. Now, even before considering adoption, I've had to figure out how to keep my dogs out of the loft. They are similar to small children, except that they seem to destroy even the most indestructible thing you can think of. I've looked for baby gates that would work in my home forever! The problem is this... the opening at the base of my stairs is only 21 1/2 inches wide. Baby gates come as small as 25 inches wide. Custom sized gates are usually intended for larger openings, not smaller... so what's a potential parent to do? My mother and I have decided to make my own. The problem is ... I am terrible with power tools, or tools of any kind really, except maybe a screwdriver. This is going to be an adventure in and of itself.

They call this a process, and it truly is a process, a learning process that never stops. Since starting the foster to adopt process, I've bought and downloaded several books to my Nook, just so I don't walk into things blindly, or with unrealistic ideas. Some things have been scary, "A child will really try to get an adult to hit them?!" and some have been heartwarming. Altogether though I am still very excited about this process, while still feeling a little daunted by it at the same time. It's a mountain that's for sure, but I know I have the will and strength to climb it. I've done my best to find resources, either online, or through books, or friends that have adopted. Books can be a little frustrating because they cover more than one topic, and a lot of them seem to assume that the adoptive parents are married. There are some that make mention of single parent adoptions, but most seem to cast it in a bad light, as if by being single and adopting I am some how lower the chances of my potential child's success.

Soon my little brother (well I should call him my younger brother as he's almost a foot taller than me and a well developed young man) will be out of school for the summer and I will have him help me move my queen sized box spring and mattress to the loft. Oh, but how will we succeed at that if the stair well is only 21 1/2 inches wide? The loft is open to the floor below, with a small banister installed to avoid falls. We will lift the mattress from the first floor, over the banister, and into the loft. Hard to do when you can't full stand in the loft to use all of your strength, but we've done it before with a cheaper, more flimsy mattress, and I believe we can do it again with my firmer mattress, and the box spring should be simple because it is solid and lightweight. After that, we will be taking the built in night stands in the first floor bedroom out, and putting a twin-sized bed in the bedroom, and I will be preparing my little one's room, which I am very excited about! I'll also be personalizing the loft as my bedroom, which I'm not really looking forward to that much lol.

Tomorrow I have my CPR class, and will discuss the other classes with the director of the foster to adopt program. I've thankfully finished all of my current paperwork, have my pet's vaccination records, have my high school diploma, and my reference paperwork all finished! The director has already received 2 of the reference letters, and I will be hand delivering one of them tomorrow. The other two are in the mail and should get to him soon. I've set my appointment for my FBI fingerprinting for Monday at 1:30 central time, and I will be setting my doctor's appointment too. After that, I have the homestudy and all of my classes, and hopefully I'll have a child placed with me! I've read some stories that it can take up to a year or more to finalize an adoption through this system, and that is a little daunting, because during that time so many things can change, and what if the child is taken from me after I've fallen in love with them? All I can do is hope and pray that doesn't happen. As for now, all I can do is work the steps and seem where it goes. I'll upload pictures of the child's bedroom once I get it finished because I'm so excited about it, and I hope to keep that forever.

Celebrating Mother's Day

First and foremost let me say happy belated Mother's Day to all mothers, expecting mothers, and waiting mothers. I was lucky enough to share Mother's Day with my mom, although we lost her mom and my grandmother 2 years ago on May 9th which sadly was also a Mother's Day. To us Mother's Day is always May 9th, no matter what day it falls on now.

We enjoyed an entire day together, just me and her, and it was very nice, especially since only 2 days prior we had fought. That's what mothers and daughters do though. They fight, they make up, and sometimes they learn from what they were fighting about. While enjoying the day with my mother, I was also secretly celebrating Mother's Day for myself. I took the opportunity of picking up some small odds and ends for my future child; a couple stuffed toys, a coloring book with crayons, some children's toothbrushes, and sippy cups.

I am an optimist. I believe that if you truly believe something is going to happen it will happen, whether good or bad, (i.e truly believing you will fail a test can psychologically set you up to fail; whereas, truly believing you will pass a test will psychologically set you up to pass/succeed) so by "nesting" as they call it, and preparing my home for my future child I am psychologically preparing myself for my child. However, I am not blind to the fact that there are risks in the foster to adopt program. Because I have decided not to be classified as a legal at risk adopter I stand the risk of becoming highly attached to a child and then having to turn around and send them back to their birth parents.

