A referral.... finally!

A lot is going on in the House of the Guerreros. 

Bubba and I are both busy with school trying to finish our degrees for a Spring graduation. together.

I'll be starting and internship in January and Jerry continues his full time bachelor's program, full time work and an additional class at Pierce College. So I guess that means he's actually going to school time and a half. 

I've been busy with the PTA and volunteering at Rowan's school while continuing everything around the house and doing my job for a blogger. 

However, I just got "laid off" from my work. It's a bummer, but not a huge deal it was only a few hours a week. And to be honest, it's probably all for good reason, as my internship will keep me busy on top of my other class I will be taking. 

It's been 2 months since we last received any type of referral. And then on Thursday, the 4th, our caseworker came over to the house for a scheduled meeting and once she left I checked my phone and we had received a referral. 

This referral was for a 3 year old girl, obviously from foster care, and she would need respite care for the weekend (starting the next day, Friday, at noon) and then would transition into the family if the weekend went well. 

Bubba and I talked about it that evening and that night when we went to sleep, I tossed and turned all night thinking about it. 

What do we do? 

We could make this work!

What if it's not a good fit?

I want to! This will be great!

What if it's terrible and she cries the whole weekend?

AAHHHH!! 

So many thoughts that went through my mind that I didn't get much sleep. 

The next day we schedule a time to talk to the child coordinator and we had a conference call with her at 9:30 a.m.

I had compiled a long list of questions. I asked them, but there isn't a lot of information known and even some of the things known weren't certain. 

We decided that this would be a risk we were willing to take.

After we got off the conference call we had about 5 minutes to make this decision. But we put in our homestudy, along with 4 other families, and hoped for the best. 

During this time I am imagining everything we need to do to prepare for this girl's homecoming. 

 convert crib to toddler bed

wait... first clean out room that has become storage!

find someone to conduct crafts at school event for me

clean out dresser for her clothes

do we have the right sized blankets?!

lastly, we will have a blast doing the gingerbread house tonight!

Then, an hour later, we got the notification that someone else was chosen. 

The highs and lows that come with this process is so much more then I thought would ever be. There are so many things that you don't think about until you are in the moment and living it. 

We will continue to wait (well, we have no choice!),  but we know that we haven't been chosen yet because those children were not meant to be ours. Ours will come... in the mean time I don't have to clean out the room.