A 2012 Update

As many of you know we had 3 foster kiddos (ranging from 1.5-7yrs) come stay with us for a few months.  I won't get into that story other than to say it was once again a learning experience & we genuinely do miss them.  One of the hardest parts of fostering (when it doesn't lead to adoption or long-lasting relationships) is not knowing what happens to the kiddos in the long run.  You put your time & love into them and just hope it made/makes a difference!

Over the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) B & I took some much needed time to be a family of 3 again and enjoy all that the holidays had to offer.  It's one of our family's favorite times of year filled with so many traditions - buying a new outdoor decoration, taking a screaming picture with santa (who is a wonderful santa, but our daughter freaks out with), making cookies, baking a birthday cake/cupcakes for Jesus, buying an ornament, etc.  It's a wonderfully busy family time & we wanted to have that time uninterrupted.

Once we came to the new year we had new restrictions as to what kiddos we were willing to take in based off of our past experiences.  Something that was big to us was having K remain the "baby" of the family while she's still baby enough to be the baby & maintain her family birth position.  So not only did we narrow down ages, but we narrowed down what we'd be willing to deal with in terms of interacting with bio parents, the number of kiddos we'd take at once, etc.  The more & more our specifications grew the more & more we began to debate whether or not this was the right thing for us or the right time for it in our lives.  After all, our ultimate goal is/was to foster.adopt & it felt extremely counterintuitive to root for the bio parents to do better while selfishly & secretly (or not so secretly) hoping that maybe they wouldn't do well so we'd have our own needs met.  Granted our hoping wouldn't change what they ultimately chose to do - to get better & parent or to lose rights - but it led us on an emotional roller coaster trying to figure out which way things were going or trying to weed out what we thought we were just being told to keep us happy or going.  After 6 years on a rollercoaster (1 year of not getting pregnant on our own, 3 years of medical intervention, 9 months of pregnancy, 2+ years now of pursuing an "adoption" route), there comes a time when you just have to step off.

Fast forward to now. with a lot of uncertainty & prayer that it's the *right* thing, B & I have decided to give up our foster license for now.  Alot of that uncertainty comes from having spent over 8 months working towards obtaining it!  So are we crazy?  Probably.  But we both feel strongly that we're being led in the direction of just BE-ing.  That starts with being the family of 3 that we are. And it means
letting K get the best of us as parents - not dragging her around to other kid's appointments, dropping her off for us to attend trainings, or kept from having a room of her own/designed around her likes just because she may have to share it or move out of it completely for other kiddos to come in.  It means NOT missing the moments with her that we craved so badlly when we were giving more of our attention to kiddos who needed it just as much or more.

So for the next year B & I are going to focus on different things: paying things - like our car & mortgages - off, figuring out a budget that allows me to continue to be home with kae & maybe homeschool in the future, getting our house & its rooms settled, exploring hobbies, making memories.  So while the adding to our family subject may be off the table for the next year, it's not indefinitely.  When/if we both feel like we're being led to adopt or expand our family, we'll try again.  Maybe if we've paid a few things off or made significant financial progress, we'll look at private newborn adoption or embryo adoption.  Though that's getting way ahead of ourselves.

We don't regret fostering & I pray that we'll do it again in the future b/c I think it's both good for us, the kiddos, & our daughter.  She tells us she misses so-n-so all the time.  Not only was it a learning experience for us, but it was for her as well - learning to share her mom/dad/toys, getting to have sibling(s), etc.  I want her to see her parents helping others & doing what's right, but i want it to come at a time that's right for all of us.  And I want to know we will whole-heartedly be rooting for the bio parents next time around, but will have our hearts & home open for a child that ultimately needs it.  Plus we're hoping in a few years we'd be able to take in kiddos who are slightly older as K gets older & can become a "big sis" to look up to.

For now we'll BE.  And i'll especially take time to process what's happened over the last 6 years & where we've come from and hope I'll move beyond the "title" of T the infertile :)

My first project for this year (or second if you count the bathroom re-do already done) will be to work on K's room.  Before pictures to come...

What Happened? What Now?

What Happened?

