My therapist says to "talk about it until it's boring." To not keep it bottled up. To not hide it, burying it with shame.
My parents used to beat the living crap out of me, and, worse, emotionally beat me up--every single day. They demolished me, destroyed me. I crawled out of that environment and went to college, redefined myself. Made my own family out of friends and boyfriends and professors and church. I prayed, every single day (metaphorically, not literally), that I would marry into a good family. I left my most-serious boyfriend who asked me to marry him (the second one who had asked me about marrying him) because he was the only son of the most horrible parents I could ever dream of--the restricting kind, who wanted to choose his career and his girlfriend and where he lived, etc. That's not the only reason we broke up, but it's a big one (continents was another big one).
I married into a family where I found out before my wedding day that my future sister-in-law had messaged my sister to ask her why I was so secretive and what the truth was about me, anyway. Pages and pages of dark questions and dirty comments about how they hoped I wasn't in it for his money and how they couldn't believe I wasn't involving my parents more in my big day. I was shocked and hurt, but not quite so shocked and hurt because people do that and I was used to it. I didn't confront her about it or tell her I knew about the conversation, but I copied and pasted it for another day. I kept it bottled up and hidden because I didn't quite know what to do with it.
But I didn't forget.
Fast forward two years, after I knew how that sister-in-law was, but found out I had another sister-in-law who also talked behind my back and said some of the most hurtful things about my most sensitive topic--my dead twins. She announced my new pregnancy for me, after I delivered my stillborn babies and then had a miscarriage after that. She announced it casually to the family at a get-together. "Oh, did you hear that Casey is pregnant? My friend told me." I ran into two of her friends that day, at the park and at the store. I saw them and I knew who they were, although they didn't say anything to me. I was 19.5 weeks pregnant and we were announcing in four days by driving to Idaho to surprise the family that weekend. She announced it on a Tuesday and we didn't go to Idaho. I cried instead. We had found out the gender that day that I saw her two friends (not sure which friend told her, and it's better that I don't know). It's just so ironic, with the timing. We had wanted to know the gender and get past the milestone week that our twins died, and she announced it nearly to the day that they died. Stole our bit of happiness right out from under us.
But I didn't keep this incident bottled up, because I loved this sister-in-law. It must have been a mistake. I cried and cried and cried and cried, and then I reached out to her again. (She hadn't responded to my first two texts asking her if she really had told people I was pregnant.) I wrote my feelings down and sent her a long letter about how crushed I was, and why did she do it? She knew more intimate details about me than anyone, and I was more hurt than I had been in a long time. She didn't reply.
Fast forward another half-year. We decide to move back to Idaho, where the entire family lives, both sides.
My first bottle starts opening up. My second incident presses on it. I hear whispers of family gossip that make me feel even more insecure about his family. Thinking about the first sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law makes me nervous and sick. Thinking about how ruined things became with the second sister-in-law (and her husband and my in-laws) made me feel sick. I started to dread going to Idaho. My husband had concerns in different areas, and it just started to feel like too much. My first bottle started cracking.
I wrote her an email. They're not the confrontational type, they aren't direct like I am. Not about conflict. An email is safe and you can think about it and you're far away. And she responded pretty well. She said she was sorry and didn't I already get over that incident?! Hadn't she already apologized for it before?!? no, I hadn't, because no she didn't, and no we had never discussed it before. but oh well it was out in the open now and the apology was weird but I wasn't looking for an apology anyway, I was looking to get rid of a bad secret that was making me paranoid about his entire family. That kept growing, after the second sister-in-law.
I felt better that one time after I wrote about my parents, and let that secret out. It was weird and difficult and gone, right after I did it. I knew it was out there in the open and it had no more power over me, so I wrote this one down because it does have power over me and it is the most annoying rock in my shoe. I can never predict how people will react, but I didn't see my mother-in-law's response coming. I thought she should know--since she's always involved in the details--that I was confronting my sister-in-law about the three years ago incident with my sister, and just giving my mother-in-law a head's up.
But she surprised me, badly. They don't gossip, they never have. They don't gossip, they just talk about their feelings. Sometimes those feelings are about me, apparently? And they can be talked about, then, because they're feelings. Some people handle their feelings differently. And I... I... have... expectations of people... and I want things done my way.... and i don't accept people doing things their own way..... like, by not talking about things.... because I want to talk about things....... and other people don't. Even if those things that I want to talk about are, in fact, about how people talk about me behind my back. But I should just Accept People For Who They Are and Not Rock The Boat! And what was my real problem, anyway? Had I really not gotten over it yet? I was still upset? I had had an EMotiOnAL yEaR after all so I was PrOBabLy just ReAcTiNg to ThAt! HeHaHoo.
[disappointed]
I'm shocked this time, but the big kind of shocked. The kind you don't see coming, from an angle you didn't even see coming.
I dealt with The Bottle and I got a whole new punch in my blind spot, and the bottle shattered and I ended up with a NEW bottle in my hand and I'm like "I DONT WNAT THIS FREKAING BOTTLE IN MY HAND, GET THIS OUTTA HERE I JUST GOT RID OF MY LAST BOTTLE COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNN." So I'm writing this bottle down and letting it sit here for someone else to find, like the kind of bottles people throw in the ocean and they find a hundred years later and they're like "oh my gosh I wonder who wrote this note and is this treasure map real" but it doesn't really matter to them, it's just exciting and weird.
But I'm not hanging on to any bottles anymore, I'm just accepting them as they come and putting them in their proper place, like this.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Mourning Matteo & Rome
A thousand words won't bring you back;
I know because I tried.
And neither will a thousand tears;
I know because I've cried.
Ah, yes... the mourning stage. It's taken me 4.5 months (19 weeks) to start opening up; the same amount of time that I was pregnant with them when they died, and now less than two weeks from their due date. Anger has finally calmed down (it's taken a long time) but I'm still very negative about everyone and everything--I'm very pessimistic now. I've finally gotten over Denial, since I no longer tell myself they weren't real and nothing happened. Dealing with some things from my past cleared up some of my feeling and helped me to acknowledge their deaths, and the real Sad is just starting to show up. Thirteen days until Rome & Matteo's due date: Tuesday, September 27.
A million times we needed you,
a million times we’ve cried.
If love alone could have saved you,
you never would have died.
If tears could build a stairway
and heartache make a lane,
We’d walk the path to heaven
to bring you back again.
