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.

We Only Wanted You

Author Unknown

They say memories are golden;
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.

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.

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.

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."  

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Funny foster parent texts :)

An actual picture I have texted to my husband within the past ten days

Fairy Godmothers:
I have officially outlawed the phrase "I wish" from our house, directly following the fifth "I wish I could have cereal for dinner..." comment that I had already responded to three times.  They are allowed to say directly, "can I have this?" and then listen to the answer, but they're not allowed to wistfully say "I wish I had that," progressively getting louder until I hear them.  I told them we are not fairy godmothers.

Hypocrisy:
They asked for cereal for dinner and I said no, and now I am having cereal while they're in bed because I need it, and also because I am a bad person.

The Baby Hooha Talk:
We had to cut baby naked time short due to extensive curiosity that I was not ready to address.
Maybe you should take the time to explain it now.  Let's be ahead of the game.

Naughty baby daughter:
Former cute baby for sale.
I have a dollar.
How about 50 cents?
Deal, I'll take her.  Could you make her cute again though?
No I couldn't, the cuteness has expired.
25 cents then?

Honey badger babies:
This honey badger has slept 45 minutes since 6am, and it's 11:52. I'm scared of her.

Toxic waste:
I could have used a respirator for that last diaper.  Why couldn't she be anything like me?

Bedwetting:
He just said, "today's my fifth day of not wetting the bed!"
Was he really sleepwalking through all of that last night?!
He just asked me, "why am I in my underwear?" and I said, "do you remember peeing your pants in the hallway last night?" Nope.

Baby thieves:
Um I noticed that you had not quite opened your oatmeal cream pies.  I think the babies might steal some or something.  Sorry bout that.
But babies don't need oatmeal cream pies.
Tell them that! There are two missing!
Naughty, naughty babies...

Glorious Respite Care! (when you need or want a break during foster care)

I can't think of enough positive exclamatory words to profess my love for respite care.  After not sleeping for 4 weeks straight, we were given a two-night vacation from our foster care parental duties while all three kids spent the night at foster-certified babysitters' houses--the girls at one house and the boy at another, due to bedroom regulations and available space.

Adding the foster baby was WAY harder than bringing our daughter home as a newborn, as we didn't have the luxury of maternity/paternity leave, we had another baby that started waking us up again at night, and we had two other kids to take care of in addition to our home and work responsibilities.  (Our house is still not as clean or as organized as it was on our "worst" days pre-foster care.)  With our foster baby and our daughter taking shifts keeping us awake at night, we were walking zombies after a week, and nearly-dead after a month.  When we were reminded of the possibility of respite care, we asked our caseworker to warn the baby's potential respite family that she doesn't sleep and that we have been waking up every 1-2 hours since she got here.  She was unable to place all three kids together (hence the need for more qualified foster parents, even if they solely do temporary respite care, hint hint!), but she did find willing families to care for them for a weekend, and they later said that they'd take them again, woohoo!

I hope it doesn't sound terrible expressing my joy at having a one-baby weekend... but holy freaking crap we were absolutely exhausted.  We had even mentioned to our case worker that we had dedicated one month to helping the new baby adjust, and we were willing to give it one more month to see if she would stop crying incessantly during the night, but that we would have to find a new foster home for her if she didn't show some improvement at night so that we could get some sleep.  

When she came back the morning after her second night, she practically leapt into Cody's arms, giggling.  He put her in her crib and she gave a big sigh, and went right to sleep.  Since then, she's been slightly better--which has been really weird.  We still have nights where she wakes up every 40 minutes for a few hours, but we've also had some nights where she sleeps for 3+ hours in a row.  And she doesn't whine nearly as much during the day.  We're not sure what changed--or if she was just feeling our exhausted energy before she left?  But things have gotten significantly better, for some reason.

