To Be A Foster-Adopt Parent

"The call came from a DHS supervisor at midnight: “We have a 3-year old girl at the hospital. Her mom was shot and is not expected to live through the night. Her dad has been arrested. Domestic violence. All clothing was taken by police as evidence so if you could bring a blanket that would be great. Can you come pick her up?” 'Yes.'
"The call came from a CPS worker while I was making dinner: “I just came on the scene to find a 4-year old boy sitting in the back of a police car. His clothing is soaked with urine from his mentally unstable mother; he may have lice, and he is filthy. Can we bring him to your house?” 'Yes.'
"The call came from another county as we were getting ready for bed. “We have a 2-year old who is sound asleep at the DHS office now. She was brought to the ER with an injury. Her mom was so high on drugs she could hardly function. This little girl is adorable. We just need someone who can take her for the night. Could you?” 'Yes.'
"The call came from the placement desk while I was in the middle of a run. “We have a tiny 10-day old baby boy. Things aren’t working out with his current foster home, and we need to move him. Do you have an infant car seat?” 'Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.'
"My husband and I are biological parents to two young kids, as well as foster parents to a revolving crew of kids under the age of five. A friend, who also fosters, once told me that calls from DHS are like a Create-Your-Own-Adventure Game. Each “yes” takes your family on a wild new adventure you never expected. I always wonder what adventure we are missing out on with the calls we can’t take.
We say yes because these broken babies need a safe place to land. They need a mommy to wrap them in blankets and tuck them in at night. They need a daddy to hoist them up on his shoulders and gallop them around the backyard. They need clothing that fits and food that nourishes. They need to be tickled and trained and taken to the zoo. They need boundaries. They need love.
I have been surprised to find how much we need these little people, too. They are sweet and feisty and stubborn and funny. They keep us on our toes and teach us lessons we need to learn.
People tell me all the time, 'I don’t know how you do it! I could never become a foster parent. It would be too hard to say good-bye to the kids once I’ve gotten attached.' And I get it, I do. I used to say the exact same thing. But now, I wonder what in the world I was thinking. Was I serious? It would be too hard for... me?
Make no mistake. It is hard. There are plenty of days when I feel like I just don’t have it in me to do this. My ideas and energy and patience fall flat. There are endless meetings and appointments and phone calls. There are false accusations and frustrating decisions. Foster parenting can be tough.
And yet these kids are forced to do hard things every single day, through no fault or choice of their own. They are abused and neglected and forced to fend for themselves. They are separated from siblings and shuffled from place to place. Kids in the foster care system have endured more hurt in their short lives than most of us will pause to think about, let alone experience, in our own.
The next phone call will come. And my husband and I will say yes. Not because we are some amazing poster family for foster care. We will say yes because these kids are forced to do hard things. The least we can do is look into their broken eyes and say, 'Yes. I will do hard things with you. I will hold your hand and kiss your head and calm your tantrums. By God’s grace, we will figure this out together.'
When it is time to say good-bye, I will wash their clothes and pack their stuffed animals. I will ache and cry and wish it could be different. But I will never regret saying yes."
~~~~~
Emily is a foster mom in Portland, Oregon and a volunteer with Embrace Oregon.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/lovewhatreallymatters/posts/1041568579198873:0

Angels In Our Village

Recently I have found myself caught somewhere in between being overwhelmed with so many of life's trials and challenges being hurled at us, to being completely overwhelmed by the love and grace of God, shown towards our family. 

I have been really sick the past month. I am doing better, but I am still struggling. It's the kind of sick that seems to seep all the way into your bones and consume all of your reserves. 

I'm going to need surgery. I'm scared.  It is a surgery that I never wanted to have. We do not have health insurance and have really struggled, trying to get insurance, ever since we lost it 5 years ago. We had no idea how we were going to pay for all of this, but we know that I need this surgery. 

On top of the surgery, I will also need monthly injections until the surgery can be done, likely within the next 3-6 months, after we find out how my body will respond. The shots are very costly. The funds just aren't there.

Those of you that know us best, know that it has been a very rough 5 years full frequent, intense trials mixed in with God's tender mercies. 

Despite our best efforts, we were starting to feel overwhelmed and somewhat abandoned by God. Couldn't he hear our desperate pleas for help? The trials He's asked us to walk through have gone on for so long. We're trying so desperately to keep on keeping on with a smile on our face.

BUT our family strongly believes in doing all that you can for yourself, and unfortunately this wasn't going to fix itself, so we immediately put things in motion to start raising some of the required funds that we were going to need. It was really difficult. I was so sick and my sweet husband had to pick up what I couldn't do. He was exhausted too, working very late into the night each night.

Then just when we didn't know how to keep going, even though giving up was never an option, God stepped in. 

Our dear sweet friends and family heard that our family was in distress and started showing up at  our door. Purchasing our meager offerings.

Friends and family gave more than what was owed for the little Christmas goodies that they bought. Some stopped in, just to donate funds, others sent checks, all to go towards the treatment, surgery and ER bills. 