Our family chain is broken,
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
the chain will link again.
I know because I tried.
And neither will a thousand tears;
I know because I've cried.
Ah, yes... the mourning stage. It's taken me 4.5 months (19 weeks) to start opening up; the same amount of time that I was pregnant with them when they died, and now less than two weeks from their due date. Anger has finally calmed down (it's taken a long time) but I'm still very negative about everyone and everything--I'm very pessimistic now. I've finally gotten over Denial, since I no longer tell myself they weren't real and nothing happened. Dealing with some things from my past cleared up some of my feeling and helped me to acknowledge their deaths, and the real Sad is just starting to show up. Thirteen days until Rome & Matteo's due date: Tuesday, September 27.
We Only Wanted You
Author Unknown
They say memories are golden;
well, maybe that is true.
We never wanted memories,
we only wanted you.
well, maybe that is true.
We never wanted memories,
we only wanted you.
A million times we needed you,
a million times we’ve cried.
If love alone could have saved you,
you never would have died.
In life we loved you dearly,
in death we love you still.
In our hearts you hold a place
no one can ever fill.
In our hearts you hold a place
no one can ever fill.
If tears could build a stairway
and heartache make a lane,
We’d walk the path to heaven
to bring you back again.
Our family chain is broken,
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
the chain will link again.
Friday, August 5, 2016
On Abuse and Mourning My Lost Twins, Matteo & Rome
I lost my twins 3 months ago, and I haven't cried for them yet. I've been angry, and I've gotten depressed, but I haven't cried. Today, after blowing up at my husband, I decided that I would go to the river by myself and think about why I don't cry for them. It took me two hours of thinking to even get to a place where I could remember them and feel feelings about them. And then a tear came out. I still didn't cry, though. Just one or two hot tears that I tried to brush away under my sunglasses. And then I began to feel mad again.
My mom's in the hospital. She shattered her wrist falling from a ladder, I heard. Well, actually, I read it on facebook and then my dad texted me about it later. I don't talk to my parents. I've kept in contact with them off and on since I left for college, but they don't know me and I choose not to keep a relationship with them. The only reason we've stayed in touch (on my end) is because of my younger siblings; I'm the oldest of six.
Growing up, I never "attached to my parents". I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why that might be the case, but suffice it to say that I distrusted them from a young age. The only things I really know about myself as a child are that I crawled to my crib when I was ready for bed, my mom weaned me from breastfeeding by leaving me with my grandparents and going on a cruise with my dad, my favorite toy at preschool was a basket, and we spent most summers in upstate New York at my grandpa's house. Oh, and my dad went to jail when I was 10 for choking me at the dinner table because I wouldn't eat my vegetables.
He got out of jail shortly afterwards because his parents posted bail, and I stayed outside the courtroom with a lady from church named Mrs. Robertson (Roberts?) who had a deaf son. There were at least two times I was taken out of school to wait outside the courtroom in case they needed me to testify, but they never called me in. I played with some small Polly Pocket-sized toy rabbits and a small house. I tried not to think about why we were there.
My mom dropped charges sometime after that, and my sisters and I had to visit him at his parents' house some weekends even though I didn't want to go. I tried to make jokes to lighten the mood (I pretended the refrigerator was named Amanda, since the brand on the front said Amana), I played Dr. Mario tetris (the one with the red and blue pills), and I listened to Mariah Carey Christmas music on the computer in the living room. My mom and dad got back together sometime after that and went on a cruise to Mexico, and then we moved to Colorado where people wouldn't talk about them.
Things were good for a minute. We had a hamster named Winnie-the-Pooh who always bit us, and my mom got pregnant with my third sister in Colorado. We lived by a famous hockey player named Adam Foote who played for the Colorado Avalanches. There were huge, awesome red rocks in our backyard along a trail. I was also too scared to go on the sixth grade sleepover field trip and I was mad at myself for it.
Colorado lasted one year and then we moved to Idaho right before my 12th birthday. Everyone has always asked why we moved to Idaho, and the family answer is that my dad's family sold their business and my dad semi-retired, and our cousins had moved out to Idaho the year before us and loved it. I think that's all true, with the medium-sized secret I kept bottled up about my dad grabbing my neck and shoving a fork down my throat, and then trying to grab my youngest sister and leave the house while we all hid and my mom called the cops while he watched TV downstairs. I can still picture the red and blue police lights outside the upstairs bedroom window. They handcuffed him and took him away. I was ten.
Seventh grade, Idaho, new baby sister followed by two baby boy brothers in the next five or six years. Hitting started again after 9/11 when my parents lost all their money when the stock market crashed. Every time I went to a meeting with my bishop at church (at least once a year) I prayed that he would ask me if my parents abused me. I didn't know how to bring it up myself, but I hoped that he would think to ask me, if he was inspired by God. He never did.
I stayed to protect my siblings. I got the brunt of it, although the sister right below me got her head slammed into windows and walls, too, and she also got kicked and straight-armed in the chest like I did. The other kids were mostly safe, to my recollection. Just some spanking and some yelling, which I decided that I would never do to my own kids.
I threatened my parents dozens of times about calling the cops, but they just told me good luck, that foster care was way worse than they were. I called two relatives, sobbing, asking for help, and they declined. "Please just help my dad, then!" I begged. They said they would see what they could do. Nothing happened.
I left for college, I kept in touch with my siblings, and I created a life for myself. I became happy, with an undercurrent of mad. I did counseling after my dad called me on my birthday and told me that the elephant in the room was that he and my mom thought I had bipolar disorder. I marched into a counselor's office and told her that I thought I had bipolar disorder and that I needed to be checked for it. She had me take a multiple-choice test that showed no tendencies towards mental illness, including bipolar disorder, but she was interested in why I thought I had it. We discussed my parents, I defended them (as usual), I attended a group session for survivors of abuse, and I doodled in my notebook while everyone talked. I said almost nothing, except for once. And another time I walked out because it hit just a little too close to home. I gained confidence in myself through my counselor, who was a brand-new graduate intern. She got a real job and I couldn't track her down after that, months after she cleared me and said I no longer needed her. I still feel like I do. I also stopped believing whole-heartedly in the church that I had clung to for so many years.
