My first kid, who we call MFK for short, was 14 years old when she came to us. (Her story starts at this link. Just continue to read "newer posts" and you can read her entire story.) Two CPS workers dropped her off in the middle of the night. She had a few personal items in a plastic shopping bag and nothing else. When she walked into our house, she sat down at our dining room table and the first thing she said was, “I pee the bed.” We smiled nervous smiles in the way that new parents do whose children can do no wrong and said “That’s ok!” We were just so excited to have her in our home. She was with us a very short time, less than two weeks. We had always said we would never disrupt a child; any child that came to us could stay as long as they needed to. But her past created too many risks for our future. One afternoon when she was at school, her worker called saying she found another home was able to move MFK that day and would come get her things and then get MFK from school and take her to her new home. My heart sank for her at that moment. She had been at her school for over two years and she deserved a chance to say “good bye” to her friends and teachers. And I wanted a chance to say “good bye" too! So I asked her worker if she could stay one more night.
That evening MFK and I baked and decorated cupcakes for her friends and
I helped her write thank you notes to her teachers so she could go to school
the next day and tell everyone “good bye.” That last morning as I drove her to school we spent the time in the car nervously chatting back and forth. I
tried to tell her in a simple way that we would always be friends without
saying the words “I love you”, but I knew she’d heard it all before and didn’t
believe a word of it. We walked into school together and I signed her in and
she just kept walking. She never said “good bye” or gave me a hug like I thought she would. I just watched her meld into the sea of other kids and felt like she had just slipped from my grasp and was drowning in quick sand and I knew we had failed her.
Later I found the gift she left for us on the floor of her bedroom; a big urine
stain. We still talk of MFK often; I still think of her and pray for her consistently. And we still deal with the guilt of not keeping her and not working hard to give her a better life, instead we have to face the reality that we laid another stone in the path of her never ending journey stuck in the foster care system. That’s hard to swallow because that is exactly what we didn’t want to do!
Our next foster care placement was two little brothers; BigE and BabE. (Their story starts here and continue with "newer posts" to read their entire story.) Their arrival was much different than MFK’s. They came with four workers and a carload full of clothes and toys. BigE was rambunctious and busy and the type of 22 month old who you look at and just think “he’s trouble!” BabE was asleep when he arrived, but one look told you he was gorgeous and needy, like any 4 month old baby, still so tiny. Our boys were with us for 11 months and 3 weeks. They are the children that made us parents. They are the ones who filled a giant void in our hearts and gave us the opportunity to experience so many firsts. It was after 5 months and 5 days that BigE first called me “Momma.” Something I will never forget. We experienced all of BabE’s firsts: first tooth, first steps, first haircut, first Christmas, first birthday…all the firsts. But no seconds, no forever. The pain of the day they left and the months afterward was to us as if they had died. We never wanted temporary children, we wanted forever children.
After the boys left and after having some time to grieve and heal the thought
came to us “Maybe this isn’t about us. Maybe this is about children!” It was a light bulb moment. It wasn’t about us searching for forever children, but rather about us being there for the exact children who needed us now.
Several months later we welcomed a precious two day old newborn into our hearts, our Lil Angel. (Her story starts here.) By this time we felt like we were somewhat seasoned foster parents and had learned how to play the game a bit better with birth parents. It’s like working against ourselves to try to support reunification with birth family when we so desperately wanted to grow our own family permanently. Lil Angel had some great workers who saw right through us and made it safe for us to be honest with them, but still play the role of “we just do this because we want to help families” in front of her birth parents. We knew it was likely Lil Angel would leave us at some point, but we tried to ignore the inevitable, realizing that life doesn’t guarantee us another day with anyone we love. All of our futures are uncertain, so we loved her every day and rarely talked about the unknowns with each other, but hounded her workers with all of our doubts and fears. Many times they listened to us cry at the thought of losing her and sometimes cried with us. We feel that her workers were as honest as they could be with us and we even said “her birth parents can parent her, if they want to, it’s up to them.” Lil Angel left us after 11 months and 1 week.
The morning she left we were playing with her on the living room floor
and she took her first steps, from me to Meek. It was her gift to us. Then the worker took her home to live with her birth parents. I have never seen my
husband cry like that before and hope I never do again. To deal with his broken heart made me feel completely helpless.
Two weeks later, I was taking a nap while Meek was preparing for work when the phone rang. Caller ID said it was Our County; I snatched it up knowing that we would hear our Lil Angel was going to be returned to us! Instead it was one of her workers, bravely calling to discuss two other little girls. They had been in care for 10 months and needed to move them to another home.
It wasn’t the call I thought it was, it wasn’t the timing I would have
chosen, but I got some more information from her and went downstairs to tell
Meek.
Two little girls? By this time I was in nursing school. Could I continue with
two little girls under 3 years old? How could we NOT consider taking them?
Meek said “I’m not ready” and I said “We can’t afford to say no. What if they are OUR children?” I don’t recall how long it took, but the worker gave us time to consider it and ask her every question we could think of, then she said “Would you like to meet the children?” I knew right then that once we saw them we would love them.
Big Sis and Small Sis moved into our home full time the day before Thanksgiving 2010. Their Baby Sis was born January 2011. And on April 12, 2011 our family was conceived after the three of them were surrendered free for adoption.
Today Angelina, aka Big Sis, is 4 years old, she is LOUD, and everything she does is loud. She is smart, brave and too anxious to grow up.
Hailie, aka Small Sis, is 2 ½ and makes us laugh every day, she is sensitive, and a homebody just like her Mom.
Grace, aka Baby Sis, is perfection in a baby! In January we celebrated her first
birthday, and we'll be there for her 21st birthday!
Every single day we enjoy our girls, every day we enjoy the reality of our dreams of having a forever family, all made possible by a foster care system that we thought was going to kill us before we ever saw forever.
Thank you, dear friends, for traveling this road with me. The love and support you have given me through this blog the past 4+ years has helped us get to this point. The friendships I've made because of this blog are special to me in a way that is hard to express. People who know some of my deepest thoughts and support me with love and prayers, but friends that I've never met IRL.
Good Bye 'Meek The Jerks and Me'. When the time comes I will share this blog with Angelina, Hailie and Grace, so they know the story of us becoming a forever family.
LOVE to all of you from My forever family,
