Pico De Gallo

We will have to have a social worker come to our house to approve it as a foster and adoptive home. The number of things that we will have to get taken care of is pretty big, but these are the ones that I hope to accomplish this weekend:

1. Make some progress on completing the remodel work that we started 3 months ago. This will include finishing some painting of the molding in our living room and painting the cabinet doors for the kitchen.
2. Buy a fire extinguisher
3. Start putting together a proper first aid kit
4. Look for a lock box to keep medications in (I’m thinking of trying to find a good used locking file cabinet)

We had our intake interview yesterday and it went well!

First of all, I did regret scheduling it after the whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. I was very tired and not nearly as eloquent as I would have preferred. But, between the two of us, I think that we made a good impression. The social worker that we spoke with gave us another overview of the process that we would go through to get trained and and approved. We talked about what type of children we are interested in, which we gave a fairly non-specific response to. It is just so hard to put specific terms around what we do and do not want. I think we want to be able to consider any child. We talked about our fears which are homophobic first parents (thank you to Kim for correcting my use of the term “birth parents”), the heartbreak around the possibility of a child being taken from us and placed back with the first parents after living with us for several years, and general fears around being first time foster/adoptive parents.

There didn’t seem to be anything around being officially “approved” during this first meeting. That will come later when home visits, references, financial review, physicals, etc… are done. So, it was a relief that we didn’t have to face a decision of whether or not we are good enough after a hour long meeting. We are going to sign up for their training that starts in January (January! so soon!). It will last 9 weeks and covers everything from the process to be approved to developing relationships with the family of the child. I’m so excited!!!

This is all I have time to write - more updates to come.

On Monday we have the big intake interview with LCS, which I am feeling completely unprepared for. In addition to feeling unprepared, I am starting to realize that I probably made a bad decision in scheduling. This weekend I will be doing a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas to see two of my friends get married. Unfortunately Mary isn’t able to join me due to her work schedule, so I am going to fly into Vegas super early on Sunday morning and fly out super late Sunday evening. This means I’ll be arriving home to Seattle at 2:53am Monday morning and will then need to be at the intake interview at 10:30am ready to give my best impression. I have possibly set myself up for failure…

Earlier this week I turned down a job opportunity due to the fact that I discovered that the organization offering it to me is an organizational member of Focus on Family (didn’t know this going in). I feel good about this decision because I cannot possibly associate myself with an organization that believes something about me based solely on my sexual orientation and because in my mind and heart I disagree with them on so many issues. However, I feel badly about the way I handled this decision because I did not tell them why I would not be coming to work for them. Instead, I simply turned the job as not being ‘right’ for me. I did this for a reason - it was to shelter a friend of mine who works there. She referred me to the position and I did not want to put her in any danger of losing her job or having her ability to be a competent nurse questioned due to my lesbianism and personal beliefs.  

I am a little ashamed of myself because I didn’t speak up for my feelings and beliefs. I did (and still do) believe that airing those beliefs would have been satisfying to myself and would have been detrimental to a friend, so I chose to go with friendship. Still, I’m feeling a bit conflicted over my choice, and want to believe that I made the right decision.  

I grew up in a city in the buckle of the Bible Belt where being a lesbian was not acceptable. I refused to stay quite about it and became involved work around LGBT issues, and for that I paid a price of being the victim of several hate crimes along with generally being disliked/hated by some members of my community. That was hard enough for me to go through - and I’m sure my friends paid a price for associating with me. At the time I did not consider going back into the closet for the sake of my friends or family, to be honest it didn’t even occur to me. I just saw what I was going through (very selfish, but I was also very young) and felt that if I was willing to pay the consequences of speaking my mind then why not? Obviously I have changed over the years…  

I don’t know if it is a sign of growth or decline that I made the choice that I did this week. I don’t honestly believe that I would have changed the nursing managers mind about queer people by telling her my reason for turning down the job, but I do believe that every time I educate a person by talking to them about how homophobia is detrimental to the well-being of so many that I am helping to move my community in the right direction.  

I think that this is especially on my mind this week because our steps towards adoption are really happening. If I am willing to hide my true beliefs for a friend, what will I want to do for my child? I used to believe that there was no such thing as ‘the right time and place’ to voice my opinion - what happened? I know that I will find the balance that works for me and my life, but I am walking away from this experience with a bad taste in my mouth. I still have a lot of thinking to do about why I am conflicted on this and what, if anything, I need to change about how I handle a situation like this in the future. I am not willing to be some closeted lesbian just because I also want to be a mother, but I must find the right balance in expressing myself. Decide where I draw the line (and Focus on Family is definitely way past it) and how I want to react to those that I disagree with. I never thought I would have to ask myself these questions, but now that I live in a city where being a lesbian is such a non-issue, I find myself really caught off guard when I meet resistance to acceptance (or at least tolerance). I need to be able to redefine myself as an activist in a generally less hateful environment.

I think that this is a great video that shows the effects of discrimination against queer adoptive parents - found it on Proud Parenting.