Disney & the gift of unexpected time

Foster care and time are an unrelenting, odd couple. Too much or too little, in any given circumstance, can either be beneficial or detrimental. Each story is so specifically unique that there's no way to know which way the arrow will end up pointing.

But, today, in Disney World, I am grateful for the gift of unexpected time.

Thanks to an unpredictable forecast back home, we made a late day decision yesterday to push our flight back 24 hours. I don't know about you, but visions of sliding off an icy runway with two kids who technically aren't ours, just didn't sit well. Yes, I know that's dramatic. It was more accurately like visions of spoiling a (perhaps) once in a lifetime vacation for our kiddos with arriving at the airport only to find out our flight was delayed or cancelled at the last minute and then the ensuing scrambling and chaos and putting the kids through that confusion that didn't sit well with us. And despite the fact that I know we made the right decision for them, I still can't help but feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be....at the airport, 30 minutes from boarding a flight back home (because, shockingly, it wasn't cancelled). As glorious as the gift of an 'extended' vacation may seem, trust me, it ends up being more of a headache for us. Extra phone calls, emails, make up visitations, schedule rearranging, etc. So, I am choosing to see today through their eyes.

The fact that it is unexpectedly sunny & 80 degrees outside (when I packed, the forecast was thunderstorms and in the lower 70s), is enough to swing my pendulum over to grateful. One, because today is not a park day (seriously, how did I ever survive summer Disney trips? I so hate the heat.), and two, because, at last, the elementary schooler is finally getting the time at the pool that she has been begging for all trip. And the toddler is getting a comfortable nap in a crib in a resort room...not in a stroller.

And that's where the gift of unexpected time comes in for me. His nap allows me to time to blog, to document this very special trip while it's still fresh. Before the passage of time taints my memories.

This trip marks my 11th time to Disney and Paul's 6th. I say that not to be boastful, but merely to point out that while we are certainly not experts, we're also not novices. Every trip has included young children, sans the famous immediate only family vacation of 2007, when the youngest was 10, no strollers were needed and we were able to do almost every single ride and attraction in each park in record time.

But that also means that every trip comes with distinct memories...some magical...some disastrous.

When Paul and I first visited Disney together in 2006, a few months before we were married, my daydreams of coming back 'in a few years' with our kids in tow were in full effect. In 2007, we celebrated our 1st anniversary in Disney World and I KNEW the next trip to Disney we would have our kids with us.

Fast (okay, slow) forward, 12 years and here we are...finally.

Yes, we have celebrated our first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's with kids since I last blogged, but this first Disney trip is next level.

One year ago exactly, we came to Disney for my dad & Paul to run the marathon. If you would have told me then that just one short year later we'd be back, with kids in tow, I would not have believed you.

I lamented to my sister on the phone last night that those over-the-top Disney Magical moments that occur when you 'do Disney' with kids make up for all those 'someone please come off me right this very minute' moments that occur when an overly-exhausted toddler is bucking his way out of the stroller with an explosive poopy diaper. (Or was that just my experience?). So there we were, watching fireworks in front of Cinderella's Castle and I could feel my heart exploding and my eyes overflowing as I watched the elementary schooler cling to Paul, belting out Moana lyrics and giving him the biggest kiss on the cheek ever, while the toddler leaned at me in for a full on face kiss as Phil Collins sang “You'll be in my heart....always”.

And it erased the fact that just a few short hours earlier, the elementary schooler, when asked what her favorite part of the whole trip had been so far, responded with a "seeing that bird right there up close' as we stopped for a quick bite to eat....despite the fact that she had eaten in Cinderella's Castle just a few hours earlier or the fact that I had been contemplating finding Snow White and asking her if she needed an 8th Dwarf because I’m pretty sure the toddler at least met her height requirement.

Unfortantely, I can't get into a lot of the specifics about how making this trip with our foster children is extremely different than if they were our bio kids, but trust me when I say, there were quite a few teachable moments for them and moments where our trauma training came in very handy.

So here we are, about to wrap up the kid's first trip to Disney World. And yes, they will go their whole lives having to include x amount of months of being a foster child as part of their story, but they will also be able to always say they've eaten in Cinderella's Castle. They met Mickey, his friends & numerous princesses...and the Fairy Godmother...she's probably the most important. They've eaten Mickey Bars and been on a safari. The elementary schooler was brave and rode the Tower of Terror and the toddler was a trooper pushing through minimal naps and late bedtimes. They saw Disney still decorated for Christmas.

There are avid Disney lovers and people who can't bear the thought of going to Disney, but if you find yourself somewhere in the middle...trust me when I say, it is worth it. Go without kids. Go with kids. Push through the tiring days, the planning, the packing and go. Do it big...do it little. Just try.

We can't give our kiddos traditions, but we can certainly fill their buckets with memories. Mission accomplished.

#Reality

A friend sent me a text this morning and asked how the kids were doing and I lamented how I wished I could post the real stuff on Facebook. That the professional pictures or fun side trips don’t even paint half the picture. And the unfortunate part of Foster Care is that you can’t share the truth. You can’t lament about the deepest corners of sorrow and tragedy because that threatens to expose the children and their circumstances. No one posts about the bad stuff anyway. Who wants to wants to read through one depressing situation or sad scenario after another? We’re all in our own trenches, anyway.