I jumped around jobs, following money and my heart, and I ended up in South America for six months where I immersed myself in the Spanish and Portuguese languages I had come to love in college. The ultimate bucket list item I decided to do when faced with the idea of marrying a guy with three kids. I hated the idea of marriage, but I liked dating. I got asked out by 8 guys the week of Valentine's Day the year before I met my husband. I was hard to get, and it was because I didn't like any of them, except one who lived too far away and one who didn't like me back.
I met my husband after my trip. Two weeks after, to be exact. He was the American date I was excited to go on before moving back to Arizona. I never ended up moving back; we drove down together and brought all my stuff back to Idaho instead. Married, first surprise baby after our first wedding anniversary, second surprise pregnancy two months after our first baby.
I found out the twins were dead at my 19-week anatomy scan. If they had known there were twins (like, seeing them on the two ultrasounds I had early on), there would have been an 85% survival rate of one or both of them. But they died and I hated the ultrasound technicians and I hated the OB doctor who said, "Well, even if we had caught the problem, you would have had to travel to Houston... or Salt Lake!" The Utah hospital that could have done the surgery was less than 3 hours away.
But hate invaded my heart, not sadness. Hate for my husband, surprisingly. He was the only adult I loved, and he got my wrath. No one else was safe enough for it, I guess. He survived it and we moved on, but I still never cried. Until today, on the bench, by the river.
I haven't dealt with my twins' death yet. I can't, until I let Sad out from underneath Mad. And Mad is also hiding Scared. I've hidden Sad with Mad because I'm Scared. Scared that more people will think I'm crazy, like my parents have repeatedly told me. Scared that people would take away my younger siblings and put them in foster care. Scared that my daughter will die, like my other two babies did. Scared people will ask what my dad does for work (I don't know) or why I don't talk to my mom.
So I'm letting Scared out, and I'm still scared, and tears come out when I think about people finding out my secrets. But I want to cry for the right reasons, like missing out on having twin boys alongside my daughter. Like finding out there are two in there at the same time as finding out they're dead. Like watching identical twin boys at the kiddie pool and wondering what it would have been like. And like facing my fear to find closure about why this could have happened and what I'm going to do about it.
So, in order to dig out Sad and be able to mourn for the boys I never got to meet, I'm going to pull a fast one on Mad, confront Scared, and let my secret out. I'm sure they're going to attack me the second I push "Publish", but I'll take that risk for getting to feel my boys.
My mom's in the hospital. She shattered her wrist falling from a ladder, I heard. Well, actually, I read it on facebook and then my dad texted me about it later. I don't talk to my parents. I've kept in contact with them off and on since I left for college, but they don't know me and I choose not to keep a relationship with them. The only reason we've stayed in touch (on my end) is because of my younger siblings; I'm the oldest of six.
Growing up, I never "attached to my parents". I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why that might be the case, but suffice it to say that I distrusted them from a young age. The only things I really know about myself as a child are that I crawled to my crib when I was ready for bed, my mom weaned me from breastfeeding by leaving me with my grandparents and going on a cruise with my dad, my favorite toy at preschool was a basket, and we spent most summers in upstate New York at my grandpa's house. Oh, and my dad went to jail when I was 10 for choking me at the dinner table because I wouldn't eat my vegetables.
He got out of jail shortly afterwards because his parents posted bail, and I stayed outside the courtroom with a lady from church named Mrs. Robertson (Roberts?) who had a deaf son. There were at least two times I was taken out of school to wait outside the courtroom in case they needed me to testify, but they never called me in. I played with some small Polly Pocket-sized toy rabbits and a small house. I tried not to think about why we were there.
My mom dropped charges sometime after that, and my sisters and I had to visit him at his parents' house some weekends even though I didn't want to go. I tried to make jokes to lighten the mood (I pretended the refrigerator was named Amanda, since the brand on the front said Amana), I played Dr. Mario tetris (the one with the red and blue pills), and I listened to Mariah Carey Christmas music on the computer in the living room. My mom and dad got back together sometime after that and went on a cruise to Mexico, and then we moved to Colorado where people wouldn't talk about them.
Things were good for a minute. We had a hamster named Winnie-the-Pooh who always bit us, and my mom got pregnant with my third sister in Colorado. We lived by a famous hockey player named Adam Foote who played for the Colorado Avalanches. There were huge, awesome red rocks in our backyard along a trail. I was also too scared to go on the sixth grade sleepover field trip and I was mad at myself for it.
Seventh grade, Idaho, new baby sister followed by two baby boy brothers in the next five or six years. Hitting started again after 9/11 when my parents lost all their money when the stock market crashed. Every time I went to a meeting with my bishop at church (at least once a year) I prayed that he would ask me if my parents abused me. I didn't know how to bring it up myself, but I hoped that he would think to ask me, if he was inspired by God. He never did.
I stayed to protect my siblings. I got the brunt of it, although the sister right below me got her head slammed into windows and walls, too, and she also got kicked and straight-armed in the chest like I did. The other kids were mostly safe, to my recollection. Just some spanking and some yelling, which I decided that I would never do to my own kids.
I threatened my parents dozens of times about calling the cops, but they just told me good luck, that foster care was way worse than they were. I called two relatives, sobbing, asking for help, and they declined. "Please just help my dad, then!" I begged. They said they would see what they could do. Nothing happened.
I left for college, I kept in touch with my siblings, and I created a life for myself. I became happy, with an undercurrent of mad. I did counseling after my dad called me on my birthday and told me that the elephant in the room was that he and my mom thought I had bipolar disorder. I marched into a counselor's office and told her that I thought I had bipolar disorder and that I needed to be checked for it. She had me take a multiple-choice test that showed no tendencies towards mental illness, including bipolar disorder, but she was interested in why I thought I had it. We discussed my parents, I defended them (as usual), I attended a group session for survivors of abuse, and I doodled in my notebook while everyone talked. I said almost nothing, except for once. And another time I walked out because it hit just a little too close to home. I gained confidence in myself through my counselor, who was a brand-new graduate intern. She got a real job and I couldn't track her down after that, months after she cleared me and said I no longer needed her. I still feel like I do. I also stopped believing whole-heartedly in the church that I had clung to for so many years.
I jumped around jobs, following money and my heart, and I ended up in South America for six months where I immersed myself in the Spanish and Portuguese languages I had come to love in college. The ultimate bucket list item I decided to do when faced with the idea of marrying a guy with three kids. I hated the idea of marriage, but I liked dating. I got asked out by 8 guys the week of Valentine's Day the year before I met my husband. I was hard to get, and it was because I didn't like any of them, except one who lived too far away and one who didn't like me back.