Cody and I have a big vacation planned with our daughter in June: two weeks in Australia and New Zealand!  Foster children aren't allowed to leave the state, so they will be staying in respite care again for those two weeks.  Knowing that we have this additional resource makes it so much easier to not feel trapped by foster care.  We will probably use respite care again once more before our trip (and maybe twice, if I end up having to serve in jury duty, ugh) and it just feels like guilt-free, worry-free freedom to know that your children are in good hands when things get overwhelming and you just need a break.  Which, again, I hope doesn't sound terrible to be so excited about child-free partying... but we totally were. :)

Surviving Lice: Random Foster Care Responsibilities and Surprises

Getting rid of that gorgeous long hair, with permission from his mother.  Foster parents are only allowed to get a child's hair cut with permission from the parent.  We had to buy clippers and do this cut ourselves because salons won't cut hair that has lice.

Within 30 days of initial placement after being taken from their homes, foster children must receive a physical exam from a doctor.  Within 60 days, they must also have eye and dental exams.  Birth parents are encouraged to attend all appointments with the foster parents, who have medical authorization for the child.  

At our children's physical exams, their mother pointed out that they have lice.  I never thought to check, as they generally do their own hair and they've never complained of itching.  The kids later told us that they're used to the itching because they get lice all the time; they've had it at least 3-4 times before this, that they can remember.  They said they've gotten it from friends' houses and from sleeping on the floor of the shelter, where bugs crawl in your hair at night.  We got prescriptions from the doctor and have been treating and washing hair, blankets, clothes, pillows, coats, and everything else in our house.

On top of that, we cannot kick the sickness around here!  I got sick first, four days after the kids arrived.  Cody got sick a day or two after me, followed by both babies and maybe now one of the older kids.  We found out at the doctor that all three kids came to us in the middle of treatment for the flu, for which two of them had gone to the ER due to complications.  They never finished their medicine, which was for type A for one kid, type B for another, and both types for the third.  I'm on day 12 of being sick, and we're pretty sure I've cycled through both types of flu--even though I had the flu shot in October.  The babies are barely starting to get better after about 9 days each of being sick, with a lot of screaming at night and during the day because they're miserable.  

My goal in spreading foster care awareness is to help people see the need for good foster parents, while also painting an accurate picture of what to expect.  It's rewarding and very, very challenging.  Lately I've been thinking about an experience I had in Chile, where my mission companion and I befriended a homeless teenager who had been living on the streets for months.  We found him sleeping on the grass one morning outside the house of an older lady who put coffee and bread out for him each day.  We wanted to help him, so we used our connections to find someone who could give him a job to help him get out of his situation.  We knew his past was littered with illegal activity, and we told our friend with the job to be aware and to not be surprised if the boy stole from him.  The man was eager to help and brushed off the warning about stealing, excited to do something to better the life of another.  Within a week, we got an angry phone call from the man who was furious that the boy had vanished after stealing an expensive piece of equipment from him, after all he had done for him.  Change does not come quickly or painlessly, for any involved.

My point in sharing that story is to show that doing good sometimes comes with a cost.  During these past two weeks, we've been fighting the worst illnesses we've ever had while trying to maintain a home with three new children who need us all day, every day.  Our house has been ransacked, once again, trying to conquer the lice that have entered our home.  We've done dozens of loads of laundry in 16 days.  Cody and I have not slept more than 2 hours in a row, and a total of 6 hours of sleep a night would be a dream.  We're sick, we're emotionally and physically exhausted, and we have a lot of work to do to stay on top of everything right now.  Foster care is important and it's needed, and it's very hard.  I'm sure it won't always be so intense, but this first experience has been quite the change. 

I want people to know that good foster parents are needed, yet this decision cannot be made lightly.  The thing that helps me get through the hard times is thinking about the children, and remembering that if we don't do this, who will?  There is a shortage of foster homes in general, and there is an even greater shortage of good foster homes.  These children need good homes.  They need someone to love them and take care of them and help them through lice and illness and homesickness and fights with their sibling.  And if we don't do it... who will?

