The Sedberry Foster Family Home

Jen and I are officially home study approved and licensed by the state of California to be foster parents! Enter applause here. As with any bureaucracy, there is a story behind it.

As you know, we had our walk-through by the state on Saturday, June 13th. When the social worker left, he told us that everything looked good and that he would file the paperwork on Monday, once he received the pictures of the crib that we had to buy. After the paperwork was filed, we would receive our license in the mail in two weeks. Jen and I were ecstatic.

Two weeks came and went. Since the license was coming via snail-mail, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and waited a few more days. When nearly three weeks had passed, I called the social worker. He seemed surprised that we hadn’t received it yet. Call back if it hasn’t arrived in the next week or so, he told me.

We waited. Another week passed, with nothing. I called the social worker back. I listened as he looked up our license on his computer. He read off that we had been licensed by the state since June 18th. I glanced at the calendar: July 13th. It had been a full month since our walk-through! Our county social worker was waiting on this one last document before we were officially put into the recruitment center’s computers to find a match. Now nearly a month had been wasted. The state social worker told me that he would “have them regenerate a copy and send it to us”.

I called Jen at work and relayed the message. Jen was not happy with this vague outcome. So she took matters into her own hands. She is a bit of a Google wiz, and somehow found the number for the head office of Social Services Licensing in Sacramento, and got a hold of a director there. She was completely mystified by this: “How on Earth did you get this number?” It was a good thing that Jen found that number, though. Turns out that the state social worker was responsible for sending us the copy of our license! He had been sitting on it for all this time, doing nothing, assuming that we would just magically get our copy! The director was not happy. She called him and had him not only mail us our license, but fax a copy to us ASAP.

Coincidently, our county social worker called Jen the same day to congratulate us on being licensed. The county had received a copy of our license before we did!

On July 16th, two days shy of being licensed a month, we received the mailed copy of our foster license. It is proudly posted on our wall next to our telephone, naming us the “Sedberry Foster Family Home”. We also received a congratulations letter from the county, telling us that we are officially in the recruitment system, and can now literally be called any minute!

Preparing the House

We have finished preparing the house for the Fost-Adopt home studies. We will have two: one for DCFS (LA County), and one for the state of California. Here is the general breakdown of what we have done to our condo to prepare:

Installed baby-proof latches on all our drawers and cabinets
Installed safety device on the mini blind cords
Installed 3 baby gates (hooray for 2 flights of stairs!)
Bought/Installed a fire extinguisher in the kitchen
Found all the utility/emergency numbers and posted them by the telephone
Bought a locking box to store all of our medications
3-Story emergency ladder
Two convertible car seats

We also renovated our “spare room” into a full fledged bedroom:

Bunk beds & bedding

Dresser & Lamp

9-Cubby “cubicle storage unit” with 4 baskets (the other 5 cubbies work as a bookcase)

Multi-colored plastic bin toy storage unit

“Twilight Turtle” constellation night light

Elegant Baby piggy bank


We're pretty sure that we've been a little over-zealous with the preparations, but our theory is that it's better to be over-prepared than under-prepared!

For the State we've set up the fingerprinting for the 30th (which is also Jen's 23rd birthday!). It's going to cost $50/person, which is totally exciting.

For the County we've set up the first part of the home study process, which is 3 interviews: one with both of us, and one for each privately with the social worker.

It begins!... The amazing journey we are embarking on.

Hello all and welcome to our blog. Jessie and I had this idea a few months ago to start a blog about out lives together. Very quickly however, we realized that as much as we love each other... our life is VERY boring. Well, all of this is about to change. You see, Jessie and I have decided that we are ready to expand our family beyond the current status of two kooky women and three overly pampered felines. Now I'm sure you're wondering exactly how we are going to achieve this goal since unlike hetero couples, there are no "pleasant surprises". Jess and I have discussed this at length, and length... and length. We have considered using a donor, both known and unknown, and have discussed adoption of every kind. Recently, through conversations and independent soul searching we have come to a mutual agreement that adoption is where our hearts truly are. Biological children are a blessing, and neither of us are nixing that option all together (we have YEARS before we're no longer able to biologically parent), but with this world already having so many wonderful children who are in need of homes and loving families, this is our perfect fit.

Adoption in itself can be a very daunting process, filled with an entire spectrum of emotion, along with mountains of paperwork and interviews. Luckily, together Jessie and I can conquer anything and we are both committed to do whatever it takes to fulfill our dream of parenthood. We have been in the extensive research phase for about a week now, and today we took our first leap. We have officially registered with the Department of Children and Family Services, with the intent to enter the Fost-Adopt program. On March 26th we will attend a three hour orientation with other hopeful applicants where we will learn the step-by-step process of fostering and adoption and submit our application.

Now, the internet is an endless wealth of information, both factual and confusing. Jessie and I have found that all the research in the world still lead us down a muddled road with dead-ends abound. Fost-Adopt, though a wonderful program, is not that easy to find on the web. Luck however is in our favor. In June of '07 Jess and I were married by a man named George who has traveled the Fost-Adopt road successfully twice and is now, along with his partner, the proud father of two beautiful children. We sent him an e-mail a few days ago and he was more than happy to share in his knowledge of the beginning steps. Furthermore, this man is so warm-hearted that he has volunteered to meet with us at any time to discuss our next steps if we ever feel lost in our journey. Since Jessie and I are new to this, and are finding quickly that this helping hand is welcome, we are extending the same to anyone out there who has also decided to take this route. The following links are those that George gave us, both of which have been very helpful in answering some starting questions and guiding us toward the right numbers to call and people to talk to. We'll blog again as soon as we have reached the next step. Thanks for reading.

LA County Adoption FAQ's
Adoption Handbook: Very Useful Source of Information

The phone number for LA County to register for an orientation is 888-811-1121.