Wednesday, July 20, 2011
"I Couldn't Do It..."
As foster parents we often hear people tell us we have big hearts, we are special, or they say "I wouldn't be able to let them leave". People are always saying that it would break their hearts to have the kids leave after they have gotten attached. It does break our hearts. We miss all of our kids and talk about all the ones we have had in the last 7 months often. Each child brought something different to our home. I don't know that we have any bigger hearts than other people or that we are any more special than someone else. We are doing what God has called us to do by taking care of orphans. As Jonathan and I were talking the other day about this very topic the answer to people's statements of "I couldn't let them leave, it would break my heart" came to me. Next time I think I will say "It does break our heart each and every time the children leave our home because we love them. However, all of the sadness of them leaving is made up for by all of the joy they bring us while they are here and watching them change in front of our eyes." We have had 4 different placements so far. All 4 have been for different reasons. Parents in prison to drugs to domestic abuse to neglect. Neglect is actually a huge part of all of those. Children raised in homes of abuse often times suffer the type of abuse and also neglect. It is so rewarding to watch a child go from being scared of being left or being scared of sleeping because of things that have happened in their sleep to climbing into their own beds at night singing Jesus Loves Me. Watching a child who only said 2 words when they got to our home to saying more than 50 in less than 3 months because we talk to them, encourage them and love on them. All of these things make up for the sadness and are the reason that when A and D leave we will welcome more kids into our home. I think that the foster parents that don't get sad when their kids leave shouldn't be foster parents anymore. These children need people to love them unconditionally and wholeheartedly regardless of the pain that we as foster parents know it's going to bring us. That's what we vow to give our foster kids, wholehearted, unconditional love. Foster care isn't about giving children a temporary place to live. It's about giving them a home where they feel safe, loved, cherished, secure, and a sense of belonging to a family. I love being a foster mom, even in the hard times, and for now we will continue to open our doors and our hearts to little kids who need us.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Struggles
This post may not be all up beat and happy. This blog is for us to share our journey through infertility, foster care and eventually adoption, and all of those things have times of heartache. Unfortunately, sometimes the heartache all happens together.
D and A came to our home on April 28th. They have been with us longer than any of our other foster children. We have been waiting for CPS to tell us if one of their grandmothers would be approved to have them live with her. It's taken over 6 weeks for her home study to be approved, which personally I think is ridiculous. Everyone involved with these children are waiting for answers, including the children. D keeps asking if grandma has passed her test, well, yesterday we finally told her that grandma did pass her test and that before school starts they will be leaving. Before they can go live with their grandmother they have to have weekend visits first so that A can get to know her because he hasn't seen her since he was an infant, even though she only lives 30 minutes from his house. The situation is really odd but hopefully it's what is best for the kids. I know that D is happy to be going so that helps. Waiting a few more weeks for them to leave when we know they are leaving soon is going to be emotionally hard. We've had 3 other sets of foster kids so far and all of them we have been called and told they were leaving the same day of the phone call. It's hard to get all there stuff together that quickly and say good bye but it's not drawn out over a few weeks. Either way it's hard to say goodbye to them. It's amazing how fast you fall in love with these kids and we will miss D and A dearly.
Infertility brings a totally different type of heartbreak and until you have experienced it I don't think you can truly understand. Most women want to have their own biological child. If you are one of those women who wants to have your own child and you can't, your heart breaks. It doesn't just break once, it breaks almost monthly when that test is negative. It's so hard not to get your hopes up that maybe this month it worked. Maybe this month will be different. I have been ovulating without medications since last fall, which is wonderful, yet we still haven't gotten pregnant. Later this month I will have to have a specialized test to see if my uterus and fallopian tubes are all normal and seem to be working. I think that we may be quickly approaching the end of our infertility journey because we aren't willing to do IVF. That means we have IUI left, which I've heard is really stressful on the husband and wife. Not that all of this hasn't been stressful on both of us already. We will wait and see what happens this month.
Adoption. Our eventual goal no matter if we have our own children or not. We will still adopt a child, or 2 or 3. Adoption is something that we have been called by God to do. Just like Foster care is. He calls us to care for the orphans, and that is what we are doing. Right now I think that he wants us to pursue infertility and adoption/foster care at the same time. If at one point he tells us to stop the infertility work then we will. Here's the problem with adoption.... It's REALLY expensive. I'm talking, could buy a very nice new car expensive. Adoption through foster care can be free, if the children meet certain criteria. Here's the other problem with adoption.....it takes a REALLY long time. This is regardless of if it's through foster care, private, international. Sometimes it takes YEARS to get your child. I guess after trying to have our own baby for 3 years it should be no big deal, but my maternal clock is ticking and getting louder. Jonathan and I are discussing infant adoption through an agency on top of continuing foster to adopt. I really want a newborn. I know that that may seem crazy. I want to be woken up every 2 hours to that sweet infant. I want to watch them grow and develop from the time they are born until they are adults, I don't want to miss out on part of their life. I don't mind adopting a little older kids too, I just want to experience at least once, having an infant.
