movement on our domestic adoption

We received a call today from the State Community Licensing Unit. If we are to adopt from foster care (still struggling with the direction to go--domestic or international), we will need to be licensed as foster parents by the State and then the County where we were referred to will do the homestudy and placement of the child. I had been calling the supervisor in the home finding unit in my county (they do the homestudy and licensing as foster/adoptive parents) for a month trying to follow up on when the state would contact us to start their licensing process. I had not been getting any answers to this is a huge step forward! During the call we scheduled an appointment for next week to begin the state licensing. It was not very inspiring when the Social Worker told me she had not done licensing in a situation such as mine in 3 years and she has to read up on the process. My situation is a little unique-- I work in my county of residence and have access to information on the birth parent/s addresses. The Child Welfare Unit felt that this would pose a conflict of interest--not sure how, since I would be required to take any child I was fostering in the hopes of adopting to any court ordered visitation with the biological parent/s. Anyway since I had to be referred to adopt from another county, I additionally have to be licensed by the state. I know this is all so very confusing. In California, you can only become licensed to adopt in your county of residence. If you need to be referred to a different county, you have to be licensed by the state as a foster parent and not by the county you are adopting from. The county just does the homestudy and placement (matching you with a child and placing the child in your home and the subsequent home visits and adoption process). So, we will see how this process goes. We still have not started with the homestudy with the county which takes a couple months, so..........