I met my husband after my trip. Two weeks after, to be exact. He was the American date I was excited to go on before moving back to Arizona. I never ended up moving back; we drove down together and brought all my stuff back to Idaho instead. Married, first surprise baby after our first wedding anniversary, second surprise pregnancy two months after our first baby.
I found out the twins were dead at my 19-week anatomy scan. If they had known there were twins (like, seeing them on the two ultrasounds I had early on), there would have been an 85% survival rate of one or both of them. But they died and I hated the ultrasound technicians and I hated the OB doctor who said, "Well, even if we had caught the problem, you would have had to travel to Houston... or Salt Lake!" The Utah hospital that could have done the surgery was less than 3 hours away.
But hate invaded my heart, not sadness. Hate for my husband, surprisingly. He was the only adult I loved, and he got my wrath. No one else was safe enough for it, I guess. He survived it and we moved on, but I still never cried. Until today, on the bench, by the river.
I haven't dealt with my twins' death yet. I can't, until I let Sad out from underneath Mad. And Mad is also hiding Scared. I've hidden Sad with Mad because I'm Scared. Scared that more people will think I'm crazy, like my parents have repeatedly told me. Scared that people would take away my younger siblings and put them in foster care. Scared that my daughter will die, like my other two babies did. Scared people will ask what my dad does for work (I don't know) or why I don't talk to my mom.
So I'm letting Scared out, and I'm still scared, and tears come out when I think about people finding out my secrets. But I want to cry for the right reasons, like missing out on having twin boys alongside my daughter. Like finding out there are two in there at the same time as finding out they're dead. Like watching identical twin boys at the kiddie pool and wondering what it would have been like. And like facing my fear to find closure about why this could have happened and what I'm going to do about it.
So, in order to dig out Sad and be able to mourn for the boys I never got to meet, I'm going to pull a fast one on Mad, confront Scared, and let my secret out. I'm sure they're going to attack me the second I push "Publish", but I'll take that risk for getting to feel my boys.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Interracial Foster Care and Dealing with Racism
[Mrs. Scott] said she hoped to goodness they would have no trouble with Indians. Mr. Scott had heard rumors of trouble. She said, "Land knows, they'd never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam around over it like wild animals. Treaties or no treaties, the land belongs to folks that'll farm it. That's only common sense and justice."
She did not know why the government made treaties with Indians. The only good Indian was a dead Indian.
- Little House on the Prairie, p. 211
My stomach did a literal flip-flop when I read those words out loud to my Native American foster kids. The only good Indian was a dead Indian. Seriously?! What can you possibly say after your mouth pronounces those words that are written in a book.
My kids choose the nightly chapter book themselves, and each child eagerly follows along in their own copy. They correct my error any time I might even mispronounce a word, let alone skip one; it's not like I could skim over an entire paragraph, or avoid a theme prevalent throughout an entire book. They had chosen Little House on the Prairie after we had finished Matilda, even though I mildly tried to talk them out of it. I'm not really into book censorship as long as it's age-appropriate, but I knew we were in for some early-1900's white thinking.
During the past few weeks I have awkwardly stumbled through sections where our protagonists react with hatred, fear, and even death towards those with perceived differences, while trying to create "thinking questions" as I read to help my kids work their way through tough topics. The first few times Ma, Pa, and their racist neighbors made comments about the Native Americans, my kids didn't flinch because they didn't know how or if they were supposed to react. Now, after having discussed hard topics throughout the book and having come to our own conclusions about them, they know that they can rightly express their indignation when the new settlers say things they have no idea about. "Ma is holding a gun in her lap because she thinks the Natives are going to hurt her," one child interrupts, unprompted. "She doesn't know that they're just like her."
Another night, one of the children jumps up from bed, arms thrown out, practically yelling, "Natives know how to hunt just as good as them! They even have better ways, like with a bow and arrow. And they don't need to stay in one place because they know how to use all the land. They talk bad about Natives and they have no clue. It's because they don't read any books because they lived in a wagon."
During the past few weeks I have awkwardly stumbled through sections where our protagonists react with hatred, fear, and even death towards those with perceived differences, while trying to create "thinking questions" as I read to help my kids work their way through tough topics. The first few times Ma, Pa, and their racist neighbors made comments about the Native Americans, my kids didn't flinch because they didn't know how or if they were supposed to react. Now, after having discussed hard topics throughout the book and having come to our own conclusions about them, they know that they can rightly express their indignation when the new settlers say things they have no idea about. "Ma is holding a gun in her lap because she thinks the Natives are going to hurt her," one child interrupts, unprompted. "She doesn't know that they're just like her."
Another night, one of the children jumps up from bed, arms thrown out, practically yelling, "Natives know how to hunt just as good as them! They even have better ways, like with a bow and arrow. And they don't need to stay in one place because they know how to use all the land. They talk bad about Natives and they have no clue. It's because they don't read any books because they lived in a wagon."
We have discussed how ignorance stems from not reading books and from not talking to people who look different from us or live differently than we do. I smiled on the inside that my child mentioned lacking access to books as a reason the settlers showed prejudice. Our conversations are working.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Losing Matteo & Rome
From my journal, 1/12/16: I have an undeniable, nagging feeling like Capri's sibling is right behind her. I think it's a boy, but I would love for her to have a sister next. But it's not even possible yet because I'm on birth control and I'm breastfeeding until at least 6 months (preferably a year) and I haven't gotten my period yet. But man I think about it every day. My baby is 2 1/2 months old!
Unbeknownst to me, I was two and a half weeks pregnant when I wrote that journal entry.
One day when Capri was 3 months old and being particularly quiet and good, I had a strange feeling that I should take a pregnancy test. It didn't make sense since I had just had a baby, followed by an ambulance ride for a hemorrhage (and then a D&C procedure) because part of her placenta had stayed in my uterus, which led to a secondary hospital stay for heart and blood pressure problems due to losing too much blood. In addition to the recurrent hospital visits, health complications, and birth control, I was also breast-feeding Capri, which also typically decreases the odds of getting pregnant. But I had an extra pregnancy test from the first time, so I took it while getting ready one morning. It had been about four and a half weeks since being released from the hospital. When the pregnancy test came back positive and read 2-3 weeks since ovulation (meaning 4-5 weeks pregnant), I flipped out. Uncharacteristically swearing up and down the hall--nearly hyperventilating--I struggled to get my shaking hands to call my husband at work. We had wanted our kids close together, so we weren't upset that our goal of a 14-month gap had turned into an actual 11-month gap, but we were equally surprised and confused and excited.
