Still Mothers

Tomorrow is the launch of a new group called Still Mothers.

I am very excited to be part of this project for mothers who have no biological living children. There are many facets to the group including a part for grandparents who have lost a grandchild, grieving parents who are trying to conceive, and families like our who have decided to adopt after losing a biological child. Losing a child can be a very isolating experience, so hopefully this is a great way for us all to connect and support one another. We are also on Facebook.

Resources for Adopted Children

The following is a list of resources that our family has found useful. We adopted a sibling group of three children under the age of six through foster care. Many of these resources focus on adoption and dealing with trauma, anxiety, and behavior difficulties. It is a list in progress!

• Tapestry Books – A website that states the following: Our selection of adoption books are hand-picked to help you find what you need.
•  Adoption is for Always by Linda Girard – a book to help children understand the permanency of adoption.
• God Found Us You by Lisa Tawn Bergren – a mother’s story about how God brought her forever family together.
• Welcome Home Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond by Christine Mitchell – a book geared towards children who were adopted after infancy.  
• I Wished for You: An Adoption Story by Marianne R. Richmond – a good explanation of how adoptive families come together.
• A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza – Choco is trying to find his mother, who ends up being a different species of animal.  
• A Terrible Thing Happened by Margaret Holmes – an excellent book for children who have experienced any traumatic event.
• Todd Parr is a prolific author with a very unique illustration style. His books cover many emotional topics including being different, making mistakes, and being adopted.  
• What to do When You’re Scared or Worried: A Guide for Kids by James J. Crist
• What to do When It’s Not Fair: A Kid’s Guide to Handling Envy and Jealousy by Jacqueline B. Toner and Claire A. B. Freeland – a workbook full of strategies for kids and families
• What to do When Your Temper Flares: A Guide to Overcoming Problems with Anger by Dawn Heubner – a workbook full of strategies for kids and families
• What to do When You Worry Too Much: A Guide to Overcoming Anxiety by Dawn Huebner – a workbook full of strategies for kids and families
• What to do When You Dread Your Bed: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems with Sleep by Dawn Huebner – a workbook full of strategies for kids an families

Footprints

As I pack my house, I have been thinking about how we each leave footprints in this world.

Even though we were only in this home for two years, we parented six children here. Their hand-prints and toys hidden in remote corners I apparently haven't cleaned well remind me that, even though we may only be present in someplace for a short while (like a job, a town, this earth), we leave marks on the people we meet. Our lives affect those around us, whether positive or negative.

We leave this house in a very different place than when we arrived. We have changed some cosmetic and functional features of this building, but the changes we have undergone while living here are so much more. We experienced the loss of three foster children in this home. We met neighbors who have welcomed, loved, and supported us through our journey. I "found" our children on the internet while sitting at my kitchen table. We became a forever family here.

When we faced difficult times, I struggled with anger, sadness, and impatience. In this house, I was able to see all the pieces of my brokenness come back together. Just as there are holes and scuffs on the walls of this home that can be filled to blend in, I have been filled. The walls will never be the same as they were when they were first built, but they can be made whole again, ready for the next family to make their marks. In that same way, we can never undo the scars from our life experiences, but we can be healed leaving us ready for our next season.

This move serves as a great metaphor for life. 

Visit

We spent an hour today visiting with our little buddy at McDonald's. It was pretty difficult. When I saw him, I just wanted to hug him and hold him and be his mommy again. Instead, I asked questions and played the role of a teacher/mentor. His speech is regressing, and I imagine his reading is as well. It's hard. We watched him frolicking (for real) in the play place, and try to be brave enough to go the very top. I was very proud of him. I asked him when he got his hair cut, and he replied with, "Um....a few days back." That made me smile. What a funny little boy. What five year old talks like that? He asked about his kindergarten teacher, and whether or not we could go visit some of our friends and family. We had to explain that we probably wouldn't be doing that when we visited with him because the visits won't be very long. Heartbreaking. Anyway, it was definitely a time of mixed emotions.

So we came home and my hubby put up a photo wall. I have been asking him to put up the photos for about three weeks, but I guess a five day weekend and the emotions of the afternoon helped out. Now I can see my kids from any of the living spaces in our home.We also set up all of our Christmas decorations. Stockings for the kids are in the mail from a good friend (super excited to see them!), but everything else is set up and ready to go. Now we wait again. What a special holiday season this will be!

Thanksgiving

Flashback to Thanksgiving 2010...
We had recently lost our first pregnancy, my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, so I flew home for her surgery, and my husband's grandpa died while we were visiting. It was pretty hard to find something to be thankful for. I was pretty angry, depressed, and hopeless. A friend came over during Thanksgiving break to tell me that my time for grief was up. I was supposed to be moving forward. How could I move forward when every time I was almost at a good place again, someone else died? She brought her Bible, and read verses that condemned my attitude and grief. And that was the end of our friendship. Honestly. Although we still saw each other, it was just the beginning of the end. I spent Thanksgiving quietly at home with my husband and a friend, and I truly felt I had nothing to be thankful for. Little did I know that in the next three months we would lose another baby and my stepfather.

Thanksgiving 2011
We had just moved to a new state, started new jobs, and had become foster parents a few days earlier. We were thankful for the opportunity to parent. We set up Christmas decorations with a 4 year old (what a crazy adventure!). We drank hot cocoa, hoped for snow, and spent a lot of hours sleeping on his floor so he wouldn't be scared at night. I definitely felt like things were looking up, and I felt thankful for the changes that had moved us out of our comfort zones on every level.

