Baby

Here's the story again so you won't have to go back into my achives:

December of last year, L's friend was asked to foster a 3 week old baby boy. He didn't want a baby but gave the social worker our name, and we were going to try to have them take the baby a couple weeks, while we got temporary certification until we finished MAPP. Well, they couldn't do it that way, but it did get us on the road to adoption with the state. We will call him baby N, since I now know his name.

L's friend spoke with his social worker and the state is already pushing for TPR(termination of parental rights). Baby N is in a foster home, but they are not able to adopt, only foster. Since he is going to be free for adoption, they are looking for an adoptive resource home.

Of course all good news comes with its share of problems. Baby N has a cleft lip and palette(which isn't too bad), a heart murmur (which is improving), a feeding tube(until the cleft palette is repaired), and he may have some mental retardation. He will need 5 operations in the next year to repair the cleft lip and palatte, but after that he should be healthy.

I rattled off his list of problems to L and said maybe we should keep waiting. Later in the afternoon L calls back and says the social worker told us we could have baby N come visit us for the weekend before we commit. Since he is only 5 months old, I figure it can't hurt him emotionally if we decide we can't meet his needs.

So that is our plan. We are going to try and keep baby N for a weekend and experience first hand how he needs to be cared for and if we can realisticly care for him. L is thinking he is probably not as bad as they make him sound because they usually give you all the bad stuff up front. He's also had friends adopt from the state and they told them the kids would be mentally impaired but turned out fine.

I think of it this way, had we taken baby N at 3 weeks and were later made aware of all these problems, we wouldn't have sent him back. I am praying about it and I am going to approach the visit (if it happens) as babysitting and go from there.

Is it only a coincidence that baby N has come back in the picture? Unless the foster parent wanted to keep it, or they had an adoptive mom who could stay home, I don't think a weekend visit will hurt?

What do you think?

Oh, about the house, L called and they were busy yesterday so we have to call back today. I hope they aren't giving us the run around.