ReMoved: Foster Care Film (and other resources)

Children are taken from their homes and put into foster care due to the actions of their parents: parental death, physical/sexual abuse, neglect, drug/alcohol use, jail, mental illness, etc.  They need a place to feel safe, a place to feel loved, a place to heal, and a place to keep growing up slowly.  If you find yourself interested in helping vulnerable children through foster care, educating yourself about foster care first is key.  I recommend starting by watching the films ReMoved and Remember My Story, and reading other blogs and articles about people's experiences.

Adoptuskids.org features foster children who are awaiting permanent homes throughout the US, which helps put faces to an idea.  I recommend reading a few good books, like No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, by Melissa Fay Greene, which is actually about international adoption of older kids, but which is very applicable to foster care children's experiences.  There are many people, including my husband and I, who are willing and interested in sharing more about foster care--just ask.

Our initial response to doing foster care: Expectations vs. Reality

Cody and I have been having some really good conversations about our foster care experience so far, our expectations vs. reality, and our hopes and goals for our future in foster care.  We've both noticed numerous people mentioning to us, quietly, that they've wondered about or thought about doing foster care, but haven't looked into it.  We both think that there are certain people cut out for foster care, and those people are the ones who get passing thoughts like, "maybe I could do that".  Literally the only requirement I see is the desire to help a child.  You don't need to be rich, married, working or not, childless, homeowning, looking to adopt, or anything else.  You need a spare bedroom.

Foster care has pretty much gone how we expected, with some things a little harder in practice, and a few things a little easier.  The bigger kids are generally a LOT easier than I had thought.  They're potty-trained, they know how to read, they can play together outside, they're at school for most of the day, and they eat about as much PB&J as predicted.  The emotional effects of being taken from their home and caregivers does come out occasionally in tears, tantrums, the silent treatment, and boundary-pushing, but that's part of foster care; it's just a little different thinking and hearing about it versus experiencing it.  It still sucks, but it's not as bad as I anticipated, and it happens a lot less often than I prepared myself for.  I think if you educate yourself on the whys of foster care, it makes the whats a lot easier to handle.

When we were certified for foster care, we said that we were open to children ages 0-18, but that we preferred children between ages 4-10 due to our current life situation.  (We are also resource parents for teen foster children in group homes, which is based on check-outs while they live somewhere else.)  We were certified to host two children, as we have one spare bedroom with two twin beds available upstairs, while we're remodeling our basement which has two more rooms and a living room downstairs.  When we got the call about our three current foster children who were in the process of being removed from their home, we were asked if we could make an exception to host three children instead of two, including an infant, so that they didn't have to be separated.  We were a little nervous about the added challenge, but our hearts answered first and we said yes after a 5-minute discussion while the caseworker waited on the other line.  We keep joking to each other that next time we're definitely going to stick to our guns and keep it at two children who are at least potty-trained, but we both know we're way too soft to promise that.  You can't predict who will need you, when.  We had been asked about two or three different children before we accepted our first placement, though.  For each of them, we didn't feel like it was right, yet we did with our placement, even though it didn't make much logical sense.

Mixed emotions: Some people suck, but most people are normal and foster kids need them

Unfinished remodel of our house, millions of laundry, recovering after a week of the flu at our house, cranky baby, don't even look in our kitchen

I've had two main thoughts lately:

First of all, I'm nervous that people are interpreting what we're doing as exceptional rather than do-able.  I've started sharing pieces of our foster care experience on social media, and the response is not what I thought it would be... there are lots of wows and you're amazings and how do you guys do it?s, which does seem to be the appeal of social media posts in general, but that's not my purpose in sharing.  I don't want people to look at us, I was them to look at foster care.  And maybe that's something that comes with time, or something that's happening but not quite as outwardly.  But I was expecting zero praise, a few clicks on blog posts to learn about our experience, and hopefully some people realizing that they can (and maybe should) look into doing foster care.  I don't want us to seem like the exception, like we have some magical ability to parent 3 children who are not our own, in addition to our infant daughter; I want people to realize that we are the exact same people they already know, who have zero special abilities, who are doing something to help children who desperately need it, and that they can do it, too.