The very short & undetailed version:

For those of you who don't know, our placement was with us for a month before we made the difficult decision to ask for him to be moved to another home.  For many reasons (most of them legal), I can’t get into the exact details but things progressively got overwhelming – from feeling like we weren’t told everything upfront, having WAY too much of our personal information shared with those we didn’t believe it needed to be shared with, & being asked to do things we just weren’t comfortable with for whatever justifiable reasons we had.  In the end, it wasn’t a good fit for our family & the uncomfortable truth is that was enough to ask for him to be moved even though we were seeing him make progress.  For as much stress, learning curves, & uncertainty that came with him, he also brought a lot of joy & we were all attached in our own ways.   So it was a hard decision to make in the first place, but then the state didn’t seem to think it was a good enough reason & we got a great deal of pushback when we asked for him to be removed.  That said, we still know we made the right decision & our reasons were valid.  I will say that for as much ugliness as we saw & experienced, at one point before it went that way we did have a few of our requests honored by them & for that I am grateful.  I am also grateful for my agency (& in particular 2 of the social workers we work with) who really supported us through the four weeks – arranging respite care for a weekend, talking me off a ledge at times, & stepping up to deal with a very unusual case.  We have repeatedly been told this wasn’t a normal placement – from how/when it happened to case details to requests being made of us to the interactions with had with his social workers.

A few people have commented on how they couldn’t just “let go” like we did.  Truth is, we don’t have a choice.   Legally & emotionally, we have to.  We brought that upon ourselves with the decision we made.  Yes, we will be attached to our placements & that’s a given for us to have any REAL & lasting effect on their lives for whatever time we have them.  So while it’s hard, I can’t live in a state of constant questioning or wondering.  I have to let it go.  I know we impacted his life in very real & tangible ways and I have to trust that whatever family he is with now or he ends up with will provide him with just as good – if not better – care & love than he had with us.  I know God has a plan for him so I won’t carry the worry with me.  I will pray for him & I will trust that, just as we hope to find the right fit for us, that he will find the right family that fits him.

What Now?

After the post placement ‘what in the world did we just experience’ debriefing with our agency, we’re cautiously back in the waiting pool.  And by cautiously, I mean every ounce of my body still tenses up at the thought of having a repeat experience.  We opted not to take a break because if the right match is out there, we don’t want to miss it while we’re taking a break.  And we always have the option to say no or we may not be the chosen family anyways.  Either way, our hearts are still open to this process.  I think the person who searches for placements at our agency was surprised we weren’t taking a little breather, but it’s all really a game of ‘hurry up & wait’ anyways.  From here out, we’re going to make our own additional list of questions for our agency to ask social workers before submitting our homestudy (based on our experience) and we’ll also be considered in the (occasional) case that a birth mother surrenders her toddler(s) to our agency.  A surrendered toddler from a mom who seeks a somewhat open adoption would be ideal, but we’ll see what comes our way.

In the meantime, I think our last placement impacted our lives just as much as we impacted his.  We still know we’re not done growing our family, but I think for the first time in 5 years it’s not overwhelming consuming our lives.  We’ve spent so much time with doctors, at various appointments, doing paperwork, having meetings and we’re just ready to be ‘waiting’.  I may need to remind myself of that in 3 months when I start to get anxious about how slowly the process could be moving then, but right now we feel content to wait.  That doesn’t mean that deep down I wouldn’t be more than okay with it happening tomorrow, but it does mean that our last placement taught us (well, me maybe more so) to be even more appreciative of the family we do have.  B & I are looking forward to spending a summer with our daughter & taking a little more time to spend on ourselves before the right match does come around.  My bucket list of summer to-dos to come!

Our Path to Here

Since so many people have either commented that they don’t know how the foster-adopt process works or have mentioned that they’d be interested in adopting in the future, here’s what our process & timeline has been like thus far: 

August 2010: Decide to adopt #2 vs. return to the RE at this time (though embryo adoption is on our minds for later on!)

September 2010:  Information Meeting with Open_Adoption & Family_Services and Bethany_Christian_Services.  Decide to begin the foster/adoption process with Bethany.