Since I hadn't gotten a period since giving birth to my daughter, I was scheduled for a dating ultrasound to determine how far along I was. One fetal pole was detected, and they guessed I was about 6 weeks along. The technician said, "At this point, we can tell there is only one baby in there." I saw a black blob next to the black sac with the fetal pole and asked what it was. She said it was nothing; just part of my uterus. (Spoiler alert: Turns out, it was another baby in a separate sac.)
A week later, I went back in for another ultrasound to make sure the baby was growing, since it was too early to see a heartbeat the week before. The baby had grown and a heartbeat was visible on the screen, and she determined that I was 7 weeks along. "There's definitely only one baby in there," the second technician said. "You'd definitely be able to tell if there were two at this point." The second tech was the more experienced one who we had seen with our daughter, so I took her word on it.
Early on, Cody said that he felt like we were having twins. I assured him that it was impossible based on the words of both ultrasound technicians. A few weeks later, while listening to the baby's heartbeat on our home doppler, we picked up two heartbeats about 4-6 inches apart, both in the 150's. I reasoned that it must be the placenta, and Cody read online that it could be an echo. I knew what the placenta sounded like compared to the heartbeat, and the beats didn't sound exactly the same, but there are only so many justifications you can make after being told twice that there is only one baby.
Cody continued to pester me that I was having twins, and I rolled my eyes and told him to stop each time. I thought he was trying to scare me, since Capri and the new baby would be so close in age, and I didn't give it any thought that he honestly felt like there were twins. Around 12 weeks, he told me about a dream he had where there were two babies. "One was really ugly," he said, "and had a problem with it's neck. The other one was normal." He started saying, often, that we were having twin boys. I felt from the beginning like it was a boy, but I had relied completely on the technicians' statements that it was impossible for there to be twins. I even disregarded the two heartbeats, even though I double-checked a few times to see if I could still hear it in two places. I could, as late as about 17 weeks, which was the last time I checked for two.
The only feeling I had during the entire pregnancy was that it was a boy. During my first pregnancy I had been so convinced that I was having a girl that I didn't even look at boy names before our anatomy scan. We had Capri's name picked out when we were about two months along with her, with no alternate boy's name. During the second pregnancy, we went back and forth between "Matteo Rome" and "Rome Matteo" for our boy name, and couldn't settle on a single girl's name. With Capri, I had been completely sick, too, with hyperemesis, so during my second pregnancy when I had only regular morning sickness, it reinforced my feeling that I was having a boy. I went back and forth on my feeling, though, because I felt like they were going to tell me it was a girl at my anatomy scan.
We discussed it a lot, and each time Cody asked me what I thought we were having, I said, "I feel like it's a boy... but I think they're going to tell me it's a girl." He didn't understand what I meant, but the only way I could explain it was that it felt like I was carrying a boy, but I didn't think they were going to tell me it was a boy at my ultrasound. I even cried the day before our anatomy ultrasound (which we blamed on hormones) because I said, "I really feel like it's a boy! But what if they tell me it's not a boy?" Cody reminded me, "But didn't you say you wanted a girl before you got pregnant? Free hand-me-downs, a sister close in age?" Which I really had wanted. But I felt like it was a boy, and I was afraid that it wasn't going to be one. Confusing, even to me, hence the crying.
The next day we videotaped our predictions. We filmed Capri first. She shook her head "no" when we asked if it was a girl, and looked away when we asked if it was a boy. We laughed, because she happened to shake her head yes or no at the most random times when it actually synced up with what we were asking. I filmed myself next, repeating how I felt like it was a boy but I was sure they were going to tell me it was a girl. I filmed Cody last. He said, "It's twins." I laughed and said, "It's definitely, definitely not twins." And then we went inside.
I was anxious to see the heartbeat. After about three seconds, I noticed that there was no flickering on the monitor. A couple seconds later, the second ultrasound technician, who also did our anatomy scan that day, told us that she had very bad news; that there had been two babies and that they had both passed away already. I told her that I had heard a heartbeat two days earlier. She told me that it wasn't possible (although both she and the doctor later said that they supposed it could have been possible). I wanted to leave right then, but I knew that I would later want all the information possible, so I stayed through the excruciating exam where she identified two fetuses, both males.
The technician supposed that they had died from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which we later learned happens when one twin gets too much blood and the other twin doesn't get enough. The smaller twin dies first from lack of blood and nutrients, and the larger twin then dies from getting too much blood which causes his heart to beat too fast. There is an 85% success rate in stopping TTTS when it is caught early, by reducing the amount of amniotic fluid in the larger twin's sac, or by doing a minimal laser procedure to even out blood flow from the placenta to each twin. When I asked the technician why they hadn't noticed the second twin during my first two ultrasounds, she became flustered. She hadn't known (or remembered) that I had come in already, let alone twice. There was no reason why they hadn't seen two babies, whether they were in the same sac or separate ones.
We were supposed to meet with our doctor after the ultrasound, but the extended wait time had given us too much time to reflect. When we heard the nurses in the hallway say, "Yes, he's on his way; he knows about the situation," after we had already waited nearly an hour, I decided not to wait any longer and walked out. The less-compassionate nurse called my phone numerous times, leaving messages about "needing to come in right away" to "have things taken care of" right then. I figured that I had arbitrarily chosen that day for my ultrasound and could have scheduled my anatomy scan up to a week later, meaning that it was not actually vital for me to go in that day. When the nurse finally spoke with my husband, she said, "You know you're gonna have to come in eventually, right?" He assured her that we did know, and that we weren't going to avoid it indefinitely, but that we would like to have a minute to process things. The doctor called us after that, offering to induce me the next morning. I would have to deliver since I was so far along.