Second, holy crap, some people suck.  There have been a few experiences this week where I've realized that there are a lot of people out there ready to drag other people down, and there is a huge need for good people to do something good in the world.  Not to list off a book's worth of rants, but I will mention some poor treatment at the grocery store for using state-issued vouchers for clothing and diapers and for using WIC food stamps to get formula and baby food.  I get that the welfare system gets abused, but there should not be such a harsh stigma attached to getting government assistance--especially when it's going to foster care children who need it.  The expectation is not for foster families to purchase everything their foster children might need; the children are wards of the state, and the state pays to make sure they have what they need.  Foster children qualify for free meals at school, WIC food stamps for children 5 and under, Medicaid, clothing vouchers, free daycare for working foster parents, and other resources, which foster parents should put to good use.  There shouldn't be any out-of-pocket expenses for foster parents since foster families receive a small subsidy to cover increased groceries and miscellaneous expenses, etc.  There are always stories about people doing foster care for the wrong reasons, like pocketing the subsidy money and not having to work--which sucks.  But that just highlights, again, the need for honest, good people to step up and help these children who need someone to look out for them and someone to love them.  The resources are available, and there's no reason not to use them.

Progress Amid Setbacks: Sickness, Home Visits, Crying, and Learning to Roll Over

Day 6 with the kids, day 2 of non-stop vomiting and fever for me.  Less than ideal timing.  I got 2 bags of IV fluid and a couple prescriptions yesterday, when I couldn't even keep ice down.  Super-dad Cody took yesterday off work, and luckily had the next 3 days off to take care of the four kids and me.  Being sick sucks, and one parent having to handle two babies and two kids (and me) is tough.  But the kicker was having their first home visit on the same day that we were already exhausted and overwhelmed.

We knew from our foster care classes that kids tend to act out after home visits, when they get to see their parent(s) for a brief supervised visit, but holy crap.  It seems like all the progress we had made during their first 5 days went out the window.  Everything became an issue.  Mealtimes, bedtime, waking up the next morning, doing homework, playing outside... everything that had been pretty straight-forward before the home visit became meltdown-worthy afterwards.

It's hard to know exactly what they're thinking and feeling, but you can make a pretty good guess.  The baby got even more clingy, and the big kids got angry and talked back and threw fits about everything--even to go play on the trampoline, which they usually love.  Cody got the brunt of it, since I've been cooped up in bed for the past two days.

But there is some good news in the midst!  The baby has started transitioning from mostly solids back to formula, with some solids.  Instead of PB&J sandwiches and big kid food and water, she's drinking a bottle and eating banana slices and a handful of cheerios.  She's still drawn to solid foods, but as we've pushed the bottle with her, she's started to show signs of better hydration.  Additionally, her near-constant whine has turned into some quiet time, some actual cries (which is progress!), and some cooing.  The babies are really good for each other, as they push each other's development.  One baby sees the other baby flailing her arms and legs, and watches intently.  The other baby watches her sitting up and learning to scoot, mesmerized.  Sometimes they just stare at each other and it's SO cute!

The older sister watches the baby learning to push herself on the floor and to roll over, and she says excitedly, "she doesn't know how to do that!"  The baby's physical development seems to be improving so fast.  When she got here, she couldn't even stay sitting up; she would just flop over (maybe from nerves though?).  By the second day, she could sit up--which is why I think it was something she already knew how to do and she just had a momentary lapse.  On the other hand, she hated tummy time from day one; I don't think she had ever tried it.  She screamed bloody murder whenever we put her on her tummy for the first couple days, and each session lasted about 30 seconds, twice per day.  By day three, she could stand tummy time for about 60 seconds, and now we're up to a couple minutes.  On top of that, she learned how to roll over!  Her look of surprise and pride the first time (today) was priceless.  It just took a few days of tummy time before she mastered it, as she's already quite big.  In general, her entire demeanor has changed.  Instead of a defeated look of sadness in her eyes, she attentively watches things around her now.  It's rewarding to see her bounce back so quickly.  Our biggest obstacles are her waking up every 30-60 minutes at night and being generally glued to us during the day.  She did not tolerate Cody for the first couple days, and she now reaches for him and lets him rock her to sleep at night (adorable!).