September 2010: Preliminary Application turned in online ($50)

September 2010: Formal Application turned in online ($500) with:

• ·      Background check (Oregon & Washington): criminal records, child abuse & neglect
• ·      Fingerprints (appt with local police office, $0 for printing since we’re being licensed as foster parents, $18 to sent to FBI with fingerprints & ROI)

October 2010: Preliminary Application approved; Received Homestudy Paperwork for State_Adoption

• ·      Fee Schedule Paperwork – sign & date
• ·      Adoption Service Contract for State – sign & date
• ·      Required Documents:

o   Birth & Marriage Certificates

o   Copy of divorce decree

o   Copy of last 1040

o   Copy of children’s birth certificate/adoption decrees

o   First Aid/CPR Certificate

o   PRIDE training Certificate

o   30 8.5x11 copies of family pictures collage

• ·      Adoptive Family Profile (physical description, occupation, education, hobbies/interests, religion,  personality traits, pets, personal habits, plans for childcare, home/neighborhood description, etc.)
• ·      Family History Data (family location, characteristics, health history)
• ·      Marriage History (past marriages/children from previous relationships)
• ·      Self Study Guide (30+ autobiography questions re: personality, childhood, marriage, work, childrearing/discipline, adoption)
• ·      Financial Worksheet (assets vs. liabilities; how we manage money)
• ·      Insurance Information & proof
• ·      References from 4 friends, 1 pastor, & B's employer
• ·      Physician’s Report/Vaccination records (including one for any children in home)
• ·      Discipline Policy Agreement
• ·      70+ characteristics of children to rank from 1-5 in level of acceptance
• ·      Questions for prospective parents (strengths/weaknesses as parents, goals/expectations for children, reason for pursuing adoption, etc)
• ·      Considerations in Adoption (even more questions)
• ·      Adoption Release & Consent Form - sign & date
• ·      Changes in Family Status Form - sign & date
• ·      Notice of Privacy Practices -sign & date
• ·      Adoptive Parent Training Log 

October 2010: PRIDE_Training (32 hours required to become foster parents, $0)

November 2010: CPR/First Aid Training with Keep_the_Beat ($0)

January 2011: Homestudy Paperwork turned in ($2000)

January 2011: Individual Interviews & Family Interview with Social Worker

January 2011: Received & turned in WA_State Paperwork for Foster_Parent Application (very similar to homestudy paperwork in addition to required signatures agreeing to various rules & regulations)

February 2011: Homestudy complete.  Approved by Bethany for either 1 child or 2 children in a sibling set under age 6.  In the Waiting Pool. ($2000)

March 2011: Received Foster_Parent License

April 2011: 2.5 weeks after receiving our license, we got a placement!

Keep in mind this was our process with Bethany.  They are a little more $$ than other local agencies, but fortunately B's employer should help us offset some of the fees once an adoption takes place.  At this point, there are two paths going on simultaneously behind the scenes for our little guy: a plan for reunification with birth parents & a plan for adoption.  If he is not reunited with his parents, it will likely take a full 2 years of legal process for any type of adoption to take place (2013!).  

Either way, we want what is best for him.  It's not our intent to parent a child who has parents capable & willing to change and who desire to be the parents they should have been in the first place enough to make it a reality.  It's our intent to parent a child who needs us as parents because it's what's best for them - though it can be a really uncomfortable place to be as we hope to see our dream of a bigger family come true, but know that dream may ultimately come at the cost of another being broken up. 

Love & Support

We've been so blessed by family and friends over the last 2 weeks.  Church friends have brought us dinner 3x/week, friends have either let us borrow or given us clothes & toys, and our daughter, K, has been welcomed into other's homes as we've been gone to appointments.  I also had a dear friend come over to play with the kiddos while I got a few things taken care of around the house (who knew that's what it would take just to get the kitchen cleaned?).  Last Christmas, K got a personalized brown & pink polka dotted backpack that I use to carry around extra diapers, snacks, crayons, etc.  Occasionally she likes to wear it around herself & I'm completely okay with not carrying around a big bulky diaper bag.  Not to be outdone, our little guy has a personalized gecko backpack (see Backpack) of his own on the way.  My mom & aunt bought it for him as an Easter present & it should arrive her tomorrow!  We feel so grateful that even our family has embraced this little guy from 3000 miles away & with knowing that he may not be with us forever.