Other friends made meals for our family. They watched our children. Some friends stopped in, just to see how I was doing and lift our spirits. They totally lied to me about how awful I looked, when they saw me. Even though from their initial reaction on their face, I knew I looked horrible. And some little elves bought our children's wight in candy, to fill their stockings with.

Some friends laughed with me and some friends cried with me. Some laughed at me because of my reaction to the meds I was on. No one judged my less than perfect house. And a friend even made ginger bread houses with my kids. My dear sister in-law took over finishing a Christmas present, that wasn't going to be done in time,  and I hadn't been able to work on it at all. Our family was even adopted for Christmas by amazing people that cared about our family.

We were surrounded by love. Unspeakable gratitude leaked from our eyes. God had not forgotten our us. He was still aware of our "little" family. We were surrounded by angels in the form of our friends and family, people that we hold so dear; loved ones that are going through hard times of their own. Hope was renewed within the walls of our home. Christmas excitement and magic abounded.

We still have hard stuff ahead of us. But we know, somehow, it's all going to be alright. And in the stillness and quietness of the night, you can almost hear the quiet words of the Savior, "In all the times when you saw only one set of footprints in the sand, it was then that I carried you...."

There are not adequate words to express our family's appreciation for all the help, love, friendship, and fellowship that you have sent our family's way. I hope that you will call upon us, if ever you are in a time of need, that we may return the blessings back to you. May God hold and keep you and your loved ones in the palm of his hand. Merry Christmas!!!

Halloween: Welcome to Hell

*Sigh*. Halloween. This is a hard one for me. I guess I will admit that I am not terribly fond of this particular Holiday. Don't get me wrong. As a kid, I loved dressing up and parading myself to our neighbor's door, begging for candy. Trading most of it back and forth with siblings after we returned home. Eating until you had a tummy ache and couldn't fall asleep. Seriously... the smell of the candy. Heaven.

But... I am not not a fan of being scared. I guess it is in part to the fact that I suffer nightmares. Like, every night. What I watch deeply influences my dreams, and while I'm sleeping, I have absolutely no idea that I am, in fact, asleep. Even when my cute hubby and I go to a movie, when you can sense that the scary part of the movie has arrived, he has instinctively learned to tell me to cover my eyes. I dislodge my face from his shoulder and resurface, when the movie is finally deemed safe for scaredy-cat eyes.

But now, my dislike for Halloween goes beyond me. Many of my children are not your average kids. I have children on the Autism Spectrum, children with severe Anxiety, and I have children that have been traumatized and have seen things that NO little child (some as young as preschool aged) should ever see.

These fears go WAY beyond being scared. I have had little faces buried in my side MANY times, squeezing me so tight that I have a hard time walking, as we enter just about ANY store during the month of October, because let's face it, stuff straight out of a horror film, is EVERYWHERE.

This year I had a child that did not want to go Trick-or-Treating. at. all. because he didn't want to look at, and experience all the "scary stuff" in our neighborhood. The temptation of "the loot" ultimately won out, and he ended up changing his mind and going Trick-or-Treating with us, but he had his head down or buried in my side most of the way.

I'm really not trying to be a poo pooer, thinking that no one should celebrate Halloween. And yes, I know that we have the choice to just stay home and boycott Halloween. I guess it's just the Mama Bear in me. I just wish I could better help my terrified kiddos make it through this particular turbulent holiday with some sort of childhood normalcy.

But I guess I also wish that people could be a little more aware and understanding too, maybe kicking it down a notch, KNOWING that there are going to be lots of very small children out and about, experiencing everything that is out around them.

Some of the stuff I see out there could easily traumatize ANY small child, that DOESN'T have any trauma attached to them. Is the goal really to scare the bejeebies out of little kiddos? Isn't that is who is coming to your front door. Too much to ask? Yes, I know. *End Rant*

Arriving At Our Little Village

I'm not entirely sure where I deviated from my original life plan, but I distinctly remember telling just about EVERYONE that I was NOT going to have an extremely large family. I was going to have 4 kids; 2 boys, 2 girls! That's it! I came from a family of 10 kids, and a big family of my own was not on my agenda. I had decided that you just don't get to have as much fun in a big family, or so I thought at the time. You don't get to go on luxurious vacations, you can't go out to eat at a restaurant as often, you usually have to share a bedroom, you frequently get the added pleasure of wearing your sibling's hand-me-downs, and don't even get me started on the amount of dishes and laundry involved....

Yet, here I sit, some 20 years later and I have the largest family out of all my siblings. In my defense, it kind of snuck up on me. Things we going as planned. I had two boys and one girl, when we decided to become foster-adopt parents. We turned in all of our paper work and asked to be placed with one girl, age five or younger. But then something happened. They called us and asked us if we would consider a one year old boy..... Hmmmm.