Thanksgiving 2012
I can barely begin to think about everything I am thankful for without tearing up. This last year has not been a picnic, but I feel so blessed to have found my forever family! I just knew it from the moment I saw them online! They will be our children forever. What more can I say? It is the biggest blessing I have ever received. Thanks are definitely in order.

October

October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month. It is a time to remember babies we have lost or never got to meet. I did not know about this until this year. Sometimes I wonder why I never knew about it before, and if I still wouldn't know about if I hadn't lost two babies. Some people post on Facebook, some hold remembrance celebrations, and some people do nothing at all. We fall into that last group. I am thinking back to when we were invited to a ceremony for our first baby. I had already planned a trip with my friend, so I couldn't go. I don't think we would have gone anyway because the pain was too raw. Let's face it, sometimes the pain is still too raw, and it's been 2 1/2 years. But maybe I am ready to deal with the pain rather than run away from it. Or maybe thinking about the pregnancy loss is easier than thinking about having my foster child leave in a few weeks. Whatever the case, I hope that we find a way that less people can be affected by pregnancy and infant loss in the future. It is a loss beyond losing the life of a child. It is losing your dreams as well. Dreams of a family, dreams of happy pregnancies in the future, dreams of showers and nurseries and Christmas cards. It is good to have a time to remember and reflect so that we can move forward and hope. 

Decisions

After my last post, my little buddy prayed this: "Dear God, if I can only have one thing, please let me live with my grandma." I guess we are not the only ones with broken hearts in this home. The next day, we were told that he could do just that, so I guess God has answered all of our prayers and helped us to make our decision. It is impossibly difficult to think about losing the first child to call us Mom and Dad, and I know that we will always have a hole in our lives that would be perfectly filled by him, but we have faith that this is what is best for us all. Lots of tears to come, though. I don't regret becoming a foster parent and having to deal with struggles and pain, however, because that 10 months we have had to love on him have outweighed everything else.

We can now look forward to our forever family joining us soon. We don't have timelines for anything, but we are very hopeful for Thanksgiving. What a blessing that would be! I know I haven't met them yet, but I already love everything about them, even their struggles.

Broken Heart

Today I have a broken heart. We have to pick one child or the other three. It has been decided that we cannot have the sibling group and the child we have been fostering for a year. What a choice! If we go with the three, we are blindly choosing children we have never met. If we go with the one, we have no guarantee that we will end up with him. We have loved him for almost 1/5 of his life! If we don't take the one, he will go to a relative, and it will probably be okay in the end. If we choose the three, they will have to do another adoption search. If we choose the one, we will have to continue our journey - we know our family is not complete. If we choose the three, that will be the end of our search for our forever family. What kind of choice is this? We have faith that God's plan will work out, but that doesn't make it any easier for us to try to choose between two halves of our hearts.

I am...complicated

I am a first time blogger. I have come to a point in my life where I don't know anyone else who has the same experiences as me, so I am reaching out to the big world wide web. Perhaps someone else will be able to relate. First, let me explain my life.

I am a wife to a great husband. We recently celebrated our 6th anniversary, and we look forward to scores more!

I am a teacher. I taught 6th and 7th grade math for six years. Two years ago we moved, and I began teaching 6th grade elementary. I loved teaching math, but I am also enjoying teaching a wider variety of subjects and having only one group of students rather than 100 students.

Here is where it gets complicated.

I am a parent...I have struggled with parenthood for the past two and a half years. We had a miscarriage with our first child at 13 weeks. We didn't know we had miscarried, so it was a shock when we went to our appointment to hear the heart beat only to find out our baby had died. After a few months, we decided to try again. With the second pregnancy, the doctor knew it was not progressing normally. After a month of appointments, ultrasounds, and blood draws, we miscarried our second child as well. During this time, I struggled more emotionally and spiritually than at any other point in my life. I cried out to God to save my child. I feared each day that I would lose my second baby. It was hell for me. We pursued some testing and found that, as far as they could tell, there are no reasons that we cannot have a healthy baby. Because of the emotional toll, however, we were not sure we could handle another pregnancy.

We decided at that point to look into foster parenting. We started the process and were almost done with a home study and licensing when we unexpectedly moved to another state. Because we hadn't completed the process, we had to start it all over again in our new state. After 11 months of paperwork, trainings, and background checks, we began foster in November 2011. We knew we wanted to adopt a sibling group through foster care. We would gladly have adopted any of the foster children that have been in our home, but that opportunity did not present itself. I guess a public venue is not really the place to share intimate details about something that isn't official and legal yet, but we have been chosen to adopt a family of three. It is an out of state adoption of three kiddos under six years old. The paperwork and logistics could be quite time consuming. We were one of more than 30 families that applied for them, so I can hardly believe we were chosen. At the same time, however, I KNEW when I saw them that they were my kids. Not only will we be adopting these kiddos, we currently have a child with us...so we are about to be parents of FOUR kids. FOUR. What a scary and exciting thing! I don't know how to do that much laundry, organize my house to make room for them, or plan how to spend one-on-one time with each child each day so that they can bond with us and know that they are loved and cared for. It will be a challenge.

I am excited by having our forever family, anxious to have some answers, overwhelmed by the huge changes coming our way, and happier than I could have imagined!

Maybe you can relate? Maybe you have some advice?