When we had K, I learned (like everyone says) that it takes a village to raise a child.  Now that we're in this situation, I'm starting to learn it's okay to ask for help - necessary even.  The one thing that's been difficult for us having a foster son who doesn't sleep well is not being able to take people up on the offer to help watch him while we nap or just to give us a break.  Unless someone is background checked & fingerprinted, we can't leave him alone with them (state regulations) & that doesn't allow for us to catch up on some much-needed sleep easily!  Fortunately, all of the other help has let us put what energy we do have into adjusting as a family & meeting the needs of both of our kiddos.  

K & I normally spend 24 hours/day together so it's rocked her world a little to be away from us so often, especially last week.  Knowing I was leaving her with friends I trusted who are great moms themselves helped make the separation a little easier for me (ladies, you know who you are!) - though the look on K's face killed me everytime I left!  Our one-on-one time is just that more special to me right now & I look forward to the few hours a week when it'll be just the two of us.  I guess you could say that time together feels like one of my biggest needs right now (beyond sleep).

THE call

It's funny to me how things in life fall into place when you least expect them to & when you finally admit that you can't force something to happen no matter how bad you want it to.  We were told by our agency to expect up to an 18-month wait for a foster-to-adopt placement.  Given our hope & preference for siblings that wait would potentially be a bit shorter.  We went to a sibling carnival to meet sibling sets waiting for families (though most were outside of our approved & preferred age range) & regularly checked an adoption website for kids that would possibly peak our interest.  When that was going nowhere, I admit I had a little bit of a pity party.  I don't throw them often, but it had been a while since the last so that makes it okay, right?  What makes my impromptu party even more ridiculous is that it had only been 2 weeks since we'd been given our license.  How in the world was I planning to make it 18 months?!  In my defense, though it had only been 2 weeks since approval, the entire process had been unfolding since last August (so 8 months total) & in my crazy head I had visions of another '3 years to baby' plan similar to what we experienced getting pregnant with our daughter.  Of course, she was born at the right time & right place in our lives so why I was even worried about something I can't control was probably a little uncalled for :)  And unreasonable since 2 days after my pity party, we got THE call.

My daughter (K) & I were volunteering at a local hospital for parent/baby class when our agency called with details about a possible placement.  There were a lot of unknowns & it was for a single child, but I still said we wanted to talk about it & get back to our social worker.  B & I went back and forth for a few hours about the placement - would it work for us?  could K adjust well?  do we want to wait for siblings?  are there too many unknowns?  could we parent in the way this placement may need?  So many things ran through my head & I found myself praying about it all morning.  Even though B was on board, my mind still hesitated.  Honestly, it flat out screamed, "no".  And though I can't describe it, when it came time to make the call I had a very clear, overwhelming feeling that we were supposed to say, "yes".  That we were being put into this little one's life for a reason & saying "no" just wasn't in the plan.

I made the call & let our social worker know we were interested, but it turned out so were a few other families at that time.  Our social worker told us we'd likely know by the end of the day & of course if we didn't hear anything, we probably weren't the chosen family.  Though a little bummed, I thought to myself that maybe the choice was already made for me & I shouldn't have worried so much about the details.  It turns out less than an hour later the choice had been made & we were the chosen family!  After talking with the CPS social worker, we made plans to pick up our little guy the next afternoon (oddly enough, unbeknownst to our social worker until day of?!  guess that's how the government rolls).  Less than 24 hours after that call, our family dynamic would change in a simple meeting.  All of a sudden, we'd need 2 carseats (thanks to our friends down the street we could check that one off for now), little dude clothes (what?!  I only had little girl clothes packed away), & a whole lot more time to do any simple little task with TWO kids close in age underfoot.  Gone were our full nights of sleep, most of our free time, & a bit of our sanity.  But in it's place has been put smiles & giggles, signs of progress, and a feeling that we're making a true difference in our foster son's world.  Whether this was THE call that lasts a lifetime or a call before THE call, it's hard to believe we're here already - 2.5 weeks into a potential 18 month wait with a child that will leave a lasting impression on our heart no matter where he calls "home" in the future.

Why A Blog?