I am allowing myself hope, and to get my hopes up a bit, but I try to keep the risks in mind at all times. You know the old saying hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That's what I'm doing. I hold the hope in my heart that the first child placed with me will be the one I want to adopt, and will be the one I end up adopting; however, I'm no dimwit, and I realize it very well may not work out that way.

I worried that maybe I was doing things wrong, buying toys, finding clothes that my friends' children have outgrown, finding a suitable bed for my chosen age range, slowly preparing my house, designing the child's room in my mind, and celebrating Mother's Day as if I am already a mother, but while reading a book on adoption I learned that it is actually healthy to do such. It helps me prepare for having a child, similar to the way a pregnant mother would.

I'm excited about this, but I have conflicting emotions as well. I imagine they aren't much different than a pregnant mother's emotions. Things such as worry about things not working out, worrying whether I'll be a good parent, worrying whether I'm already doing things wrong or right, conflicting emotions about the process of this adoption, and so much more. I check my paperwork daily, and most especially the checklist that Buckner gave me to keep track of the process to make sure I'm on track and getting the essential things taken care of in a timely manner. I imagine these are normal concerns for most waiting adoptive parents.

On the checklist, on my part, I have FBI fingerprinting to get done, my basic physical and TB test, and my dogs' shot records to track down. I think on them I am just going to call the vets that handled their shots and get them to give me another copy of their records, because so far several searches of the house have yielded nothing other than things I need to get cleaned up. I also need to find a lockable box to put all my medications in and I need to go through my medicine cabinet to make sure I don't have any expired medications. Most are antibiotics that I personally forgot to finish, the rest are all over the counter things such as Ibuprofen, Benadryl, and a handful of herbs. After Thursday I will have my parenting classes to take, my medications class to take, and my behavioral intervention class. Then comes the homestudy, and then hopefully a placement!

The Beginning

Recently I started the process to adopt a child through foster care. Here in my home state of Texas to do that I have to be licensed as a foster parent before I can adopt. So far the process is tedious, and I have quite a lot of hoops to jump through, but I'm glad I've started this process. I've considered adopting for a couple of years now, and now that I'm 24 I feel I'm ready to begin my journey to parenthood. Let me explain a little more about myself before going into what steps I've taken thus far, and the issues I've encountered so far. 

I am a 24 year old, single female, living on my own in a 400 square foot house, and am a self employed Nail Technician. I have 2 dogs, and just recently I shocked my friends and family by telling them that I have begun the process to adopt a child through the foster to adopt program through the state. While I shocked my family and friends with the sudden announcement that I wanted to adopt, I have been considering adopting for about 2 years now. Close friends and family know that I am a researcher. If something even vaguely catches my attention I will research it until there is almost nothing left to research. I research all angles of whatever interests me at the moment, and the same is true for my initial interest in adoption. 

I originally became interested in adopting because I've always wanted a family of my own. Adoption became an option for me when I considered all the children in foster care, and in adoption agencies that needed a permanent and loving home. So, to start the process 2 years ago, I researched Texas state laws on adoption. What were the age restrictions for adoptive parents? What were the laws regarding single adoption applicants? Is it required that an applicant be married? I had so many questions. Out came my trusty computer, hooked up to the internet, and up came the Google search engine. I found out that in the state of Texas you must be at least 21 years of age, and you can be married or single. Next came the forms of adoption: domestic infant adoption, foster to adopt, embryo adoption, and so many others. I researched costs of adoption because lets face it, no one is going to give you a child for free right? 

I knew I would never be able to afford embryo adoption, and it's such a controversial topic that I just wasn't sure if it was right for me, although I did love the idea of having a child that I had carried to full term. But then other issues came up like the fact that other people might adopt the other embryos from that batch and then I may have to deal with explaining to my child that I was pregnant with them, but they some how have full blood brothers/sisters from a completely different family that also carried them. That seemed like a situation that I wasn't ready to have to explain. So, I checked that off the list.

Next I considered domestic infant adoption. It seemed like a good option if I could save the money up for the process, which is around $17,000 to $20,000, but then I had to think about how I would feel if I watched a child come into this world thinking it was my child, only to have the birth family decide they didn't want to put the baby up for adoption any longer. That would have broken my heart. I have a hard time when it comes to getting my hopes way up there, having the moment right at my fingertips, only for it to fall through in the end. I also knew it would take me so long to save the money for that particular form of adoption that I may not be able to actually save up the money. So I kept that one on the back burner and kept looking at other options. 