D and A have been a joy to have in our house the last 10 weeks and we wouldn't trade our time with them for anything. I've loved watching them thrive in a family environment. Watching A learn to talk and come out of his shell. He is such a happy little boy. He is always smiling and ready to play. He is all boy and wants to wrestle and shoot things and throw balls. D is such a sweet young girl. She is girly and wants to curl her hair, paint her nails and wear dresses. I don't understand girly very much, cause that's not me at all, but it's fun watching her and playing with her. She loves her brother so much and it's fun to watch their relationship develop to that of a sister and brother instead of her trying to be the mom all the time. We love them dearly and will miss them so much when they leave.
~until~
D and A came to our home on April 28th. They have been with us longer than any of our other foster children. We have been waiting for CPS to tell us if one of their grandmothers would be approved to have them live with her. It's taken over 6 weeks for her home study to be approved, which personally I think is ridiculous. Everyone involved with these children are waiting for answers, including the children. D keeps asking if grandma has passed her test, well, yesterday we finally told her that grandma did pass her test and that before school starts they will be leaving. Before they can go live with their grandmother they have to have weekend visits first so that A can get to know her because he hasn't seen her since he was an infant, even though she only lives 30 minutes from his house. The situation is really odd but hopefully it's what is best for the kids. I know that D is happy to be going so that helps. Waiting a few more weeks for them to leave when we know they are leaving soon is going to be emotionally hard. We've had 3 other sets of foster kids so far and all of them we have been called and told they were leaving the same day of the phone call. It's hard to get all there stuff together that quickly and say good bye but it's not drawn out over a few weeks. Either way it's hard to say goodbye to them. It's amazing how fast you fall in love with these kids and we will miss D and A dearly.
Infertility brings a totally different type of heartbreak and until you have experienced it I don't think you can truly understand. Most women want to have their own biological child. If you are one of those women who wants to have your own child and you can't, your heart breaks. It doesn't just break once, it breaks almost monthly when that test is negative. It's so hard not to get your hopes up that maybe this month it worked. Maybe this month will be different. I have been ovulating without medications since last fall, which is wonderful, yet we still haven't gotten pregnant. Later this month I will have to have a specialized test to see if my uterus and fallopian tubes are all normal and seem to be working. I think that we may be quickly approaching the end of our infertility journey because we aren't willing to do IVF. That means we have IUI left, which I've heard is really stressful on the husband and wife. Not that all of this hasn't been stressful on both of us already. We will wait and see what happens this month.
Adoption. Our eventual goal no matter if we have our own children or not. We will still adopt a child, or 2 or 3. Adoption is something that we have been called by God to do. Just like Foster care is. He calls us to care for the orphans, and that is what we are doing. Right now I think that he wants us to pursue infertility and adoption/foster care at the same time. If at one point he tells us to stop the infertility work then we will. Here's the problem with adoption.... It's REALLY expensive. I'm talking, could buy a very nice new car expensive. Adoption through foster care can be free, if the children meet certain criteria. Here's the other problem with adoption.....it takes a REALLY long time. This is regardless of if it's through foster care, private, international. Sometimes it takes YEARS to get your child. I guess after trying to have our own baby for 3 years it should be no big deal, but my maternal clock is ticking and getting louder. Jonathan and I are discussing infant adoption through an agency on top of continuing foster to adopt. I really want a newborn. I know that that may seem crazy. I want to be woken up every 2 hours to that sweet infant. I want to watch them grow and develop from the time they are born until they are adults, I don't want to miss out on part of their life. I don't mind adopting a little older kids too, I just want to experience at least once, having an infant.
D and A have been a joy to have in our house the last 10 weeks and we wouldn't trade our time with them for anything. I've loved watching them thrive in a family environment. Watching A learn to talk and come out of his shell. He is such a happy little boy. He is always smiling and ready to play. He is all boy and wants to wrestle and shoot things and throw balls. D is such a sweet young girl. She is girly and wants to curl her hair, paint her nails and wear dresses. I don't understand girly very much, cause that's not me at all, but it's fun watching her and playing with her. She loves her brother so much and it's fun to watch their relationship develop to that of a sister and brother instead of her trying to be the mom all the time. We love them dearly and will miss them so much when they leave.
~until~
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