Cody, Capri, and I checked into the maternity ward by 9:00am on 05/03/16, and they started pitocin at 10:00am. I predicted that I would deliver the babies by 4:00pm. It's mostly a blur, but my first water broke fairly quickly (and very painfully, as the entire sac was bulging out of my body). I delivered Matteo by myself after that, while sitting in the bathroom. I caught him in my hand, and then called the nurse. The doctor then tried to get the second baby out, but I told him that I thought I could do it better by myself. He left after a few minutes, and my second water broke sometime after that. I delivered Rome by myself, also sitting in the bathroom, where I also caught him in my hand. Cody cut both cords. I went back onto the delivery bed to have the placenta removed, which was the most painful part, and then we were done. Capri slept through both births and woke up cheerfully towards the end. Matteo was born at 3:14pm and Rome at 3:30pm. On average, twins are born 17 minutes apart, I later learned. The doctor and nurses were out of my room around 4:00pm, as I had predicted.
Rome measured 16 weeks 5 days, although I had heard the second heartbeat around 17 weeks the last time I had checked. We suppose he died a few days before Matteo, although he was small. Matteo measured 19 weeks 2 days, and I was exactly that far along when they were born. I had heard Matteo's heartbeat three days before he was born, and he came out looking perfectly pink. Rome had some physical problems due to his lack of nutrients, most evident in his underdeveloped neck, which looked exactly as I had envisioned it when Cody told me about his dream. Matteo had excess fluid built up from TTTS, but was otherwise perfect. He weighed half a pound and his body draped over my hand when I held him; Rome was a little smaller and weighed a little less.
Unbeknownst to me, I was two and a half weeks pregnant when I wrote that journal entry.
One day when Capri was 3 months old and being particularly quiet and good, I had a strange feeling that I should take a pregnancy test. It didn't make sense since I had just had a baby, followed by an ambulance ride for a hemorrhage (and then a D&C procedure) because part of her placenta had stayed in my uterus, which led to a secondary hospital stay for heart and blood pressure problems due to losing too much blood. In addition to the recurrent hospital visits, health complications, and birth control, I was also breast-feeding Capri, which also typically decreases the odds of getting pregnant. But I had an extra pregnancy test from the first time, so I took it while getting ready one morning. It had been about four and a half weeks since being released from the hospital. When the pregnancy test came back positive and read 2-3 weeks since ovulation (meaning 4-5 weeks pregnant), I flipped out. Uncharacteristically swearing up and down the hall--nearly hyperventilating--I struggled to get my shaking hands to call my husband at work. We had wanted our kids close together, so we weren't upset that our goal of a 14-month gap had turned into an actual 11-month gap, but we were equally surprised and confused and excited.
Since I hadn't gotten a period since giving birth to my daughter, I was scheduled for a dating ultrasound to determine how far along I was. One fetal pole was detected, and they guessed I was about 6 weeks along. The technician said, "At this point, we can tell there is only one baby in there." I saw a black blob next to the black sac with the fetal pole and asked what it was. She said it was nothing; just part of my uterus. (Spoiler alert: Turns out, it was another baby in a separate sac.)
A week later, I went back in for another ultrasound to make sure the baby was growing, since it was too early to see a heartbeat the week before. The baby had grown and a heartbeat was visible on the screen, and she determined that I was 7 weeks along. "There's definitely only one baby in there," the second technician said. "You'd definitely be able to tell if there were two at this point." The second tech was the more experienced one who we had seen with our daughter, so I took her word on it.
Early on, Cody said that he felt like we were having twins. I assured him that it was impossible based on the words of both ultrasound technicians. A few weeks later, while listening to the baby's heartbeat on our home doppler, we picked up two heartbeats about 4-6 inches apart, both in the 150's. I reasoned that it must be the placenta, and Cody read online that it could be an echo. I knew what the placenta sounded like compared to the heartbeat, and the beats didn't sound exactly the same, but there are only so many justifications you can make after being told twice that there is only one baby.
Cody continued to pester me that I was having twins, and I rolled my eyes and told him to stop each time. I thought he was trying to scare me, since Capri and the new baby would be so close in age, and I didn't give it any thought that he honestly felt like there were twins. Around 12 weeks, he told me about a dream he had where there were two babies. "One was really ugly," he said, "and had a problem with it's neck. The other one was normal." He started saying, often, that we were having twin boys. I felt from the beginning like it was a boy, but I had relied completely on the technicians' statements that it was impossible for there to be twins. I even disregarded the two heartbeats, even though I double-checked a few times to see if I could still hear it in two places. I could, as late as about 17 weeks, which was the last time I checked for two.
The only feeling I had during the entire pregnancy was that it was a boy. During my first pregnancy I had been so convinced that I was having a girl that I didn't even look at boy names before our anatomy scan. We had Capri's name picked out when we were about two months along with her, with no alternate boy's name. During the second pregnancy, we went back and forth between "Matteo Rome" and "Rome Matteo" for our boy name, and couldn't settle on a single girl's name. With Capri, I had been completely sick, too, with hyperemesis, so during my second pregnancy when I had only regular morning sickness, it reinforced my feeling that I was having a boy. I went back and forth on my feeling, though, because I felt like they were going to tell me it was a girl at my anatomy scan.
We discussed it a lot, and each time Cody asked me what I thought we were having, I said, "I feel like it's a boy... but I think they're going to tell me it's a girl." He didn't understand what I meant, but the only way I could explain it was that it felt like I was carrying a boy, but I didn't think they were going to tell me it was a boy at my ultrasound. I even cried the day before our anatomy ultrasound (which we blamed on hormones) because I said, "I really feel like it's a boy! But what if they tell me it's not a boy?" Cody reminded me, "But didn't you say you wanted a girl before you got pregnant? Free hand-me-downs, a sister close in age?" Which I really had wanted. But I felt like it was a boy, and I was afraid that it wasn't going to be one. Confusing, even to me, hence the crying.
The next day we videotaped our predictions. We filmed Capri first. She shook her head "no" when we asked if it was a girl, and looked away when we asked if it was a boy. We laughed, because she happened to shake her head yes or no at the most random times when it actually synced up with what we were asking. I filmed myself next, repeating how I felt like it was a boy but I was sure they were going to tell me it was a girl. I filmed Cody last. He said, "It's twins." I laughed and said, "It's definitely, definitely not twins." And then we went inside.