First-Time Foster Care: Day 3

The babies woke up at 8:00am this morning and decided to poke and prod each other, while cooing and squawking at each other, instead of crying.  It was the first time they really acknowledged each other.  One baby took a 3-hour morning nap while one took a 20-minute nap, which was both frustrating and encouraging.  Big kids jumped on the trampoline, read books, worked on homework and computer classes, ate more and less food than I had expected, and checked on me literally every 5 minutes of the entire day.  After their 1,000th nervous check-in, I sent them outside to play for 30 whole minutes, reassuring them that I honestly, truly, was not going anywhere, and that I couldn't leave anyway with two babies taking their second nap of the day--over 2 hours each!  I noticed the big kids peeking in the windows every 5-10 minutes, but they didn't come inside because anyone who woke up babies (again) had to take a nap.

Two babies mimicked each other's coos and cries; two babies got baths together; two babies got lunch--the bigger baby ate cheerios and bananas in the high chair along with her bottle, and the littler baby refused to lie down to drink her bottle because she was big like the other baby.  Today, the babies started to get used to each other.  The big kids finished entire books and watched one Saturday movie.  By the end of the day, they lasted over an hour between check-ins.

Crying at the Grocery Store: Becoming Vegan, Beginning Foster Care

When I decided to become vegan in 2011, I cried during my first grocery run.  I stood in the aisles not knowing what to buy... thinking about the daunting change from my college-style diet of convenience food to label-checking and cooking actual meals from ingredients, instead of cereal and Easy Mac.  The decision to become vegan was one that I had taken months to prepare for.  I committed to being vegetarian first, and felt a major difference within two weeks.  I continued to research, talk, read, and think about every aspect of vegan eating that I could imagine.  After a few months, the final straw came down to some friends in my Spanish class asking me why I didn't just try it.  I took their challenge and set a date for myself: the first day of the next month, for at least 30 days.  I was prepared, it was something I wanted to do, I knew the challenges and the difficulties associated with switching to a vegan diet, and I also had an idea of the health benefits I could expect.  And yet there I stood in the grocery store on my first day as a hopeful vegan with tears welling up in my eyes.

I often think back to that scene and consider my poor vegan-transitioning-self who had no clue what she was really doing.  It took hours to scan the grocery store aisles, figuring out what pre-made foods contained dairy (hint: most of them!) and what things were okay.  It became easier with time, and I only cried that first time.  It's now second-nature to me: checking labels for high protein and fiber content, buying copious amounts of produce, and skipping the aisles that I know have no chance of containing vegan-friendly options.

Recently, I found myself in the grocery store in a situation similar to that first daunting trip.  Tears welling up in my eyes, I scanned the aisles for kid-friendly meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, having never bought those things before.  I spent $114.98.  After an unexpected phone call and an impromptu 5-minute discussion with my husband Cody earlier that day, we had one hour to prepare our house for 3 children who would become completely dependent on us from that time forward.  They arrived around 6:00pm, and everyone was in bed by 8:00pm with minimal crying and not a lot of sleeping.  For hours, my husband and I sorted through suitcases and garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, bedding, toys, a dozen winter coats, and assorted baby items.  There were more items than children usually brought, our caseworker said.  But we were told to wash everything.  Cody did at least five loads of laundry that night, and a few more after that.  I went to the grocery store around 11:00pm, with the crying incident.

I cried because I was overwhelmed.  I knew what I had signed up for, knew I was doing the right thing, but I had still gone from a mother of one infant to a mother of four children in one day.  I didn't know their last name, let alone what foods they liked or even would tolerate.  Everything was a guess, and it was midnight before I even left the store.  We didn't sleep much that first night.  We got the clothes and the food sorted, but our daughter was thrown out of her routine and instead of sleeping 6-8 hours like she normally did, she awoke every hour.  The other baby did the same, but on a rotation with my daughter, like clockwork.  Cody and I were both up every 30-60 minutes for the entire 5 hours of sleep we got that night.