Fingerprinting 101

I have to say I really like taking these steps that feel productive. Michael and I had digital fingerprinting completed today.  So once we are cleared by our local authorities and the FBI, we will be one more baby step closer expanding our family.  The forms we filled out said results are 3-4 weeks from today.

This process is making me reminisce about K's adoption which happened so long ago it seems like a dream. The ironic part of that was that we had no intent to adopt, we just wanted to be foster parents for children who needed a temporary home.  The day that wee baby girl arrived changed our lives and our hearts forever.  It may be like a dream but pieces stand out like it was yesterday.  I remember Michael coming home from work and things were busy - we also had a sibling group of three 'littles' running around the house at the time.  Baby K was sitting in her baby seat in the middle of the kitchen table - out of reach of the one year old, three year old and four year old.  Michael walked right up to her looked at her and said, "Hi baby J (birth name) I'm going to be your daddy for the rest of your life." Daddy say what? I don't know where he got that idea and I sure wasn't on the same page. Having already experienced the intensely painful event of returning an infant boy just a couple of months earlier I knew how this system worked all too well.  A social worker brings you a baby, you agree to meet every basic need of this child and love them and care for them as a parent.  Then the baby gets to go to a suitable relative and as the foster parent you never get to see them again.  The poor social worker who came to pick up that baby boy actually went out to her car and left me in the house with him while I sobbed uncontrollably with him in my arms for more than twenty minutes until rational thinking returned and I realized she had a schedule and she needed this baby.  The sweet sibling group of three would be returning to their family just before Christmas.  I expected K would follow along the same path and go to a relative if not back to her own parents.

Daddy with his first baby girl.

All that said when a social worker calls and asks if you'll take a six week old baby girl.... well what would you say? I was in immediately.  One of my very first thoughts when I got off the phone was "Six weeks old, I wonder if she has lost her belly button yet?" Seriously that was my biggest concern?  BTW - she had a belly button that was as cute as a button.  So the worker arrives with baby K, in a hospital gown, a few diapers and a couple bottles of formula... oh and casually says, "She is failure to thrive." And I was worried about a belly button.