I was anxious to see the heartbeat. After about three seconds, I noticed that there was no flickering on the monitor. A couple seconds later, the second ultrasound technician, who also did our anatomy scan that day, told us that she had very bad news; that there had been two babies and that they had both passed away already. I told her that I had heard a heartbeat two days earlier. She told me that it wasn't possible (although both she and the doctor later said that they supposed it could have been possible). I wanted to leave right then, but I knew that I would later want all the information possible, so I stayed through the excruciating exam where she identified two fetuses, both males.
The technician supposed that they had died from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which we later learned happens when one twin gets too much blood and the other twin doesn't get enough. The smaller twin dies first from lack of blood and nutrients, and the larger twin then dies from getting too much blood which causes his heart to beat too fast. There is an 85% success rate in stopping TTTS when it is caught early, by reducing the amount of amniotic fluid in the larger twin's sac, or by doing a minimal laser procedure to even out blood flow from the placenta to each twin. When I asked the technician why they hadn't noticed the second twin during my first two ultrasounds, she became flustered. She hadn't known (or remembered) that I had come in already, let alone twice. There was no reason why they hadn't seen two babies, whether they were in the same sac or separate ones.
We were supposed to meet with our doctor after the ultrasound, but the extended wait time had given us too much time to reflect. When we heard the nurses in the hallway say, "Yes, he's on his way; he knows about the situation," after we had already waited nearly an hour, I decided not to wait any longer and walked out. The less-compassionate nurse called my phone numerous times, leaving messages about "needing to come in right away" to "have things taken care of" right then. I figured that I had arbitrarily chosen that day for my ultrasound and could have scheduled my anatomy scan up to a week later, meaning that it was not actually vital for me to go in that day. When the nurse finally spoke with my husband, she said, "You know you're gonna have to come in eventually, right?" He assured her that we did know, and that we weren't going to avoid it indefinitely, but that we would like to have a minute to process things. The doctor called us after that, offering to induce me the next morning. I would have to deliver since I was so far along.
Cody, Capri, and I checked into the maternity ward by 9:00am on 05/03/16, and they started pitocin at 10:00am. I predicted that I would deliver the babies by 4:00pm. It's mostly a blur, but my first water broke fairly quickly (and very painfully, as the entire sac was bulging out of my body). I delivered Matteo by myself after that, while sitting in the bathroom. I caught him in my hand, and then called the nurse. The doctor then tried to get the second baby out, but I told him that I thought I could do it better by myself. He left after a few minutes, and my second water broke sometime after that. I delivered Rome by myself, also sitting in the bathroom, where I also caught him in my hand. Cody cut both cords. I went back onto the delivery bed to have the placenta removed, which was the most painful part, and then we were done. Capri slept through both births and woke up cheerfully towards the end. Matteo was born at 3:14pm and Rome at 3:30pm. On average, twins are born 17 minutes apart, I later learned. The doctor and nurses were out of my room around 4:00pm, as I had predicted.
Rome measured 16 weeks 5 days, although I had heard the second heartbeat around 17 weeks the last time I had checked. We suppose he died a few days before Matteo, although he was small. Matteo measured 19 weeks 2 days, and I was exactly that far along when they were born. I had heard Matteo's heartbeat three days before he was born, and he came out looking perfectly pink. Rome had some physical problems due to his lack of nutrients, most evident in his underdeveloped neck, which looked exactly as I had envisioned it when Cody told me about his dream. Matteo had excess fluid built up from TTTS, but was otherwise perfect. He weighed half a pound and his body draped over my hand when I held him; Rome was a little smaller and weighed a little less.
My last pregnant picture before being induced
Trying to capture my immediate feelings after their birth
My view during most of the day. The clock reads 4:30pm and everyone was gone.
Capri and me with Rome and Matteo
Family picture
Monday, April 25, 2016
Disappointment and Foster Children's Birth Parents
During foster parent training, we listened to a mother share her personal story about her son, who was formerly in foster care. She had to work through some things before she was able to get him back, and she expressed her gratitude for the foster parents who watched him while she was getting better. Even before going to classes, I knew that my goal as a foster parent was to reunite foster children with their parents. I'm not here to snatch them from their families. Most kids want to be with their biological parents anyway, even when they've suffered extreme pain and loss from them. Kids want their parents. I want to help kids whose parents need to pull it together (or, in other cases, whose parents are no longer alive... but that's a different case). And I sincerely hope that parents learn to master their addictions, put their children above their boyfriends, control their emotions, provide for their children, and make the changes that they need to implement in order to become fit parents. That's what I hope the parents are doing while we've got their kids. Meanwhile, we don't use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco; we don't hit or yell; we don't fight; we don't demean; we don't neglect. We provide healthy meals, structure, reading time, play time, school support, and a safe environment. We create a place for children to grow while they are going through a stressful time in their lives.
Cody and I make it a goal to never speak poorly of parents. We validate children's feelings of missing their parents, listen to stories about their parents, ask them to share good things about their parents, and encourage visits with their parents. We show respect for parents in front of the children at all times--even when we are absolutely furious about things that the parents say or do, which we discuss behind closed doors well after bedtime. We do our best to not discuss the parents or their situations with others, even when it's tempting to vent.
Because of this goal, I have gone back and forth on my desire to share some of the intricacies of working with biological parents on this blog. A month and a half in, I'm still not sure how much I should share. The decision to write today's post comes as I've been noticing the page views climb weekly, with over 100 clicks on this blog yesterday alone, in countries such as the US, the UK, Chile, Poland, Russia, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Honduras. I figure that people are interested in learning about foster care, and that I would like to share those things I wish I had known about before experiencing it first-hand. With that, I would like to paint an accurate yet anonymous picture of what it has been like working with our first set of biological parents.
First of all: it's been nothing like the experience shared by the biological mom at our foster care classes. We've been insulted, degraded, and outright hated. Our foster children come back from home visits with stories that make us want to scream, but we keep it hidden from of the children. I would like to limit my examples to four, which I believe will paint an accurate picture while not going overboard on detail. The negative sucks, and we weren't quite prepared for it. I don't want to dwell on it, but I would like to let good-intentioned people interested in foster care know what I wish I had been prepared for.
1)Creating fear: We didn't understand why our kids reacted a certain way when they first arrived at our house, but after consulting with various resource people, we finally learned that the children had been told to stay on guard around us because their foster parents would try to sexually assault them if they weren't careful. Yeah, let that sink in. Having a child be terrified of you because they think you're going to abuse them in that way, because their loved one told them you would.
