Fostering love through a spectrum

The stories of our lives as a foster/adoptive home.

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

Oh, the ups and downs.

I have to start this post with something very positive; Z is amazing. He giggles and runs with full speed and lights up a room. It is the most amazing feeling when you can grow your family and know that it all makes sense. Transition is going beautifully, knock on wood and we are ready for him to be home. Now fast forward to this morning when I get a 6 am phone call from Matt saying that while he was driving on the highway the car shut off. He got to the side of the road and could not get it to start. Finally a tow truck came and took our car yet again back to the shop. We learned that it will be around a 1,000 dollars to fix our car. Did I mention that we are 19 days away from Z moving home and that we have to have two vehicles due to our schedules. So that lead us to the difficult decision of asking for help with this large bill. We have been getting stuff ready for little one to be here and preparing our lives and then this. I'm trying to stay strong and say that it will be okay, when in truth I just want to sob. I'm going to include the link for donations because let's be honest the cars engine is currently in parts and will be awaiting the money for its safe return, but the point to all of this is that Z is a piece or puzzle and right now the puzzle is a little scrambled and we could use some help. And the next time around we will pay it forward. http://www.gofundme.com/e7twrw

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

A piece of the puzzle.

Meeting Z today felt so much like it did when meeting V. My nerves were shot by the time we pulled up to the driveway but that was mostly because I was so very excited. Miss F got him out of the van and we got a chance to look at his big eyes and tired little smile. Everything in me wanted to reach out and hold him. We all made it into the house and V was feeling rambunctious from being in the car and the new situation. So V and Dad went to the park for a bit. First Steps was due to arrive but was unable to make it; I was not sad because it gave us more time. After warming up to us, Z let Matt pick him up, he gave hugs to V and then let me hold him. I did not want to leave or leave him. I was holding him and he rested his head on my shoulder. I could feel the tears starting to pool because I could have stood there forever. Miss F is very nice and has clearly been incredible in Z's life. I have a feeling that she will stay a close part of our lives as we go forward. The FCM was as easy going as she has been in emails and on the phone. There are zero correct words to explain how amazing it felt to see Vyktor light up when he played with Z and to see Matt holding him. He is a piece of our family puzzle. Next Thursday I will get some one on one time with him and it cannot get here fast enough. I will end this post with V's words because they sum up our feelings pretty well. Vyktor: "He is awesome and gorgeous". Us: "agreed"..

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

Buckle up for a bumpy road ahead.

I'm up late. This is late night post is a combination of a million and one things swirling through my brain....so it's gonna be bumpy and not very well put together. You have my apologies early on. Matt and I have been talking about little boys names; at this point you are asking why we would do that I'm sure and the answer is that Friday early afternoon we get to meet the 18 month old little guy that is planned to be an adoptive placement. We have actually known for a little while now and have not been very verbal about it. It is not because we are not excited, but we learned that it was very hard to privately explain what happened with previous placement not working out. Though it's killing me to not share the equal parts of excitement and fear that come along with yet again opening our hearts, home and family to a child. Hence why we have been looking at names. It turns out that we do not agree at all for the most part. V was already very attached to his name and it stayed post adoption minus a middle and last name change. Because Z is so little we will actually get the chance to choose a name, that is assuming that the legal risk part doesn't equal complete risk and we get to that point. It is with hesitancy and a bit of just flat being tired that I share our news, but if the experience with the girls taught us anything it is that we had to lean on the support of family and friends. I wish that this post could end with some positive note that says everything will be perfect, but that's not something we get to choose. We will meet this little guy (who I firmly believe should be named Oliver James) and see if our path with him leads to forever. As always we are grateful for everyone's love and support; even when it's hard to know why we keep going. Now I'm going to attempt sleep and be rested to start a plan of action towards convincing my husband that we should choose Oliver and not name our potential son after Indiana Jones. Wish me luck!

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

Explanations and hard decisions.

