You are expecting!
My experience is totally different from what I expected. If you told me 7 years ago that I would have 8 sons and working from home, I would have said, "you are out of your %$^#&*@ mind!".
Kerby, you are about to make the jump from being the one who calls parents in, to being the parent that gets called in!
It was an excellent idea doing foster care prior to taking a placement. I am glad I took that path. It gave me the insight and training to help prepare me for my sons.
My suggestion about the diagnosis would be, "take it with a grain of salt". I have found the so-called foster care doctors to be right less than 50% of the time. They were right (well, it could also be FAS) about M2 and Asperger's. They were wrong about ADHD and J2. I could give you a list of things that my sons were diagnosed with that proved to be incorrect. Many doctors see children in fostercare when they are at their worst. They then give them diagnosis like: ADD, ADHD, ODD (most teenagers)
, anxiety disorder, etc. They then set up a treatment plan and bill the state. Then the child gets moved again and again and again. The diagnosis follows them, whether it was correct or not. The diagnosis "may" have been correct at the time when the child was in transit, but not today or once he/she is stabilized in placement.
Ok...I think I am preaching to the choir. Good luck and enjoy your honeymoon period.