So I’m a blog reader – one might even call me addicted & I'd likely not deny it.  It’s my guilty pleasure to peek into the innermost thoughts of other people in similar situations & live vicariously alongside them in their journey.  It doesn’t matter that I don’t know most of these people, I can relate to them at times on more levels than I can some of my friends in real life.  As much as blogging may be therapeutic for bloggers, sometimes reading those blogs is equally as therapeutic for me.  I’m not a writer so I love it when others just put into words what I’ve been feeling in a way that I couldn’t eloquently express.  It makes my thoughts & feelings seem somewhat normal.  Why not take the plunge & attempt to write my own?  Just maybe there's one or two of you out there who are interested in my innermost ramblings or want an update on some of our journeys more than a facebook status update will allow.  

My blog is one that involves how our journey to parenthood has led us to become a 'family'.  I call it a "family by love" because it's not only blood & genetics that make us the family we are & the family we are becoming.  On the outside, my family looks like any other family.  We’re late 20-somethings, college sweethearts married for almost 7 years, and raising our 20 month old daughter together.  I happily let thoughts of being a career woman take a back seat to the one job I’ve known I’ve always wanted: Mom.  Unfortunately, no one tells you in sex ed that getting that job doesn’t always come as easy as they scare you into thinking it does – especially when you’re a 24-year old newlywed anxious to start a family. We’re the statistic – the 1 in 6 couples – that found themselves wondering why they couldn’t start a family and got slapped with the label “unexplained infertility”.  What does that even mean?  It means, on paper & by the numbers, everything works when in reality (dare I say in practice), it doesn’t.  What it meant for us was years of doctor appointments (3 to be exact), numerous invasive tests, hundreds of shots (given to me by my husband & including some 2 inch intramuscular needles!), dozens of blood tests, 1 3-day hospitalization for overstimulation, 2 failed IVF cycles, 1 successful IVF cycle, 0 embryos making it to freeze, LOTS of disappointment, a bit of cautious hope, and 1 beautiful loved beyond belief daughter born in August of 2009.  All details which deserve their own posts in time.

Now we find ourselves on the alleged 'other side' of infertility – though I’m not sure we crossed some magical bridge when we took our daugther home.  The pain & grief that comes with infertility hasn’t really ever gone away, but having our daughter, K, certainly helps shield us from the intensity of what that grief & loss once felt like.  At times, I still find myself grieving the loss of hopes and dreams that I selfishly had planned for my life.  I love being a mom to my daughter & so much so that I can’t imagine not having my dream of other children to love come true. 

Truth be told for as long as we continue to hope & pray for more children, we’re perpetually always crossing a bridge to the ‘other side’ – one that is uncharted, at times lonely, & maybe never ending (not to mention filled with emotional, physical, & monetary costs).  With each day that passes, each pregnancy announcement, each well-intentioned but hurtful comment we’ve been told, we learn to cope a little bit better and focus on appreciating what we’ve already been given.  In fact, I hope to never forget what it felt like to long for years for our daughter.  It can only make me a better mother now - one who doesn’t take the child I’ve been given for granted and who lives to see the world through my children’s eyes as to experience it with them.  And what better way to learn compassion for those women still fighting to get to the other side?  Especially those who feel they are going at it alone or just starting on their journey.

While I’m still navigating what it means to live on this supposed ‘other side’ of infertility, I want this blog to be a place to chronicle our journey(s) to parenthood, acknowledge my feelings & truth, and allow a space for reflecting on all of the blessings I’ve been given in life.  Of course, don't hold it against me if there is the occasional picture or two of a certain little girl who stole our hearts 20 months ago.  I know there are greater things to come for my family even if I can’t see those things in sight yet.  Since God is the Author of life, I know I could never write an ending more perfect than the one He has in store.  But let me tell you, patience is a lesson I‘m always learning as I wait for this life to be written.  

In fact, we are eagerly anticipating life's next chapter: adoption!  It's on our heart to adopt kid(s) through the WA_foster_system and we were finally approved to adopt & given our foster_care_license just over 2 weeks ago.  We know this journey will come with it’s own ups and downs, but after everything we’ve been through already, we know we’ve got this.  When the right kid(s) come along, it’ll be like we’ve always meant to be a family, but just took a little bit of detour to get to one another.