50 hours...

I’m going to pour my heart out here. I need it. I need this as therapy for me.

Over a year and a half ago I decided to get on with life. Maybe it was not in the cards for a husband to happen during child bearing years. Time to move on. I decided I would sign up to be a foster momma. So I did. I started classes. I decided I’d go through the process to be an adoptive parent too, just in case that was ever what needed to happen.  (Plus it was only a few extra papers to sign and one extra home visit.) Then Kearby came along. Sheesh, lol! You can’t imagine how amazing he is. He knew I was starting this journey so he wanted to get in the picture before he had to compete with some cute kid. This dude signed up for foster parenting classes y’all – after only dating me for a few months. My friends told me that once that happened, they knew he was the one. Who even does that? “Hey, she’s cute, fun, and awesome – she wants to foster so I’ll get in on that, too.” He is honestly the most amazing man. He is worth every tear I cried during break-ups and about being single for so long, he is the answer to decades of prayers. I can not wait to marry him in 40-some days. Anyway, back to this fostering thing. The main goal was to have a kiddo in my life for a year at a time, or less – love them, care for them, show them what a safe life is, pray for them, teach them about God’s love, etc. etc. Then this kiddo would go back to a family who worked hard to get him/her back. Also, turns out, I signed up for therapeutic foster parenting – I didn’t really understand what that was but that’s where I ended up, so I stuck with it. (You can google it, it’s a bit different than ‘typical’ foster parenting.)

Family trip to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens on August 5th.

So fast forward to Sept 2016. I’m going to provide respite for a family for the weekend. There is this cute little girl who I went to visit at her foster home who was going to spend the weekend with me. I got some removable letter wall decals and put her name on the wall in the room she’d be staying in. I was making plans, it was going to be great! I rec’d a call earlier in the week about some brothers. But then that was pretty much nixed. But then it wasn’t. I get a call later in the week and the younger of the two brothers may come in to care on Friday, when I’m supposed to pick up H from school for the weekend. You can go back and find the post about water everywhere on the first floor of my house that weekend, too – looking back just stirs up anxiety, it was crazy. So now to Sept 16, 2016. I end up walking in to People Places in Cville with a little girl then another family comes to pick her up to provide respite. And a caseworker from another city/county walks in with this 22 month old and there ya go. J is now a part of my life. Could be a few days, could be a few months. The first months were rough. I didn’t share the hard part as much as the fun parts but I went through so many emotions. I cried almost every day. Wow, life was nuts. 

Here we are today. I take J to see his birth mom for their supervised visits all but one Tuesday a month, when his foster care consultant from People Places takes him. From our home it’s close to an hour and a half drive, one way. She is always there. She loves her son. She wants him. We take her framed photos on Mother’s Day. We take her some of his artwork from school. I always do my very best to speak positively about her in front of him and encourage him to give her lots of hugs and kisses and “I love yous” at the end of the visits.
This Weds, August 16^th, it will be exactly 11 months since I was handed a kid on a Friday. I didn’t know his middle name for months. I had to figure out the size of diaper he had on so I could go buy more of that size. I had to hope he had no food or medical allergies. I didn’t know his sleep schedule. I didn’t know his bedtime routine. I signed a piece of paper and took a 22-month-old boy home. This Weds at 1:30 in a county in Virginia there will be two hearings. The goal for a child in foster care is almost always return home – until it isn’t. J’s goal has been filed as adoption. However, the judge has the final say. Just because DSS files the goal as adoption, it doesn’t mean the judge will decide that.
I didn’t originally sign up for this. I mean, if they had given me a tiny baby from the get go, I’m sure I’d have wanted to adopt it from day one, but who knows. Looking back, I think my intentions were to care for a kid and then send him/her to an improved home life. (And obviously it’s not that simple, there are specialists and doctor visits, all kinds of strangers in your home for visits, meetings, trainings, taking the kiddo to see birth mom/parents every week, not to mention just caring for the kid…) But here we are. As I write this, 50 hours, from court. I’m literally sick. Yes, there is a lot going on in life – wedding planning, jobs, geriatric dog, pre-wedding events, work, meals, kiddo – you know, life. I’ve had sinus stuff going on for a month now and finally started antibiotics last week. Because I’m so stressed about court in 50 hours, I’m not getting better and of course the antibiotics aren’t making my digestive system happy, plus it’s not happy due to the stress and anxiety. I had crazy nightmares last night and was afraid to fall back to sleep. I have anxiety disorder so everything is even more exacerbated and it’s ramping up its own crap-show.
So why am I writing all of this?
I needed to. I needed to put it in black and white. I need to share. I need this as therapy. I need you to know that I’m in tears. That I’m stressed. That I’m literally sick. I also need you to know that Kearby is the most amazing and supportive man and that God broke the mold (in a good way!) with him! I need you to know what foster parents go through. I need you to know that more foster parents are needed. I need you to know that if you choose to foster I will sit by your side and hold your hand while you cry because of everything and because of nothing. I need you to pray. Even if you don’t believe in God, pray for us anyway, please. I need to see this and remind myself to give it to God. There is literally nothing we can do except keep loving J, praying for J, and living a wonderful life with him.
This little dude, the best little dude. He has so many people in his life who love him. The system worked for him. He got help and care and is doing perfectly developmentally and health wise. We have papers from doctors and specialist to prove it – but watching him grow and play each day – we already know he’s perfect. After months of prayers and conversations, we know we could never not adopt him if he comes available for adoption. He’s already our son, and he always will be, no matter who he lives with.
So now we wait, we pray, we give it to God who already had this whole situation before it began. We love our son. We pray for his birth families. We pray for the judge. We pray.