2)Passive-aggression: We keep a spare change of clothes in the baby's diaper bag, in case of accidents. She repeatedly would come back from visits wearing the spare pair, while the original clothes still looked clean. I asked the children why the baby's clothes kept getting changed during home visits. One of the children said it was because they said that the baby smelled like rotten food and they couldn't stand the smell. Mm-hmm. Because we feed our children rotten food? Because we hadn't put fresh clothes on the baby to look her best for the visit? They have come home from the past six visits with numerous bags and boxes full of clothes, toys, and candy because the parents say they are worried their children are not being taken care of. Our garage is full of garbage bags of old clothes (after their individual dressers are already overflowing with clothing), out-of-season winter clothes including 6-10 heavy winter coats per child, dozens of stuffed animals, grocery bags full of candy and junk food, etc.
3)Cancellations: Soon after arriving, the children were given two scheduled visits per week with their family. Three times in a row, we received a phone call ten minutes before the scheduled visit that it would not be happening due to a last-minute cancellation on the part of the parents. On one particular afternoon, we dealt with alternating meltdowns every 10-20 minutes until bedtime: screaming, crying, yelling at the top of their lungs, absolute mayhem. After three or four cancellations, the visits were changed to one day per week, at the request of the parents.
4)False hope: The children often come home with stories about how their parents say they're about to come home at any minute--which is completely unrealistic and untrue. The latest story is that the parents are trying to get the children to be able to stay with their grandmother's brother, so that they can stay with someone they feel comfortable with, instead of strangers (the child's exact words).
In essence, it sucks. Not what I had expected. Wish I had prepared myself to be a little tougher! Ha.
Cody and I make it a goal to never speak poorly of parents. We validate children's feelings of missing their parents, listen to stories about their parents, ask them to share good things about their parents, and encourage visits with their parents. We show respect for parents in front of the children at all times--even when we are absolutely furious about things that the parents say or do, which we discuss behind closed doors well after bedtime. We do our best to not discuss the parents or their situations with others, even when it's tempting to vent.
Because of this goal, I have gone back and forth on my desire to share some of the intricacies of working with biological parents on this blog. A month and a half in, I'm still not sure how much I should share. The decision to write today's post comes as I've been noticing the page views climb weekly, with over 100 clicks on this blog yesterday alone, in countries such as the US, the UK, Chile, Poland, Russia, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Honduras. I figure that people are interested in learning about foster care, and that I would like to share those things I wish I had known about before experiencing it first-hand. With that, I would like to paint an accurate yet anonymous picture of what it has been like working with our first set of biological parents.
First of all: it's been nothing like the experience shared by the biological mom at our foster care classes. We've been insulted, degraded, and outright hated. Our foster children come back from home visits with stories that make us want to scream, but we keep it hidden from of the children. I would like to limit my examples to four, which I believe will paint an accurate picture while not going overboard on detail. The negative sucks, and we weren't quite prepared for it. I don't want to dwell on it, but I would like to let good-intentioned people interested in foster care know what I wish I had been prepared for.
1)Creating fear: We didn't understand why our kids reacted a certain way when they first arrived at our house, but after consulting with various resource people, we finally learned that the children had been told to stay on guard around us because their foster parents would try to sexually assault them if they weren't careful. Yeah, let that sink in. Having a child be terrified of you because they think you're going to abuse them in that way, because their loved one told them you would.
2)Passive-aggression: We keep a spare change of clothes in the baby's diaper bag, in case of accidents. She repeatedly would come back from visits wearing the spare pair, while the original clothes still looked clean. I asked the children why the baby's clothes kept getting changed during home visits. One of the children said it was because they said that the baby smelled like rotten food and they couldn't stand the smell. Mm-hmm. Because we feed our children rotten food? Because we hadn't put fresh clothes on the baby to look her best for the visit? They have come home from the past six visits with numerous bags and boxes full of clothes, toys, and candy because the parents say they are worried their children are not being taken care of. Our garage is full of garbage bags of old clothes (after their individual dressers are already overflowing with clothing), out-of-season winter clothes including 6-10 heavy winter coats per child, dozens of stuffed animals, grocery bags full of candy and junk food, etc.
3)Cancellations: Soon after arriving, the children were given two scheduled visits per week with their family. Three times in a row, we received a phone call ten minutes before the scheduled visit that it would not be happening due to a last-minute cancellation on the part of the parents. On one particular afternoon, we dealt with alternating meltdowns every 10-20 minutes until bedtime: screaming, crying, yelling at the top of their lungs, absolute mayhem. After three or four cancellations, the visits were changed to one day per week, at the request of the parents.
4)False hope: The children often come home with stories about how their parents say they're about to come home at any minute--which is completely unrealistic and untrue. The latest story is that the parents are trying to get the children to be able to stay with their grandmother's brother, so that they can stay with someone they feel comfortable with, instead of strangers (the child's exact words).
In essence, it sucks. Not what I had expected. Wish I had prepared myself to be a little tougher! Ha.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Parental Death, Drugs, Abuse: Realities for Foster Care Children
The 8-year-old told me that her friend at school is in foster care because her parents committed suicide. I asked her if she knew what suicide was. She nonchalantly answered, "Yeah, both her parents killed themselves."
Another little boy we met is in foster care because his mother died of cancer, his father terminated his rights, and his relatives are unfit (like, people getting shot in the home because of who they hang out with).
But the majority of foster care situations I'm aware of are due to abuse or neglect, and many times those things happen because of drug abuse or alcohol abuse. People are no longer able to put their children first because of their addictions. At the alternative high school where I teach, I tell my students all the time to break their drug and alcohol habits now because the addictions get harder to fight, and a lot fewer kids would end up in foster care if their parents had kicked the habit in high school. No one starts a family thinking that they'll lose their kids because they can't handle their recreational activities. Everyone thinks they can quit drugs or alcohol if they really wanted, whenever they wanted, even today if they wanted to--but they're still having fun and/or coping that way.
I have one piece of advice for my high school alternative students, for teenagers in general, and really for anyone who still has their reproductive organs intact: (A) never start drugs if you haven't yet, or (B) quit drugs as soon as possible if you already have. Do it for someone besides yourself, even if that someone hasn't been born yet. And for those people who don't have any kids and don't have any reproductive organs or any desire to adopt or be around children for the rest of their lives: I guess you can do drugs if you want.
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