Sitting here and getting through the steps of things that I have been putting off for a couple of weeks, has brought me to a place of knowing that some of you may like an insight to our decisions. I'm in no way pouring out all of the details, nor will I be explicit in explanation; but I feel like I have to say something. So here it goes. Foster/adoption sometimes sucks. There I said it outloud. It is the biggest risk of your heart, time, home and family. Now I will say that Foster/adoption made my dreams come true and I would never change the day Matt and I sat in a class to start this journey. These past two weeks have been a test of how we even feel about continuing and maybe just staying a family of three. There have been a tremendous amount of ups and downs since being told we were chosen for Amber and Sophia. So much of the things that take place are out of the hands of the pre-adoptive home and out of the hands of the children. When all of the adults involved in a situation/case are not on the same page, it causes lots of scenarios of miscommunication and multiple plans at once. After many hours on the phone, losing visits, various opinions and so on. We decided for the health of this family we had to step away. More things were coming to light about some of the daily parts of the girls that had potential to be a conflict to V. It feels necessary to say that even in only three visits you begin to love these children more then you can imagine and making the decision to not continue breaks my heart. I was explaining to my best friend that I'm not sad because we didn't do the right thing, I'm sad because it hurts to do the right thing. The other part that people do not realize that comes along with this process is that you do not want to let your agency down. Your agenct is filled with people who become more like family and they mean the world to you. Your agency is your support and they constantly remind you that self care and knowing your limits are important. Though as the foster/pre-adoptive parent you feel as though you have failed. We know that the right child/children that we are meant to love and nurture forever will come along. Sadly, those two little princesses won't grow here, but they will grow and be loved. A while back we interviewed and it was asked of the lady who brought us through our first adoption and has been one of our biggest cheerleaders what my personal biggest weakness was and her answer was true. "She would take them all" and I would. This has taught me that I cannot heal every child that comes across to us. We have a beautiful son and our time will come. To those of you that have given hugs, said kind words and realized not to push the subject, thank you. As for what's next...well, we wait and we hope for the child that is meant to be here....

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

How in the world is it all figured out.

There are times when you think that you will never be placed. Folks will tell you non stop that the right child/children will come into your family when it is right. Part of how that happens is that you are contacted and you contact a ton of case managers about children and sometimes you don't hear things for months on end. Then you are chosen and everything starts to slowly come together, which is great. As things are coming together you receive an email asking if you would like to consider a child that you have inquired about a million times. So now what you may be asking and that's a great question. Before starting this post I'm staring at an email that two weeks ago would have me over the moon excited; today the same email has me sad because I don't think we can respond in the same way now. Tomorrow we get to spend the day with Amber and Sophia, which is super exciting. Though I have to admit that I'm sitting here thinking...would 4 children really be too much? Would it be crazy to transition three legal risk children at once....do we even consider going with one case over another. All of this swirls through my mind as my husband is at work, V is oblivious and life moves forward. When there was no responses to our inquiries it felt like the worse thing ever, perhaps I was wrong. I'm sure as a reader you would like a point to this and neat bow to make it all come together at the end. I'm at a loss for that and all I can say is that a best made plan can have holes in it.

[fosteringlovethroughaspectr-blog]

Introductions and rambling.

The question is where to start with this post. When we were adopting V there was some blogging that took place, but I was not consistent by any means at all. The reason that I had started the blog was so that I could talk about the ups and downs of foster care adoption and our joy of becoming parents. It is hard to believe that has been three years since we started the classes to become foster parents and start the adventure that would be foster care adoption. 

After meeting our son for the first time we found ourselves not as concerned with the labels but more content with this child we would get to watch grow and shape. Some of the labels started with foster child, autistic, foster parents, DCS, FCM, therapist, behavioral clinician and on and on the list would go. The simple answer was that we had become a family. The complicated answer is that we became parents through the state which has all sorts of challenges.

Three years later we have since adopted our son, moved multiple times, lost my mother, changed jobs and grown more then we could have ever predicted. That now brings us to today. Today we are starting over in some ways and deciding to adopt again.

Recently we were chosen for two little girls that we are referring to as princess Sophia and princess Amber, Now currently our world with V is trains and well more trains and that is all about to change when these little girls are a part of daily life.

Things will be much different this time because we have agreed to enter into the unknown world of legal risk adoption. At some point I will add links about what that means. At this point I want to write to express when this process becomes overwhelming, exciting and so much more. It will be great to connect to other families who understands the joy and trials that come with foster care adoption. 

So from my family...welcome along to our crazy adventures.