I looked at thousands of pictures of children in the foster care system that were available for straight adoption, and thought to myself: "This is a viable option for me." These children need an understanding, loving home where they can feel safe, loved, protected, and comfortable. I am a survivor of abuse and I felt I might have something to offer these children in terms of understanding what they were going through and what they were feeling. So, with this direction in mind, I started researching adopting a child in the states care. Which led me to the foster to adopt program. I knew I wasn't ready for an older child (i.e. pre-teen to teenage), I mean let's face it... I'm only 24. My little brother is 16! 

Sometimes I still feel like a teenager myself, maybe not in the irresponsible, my parents pay for everything and the only thing I have to worry about is what I'm doing for the summer way, but I do still feel young at heart. I think if I were to adopt a teenager or pre-teen I would become more of their friend than an actual parent. So while doing research through a local children's home called Buckner I found out that by doing a straight adoption through the state I was more likely to have older children to choose from, but if I do the foster to adopt program I'm more likely to get children ages 3 and under. So, I downloaded a pre-application from the website, and filled it out. I also downloaded a list of requirements, because I was afraid my home might be too small according to state laws. 

I was invited to orientation the day after downloading the pre-application. Now Buckner, and any other agency I would be working with are located in Lubbock, Texas, which is about an hour east of my home. It was last minute, but I made sure I was at the orientation. I had expected something similar to college orientation, as in having a room filled with people, and looking at lots of different presentations, and having several notes to take so I knew what the heck was going on. I get there a few minutes early for the orientation, expecting to have to find a place to park, and so on. I'm greeted by an almost empty parking lot, and locked doors. The director of the foster to adopt program there at Buckner met me and opened the door for me, and guided me into what looks like a media room for business meetings. We sit down and almost immediately get right down to business. I realize I'm the only one there, and this man has stayed late for my orientation, which tells me he is dedicated to this program. 

We go over the rules and stipulations, and he details the process that I will have to go through to be able to even be considered for all of this. I'd read from the website the basic process, such as the orientation, 30 hours of mandatory parenting classes, CPR class for certification, a medications class, and a couple other classes on top of that. I have to go through several background checks including driving history, local and federal criminal histories, and any abuse case histories. Then I have to have a basic physical, have my high school diploma sent to them, give them the vaccine reports on my dogs, have 5 references fill out reference questionnaires, have my home inspected my the fire marshal and health inspector, and have a home study. I asked several questions, such as is the size of my house an issue, are there specific breeds of dogs disallowed at foster homes, because I had been a victim of abuse would that be an issue, I have a juvenile record would that be an issue, and a few other questions. The director was very nice and answered all of my questions, and I was given the green light to go ahead with the process. 

That evening I left a copy of my driver's license, social security card, and proof of car insurance with the director so he could begin the checks he needed to begin. I was sent home with a stack of paper work that was as thick as the King James Version of the bible. I'm not kidding or exaggerating on that one, I compared the stack of paper work to KJV bible and it was the exact same thickness! Much of it was stuff that needed signing such as the contract stating that as long as I was a foster parent I would adhere to a no spanking policy. There were several others that I actually need to go back over because they were things I had to sign off on stating I had read them. I did read them before I signed them, but I've gone over so much paperwork so far that all of it is kind of mixing up in my head. There was a huge home study questionnaire that I needed to fill out which has taken me a week to fill out and I still have one question left unanswered. There was one packet that is about the size of a typical paperback book which goes over the things I agree to, and Buckner's and the state's policies. 

So at this point in the process, I need to have a copy of my diploma sent to Buckner, I need to get my physical and TB test results to Buckner, I need to get my dogs vaccine records to Buckner, and I need to get all of this paperwork back to them. In 4 days I will be attending the mandatory CPR certification class and plan on taking all the paperwork back with me. I'm searching my house for my dogs vaccine records, and will be picking up a copy of my diploma on Monday. That will leave the physical and TB test results which I'll get done soon, and the mandatory classes. I'm also reading several books about raising children in my preferred age range (ages 2 years through 4 years), and about adoption in general. It can be hard to keep all of this stuff in line, so thankfully Buckner sent home a checklist for me so that I can keep everything in line. Well... that's the process so far. More after I attend my CPR certification class and know more from the director about what comes next!