We said, Sure, why not? This little guy need a place to call home, to be loved and we could do that. This only deviates from OUR plan a little, right? If this little guy needed to stay forever, we could have 3 boys and 2 girls, right? I can be flexible! The foster placement quickly turned into an adoption placement and 9 months later we were adopting our first little guy. We felt so blessed to have this rambunctious little guy permanently in our lives.

We did get a few girls in between our next long term placement, but they didn't stay very long. About a year and a half after adopting our first son, we received another call form Social Services wanting to know if we could possibly take in 4 brothers. They had to move the boys from the temporary Crisis Center that day, and they had nowhere to put them. The boys had already been living in the facility a week and the Crisis Center told social services that they need to move the boys. Now.

I couldn't believed the words that slipped out of my mouth before even thinking about it. "Sure, we'll take them!" I paused.... I mean, why not? These little guys needed a place to call home and to be loved until a long term home could be found for them, and we could do that, right? I think you are already guessing what happened next. We quickly fell head over heals for these sweet boys and, yes, they needed a forever home too. We were extremely blessed to have those 4 boys join our family. Taking us from 3 kids to 8 kids in 2 years.

We thought we were done! But then a few months later our daughter started praying daily for a sister. Her prayers apparently were contagious, because soon another child was praying for a sister, then another. Finally a little over a year after we adopted the boys, we decided to go "off hold" and ask for another placement. We asked again for a girl, age 5 or younger. I told our Family Resource Consultant if she called me with a boy, I would unfriend her on facebook and stop talking to her! I was of course joking... kind of. ;)

But I don't think that anything could have prepared us for what happened  next. We finally got that call that we had been waiting for. It was a call for a girl, it was an adoption placement, and within our age range, except... instead of ONE girl, this placement was for THREE sisters. I really think that God may have misunderstood.... Our children were praying COLLECTIVELY, not individually, for a sister. ;) I once heard a quote that has stayed with me through the years. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him YOUR plans." God had different plans for our family. Obviously better plans than our own!

My husband and I talked about how crazy we were to even consider it. I mean who has ELEVEN CHILDREN now-a-days??? Except maybe the Duggars. They have more than 11! But we were not the Duggars... and they're amazing! I'm not amazing... I'm just me; no one incredibly beautiful, super smart, impeccably popular, or particularly important. Was I a mom that could really raise 11 children to be the best people that they could possibly be? What would this mean for ALL of our children? What would this mean for my husband and I? But at the same time... my husband and I felt a peace about this placement that could only come from God. We told social services that we would love to have them. After all, over the last few years, we had learned to do some very hard things. We had grown, and WE HAD BECOME MORE FLEXIBLE. These little girls needed a place to call their forever home and to be loved and we could do that, right? They would be surrounded by family members that loved them and that literally prayed them there!

They came to our family on my birthday, just after Christmas. Wide eyed and terrified. We all did our best to help them through that difficult transition that had become somewhat familiar at this point. We fell in love with these girls and we are currently in the process of making them permanent members of our family. They are eager to be adopted.

Even though we are well known and well loved by family, friends and our community, I thought even the people who knew and loved us would have something to say about this. I mean, WHO HAS 11 CHILDREN now-a-days??? Surprisingly, at least to me (I'm a little daft sometimes), the vast majority of the people that know us, have been AMAZINGLY supportive. Though a few of our friends and family have, understandably, told us that we are crazy, and we wholeheartedly agree, most, if not all, of our friends and family have been very supportive and told us, "Well, if you think you can handle it....."
My reply to them has always been, "Oh, I have FAR surpassed what I ever THOUGHT I could do, a long time ago".

I will be honest though, if someone would have told me ahead of time, these are difficulties that you will go through in raising these 11 children, I may have said said no, and passed on this incredible opportunity. First off because, well... I can be selfish. I was thinking mostly of myself and "MY Plan" at the time. But also because I could not have possibly comprehended the love I would have for these children and the joy that I would experience in raising them. If I would have said no, I would have missed a lot of heartache, yes, but I would have missed out on the best part of what my life was meant to be; what OUR life was meant to be. I would have missed out on SO SO MANY incredible, wonderful, AMAZING life defining moments! It has far surpassed any incredible vacation I could have taken, any expensive object I could have ever owned, or any time I could have called my own.

It was one step at a time that I got to know these amazing kids and grow with them, as well as learn some pretty important life lessons through some pretty difficult things. I didn't know that they were capable of coming through such difficult pasts. I didn't know that I was capable of coming through such difficult obstacles. And though there are many moments when I DO fail, there are so many more moments when we all succeed. And I see maybe just a gimps of the amazing things that God has planned for me and all of our amazing little "village".

One day, when I was having a particularly difficult day, and feeling like a big fat failure, my amazing husband gently pointed out to me that God trusted me SO much that he gave me (at the time) EIGHT of his precious children to raise. Most of them with special needs. God knew what I could do with them that no one else could do. God chose ME to be their Mommy. I am really trying to embrace his inspired words. I am trying to embrace what we are doing here, raising 11 AMAZING individuals. And that I guess is where THIS story begins.