But here’s the truth about foster care. Ugly, hateful things are said. Best laid intentions are misconstrued. Chastising occurs where Thank yous should have been. Frivolous things are made into gigantic mountains and dangerous or idiotic things flow quietly under the bridge. Fingers are pointed and something is always lurking in the shadows. And in the current state of foster care in this country, foster parents rank at the bottom, only ever so slightly below the children themselves.

But then I remind myself, that where shadows are the greatest, it’s because the light is brightest. And that the water under those bridges and those gigantic mountains only help to emphasize how great a blessing it is when you find a still lake or a gentle path on level ground. And I’m grateful that God is painting such a vivid landscape through these trials and this journey. Though, admittedly, some days He could certainly switch it to a Bob Ross style of painting instead of Picasso.

The truth is, as the kids are with us longer and longer, my anxiety is more pronounced than it has ever been...or more adequately stated, I now have a massive amount of anxiety where none previously existed. It's hard to decipher if that's specific to foster care or just the fact that my heart is now walking around on the outside. My hunch says every parent would agree it's the latter.

The truth is writing in metaphors and attempting to describe very specific situations with generic, yet descriptive words in an effort to paint a clear picture is exhausting.

The truth is, more often than not, we find ourselves saying "You mean we willingly did this to ourselves???"

The truth is something occurred today where I wanted to put someone in their place because I was oh so right and they were oh so wrong and their actions were the type that threaten to tilt you entirely off your axis. Thankfully, I know the One who keeps me centered and I have a great community of people who are walking in the same trenches and know how to pull me back to shore.

At the end of the day, we're more exhausted than we ever knew possible...it's not just from the kids, it's from every part of "the system" that is most definitely broken. When laws and rules triumph over common sense and human compassion, we have lost a little (a lot?) of Jesus. When children are not at the center of THEIR own story, we have lost a little of humanity.


Thankfully, foster care has also allowed us to experience grace upon grace. Where our do-overs get do-overs. Where we get to impact lives and THAT makes all the ugliness beautiful.

School Days

Most local elementary school students had their open houses this week...including ours.

That's still so weird for me to process. Less than two months ago we were focused on solely providing for a baby and then bam, elementary schooler invasion. Less than two weeks ago we were finally given permission to register the elementary schooler at our local school. Which, unfortunately in the foster care world, only tells us the child will be with us when the school year begins. After that, your guess is as good as ours and we find ourselves in this weird limbo. It's so hard to describe, especially since our current situation is so temporary....which is exactly why it feels like limbo (duh!).

I already anticipated some of the more challenging decisions needed to be made at an open house...to buy a fall festival shirt or not, given all our unknowns, etc.? And I knew from other foster momma posts to brace myself for all the child's 'about me' forms.  A simple addition of the word foster before the words mom & dad seemed to help solve that problem...at least on today's simple questionnaire. But I didn't anticipate the need to tell the world that this kiddo was my foster child, while trying to keep it under wraps just as equally. I want our child to have the ability to tell their own story, in their own time, but I also want teachers and counselors and other parents to be aware so they can provide the best possible support. Toeing the line of privacy and transparency is mentally exhausting.

But, then, God gives us these wonderful moments where we are able to see the threads he has woven throughout our whole lives to get us to that very moment. And in the moment where I needed it most today, sitting alone at a desk, filling out challenging & unknown questions for a child I have known for less than two months, HE met me and I was so, so grateful.

My elementary school memories are centered around a core group of children. We always seemed to be in the same classes year after year, we lived near each other, our parents were all very involved and they are sweet, innocent and happy memories. And I think part of the reason they are so sweet, innocent and happy in my mind is because I moved to a new school in fifth grade. Consequently, those friendships I formed so early on managed to stay untainted by the changing dynamics of the middle and high school years. To this day, whenever I randomly bump into one of those people, I am instantly transported back to some of my most favorite memories. And today, while sitting at my elementary schooler's desk, in walked one of those very children from my elementary school days because his child is now in my child's class. Coincidentally, we became friends in the very same grade level classroom we were in today. And I had one of my flashbacks. And as I turned around and looked at my elementary schooler, I saw my child in a new light. Because when I think about my friends from those years, I remember it all so vividly. We've (undoubtedly, because all parents do) had some struggles with our child and today was such a sweet gift. I sat there, in humble awareness and inner laughter, at all God can do, all from a series of events He started orchestrating 28 years ago.

Our child had begun to play with another child while I was having my momentary flashback and in a very serendipitous conversation with the child's parents who were sitting just diagonal from me, I realized the child my child was engaging with, lives in our neighborhood. And I immediately was aware that my prayer for my kiddo of stability and familiar faces, had been heard...and not by any of the key people we knew it would be, but by the developing of a new friendship. Someone who will be on the same bus and will be finding their way to the same class.

Foster care is hard. And it is going to hurt like hell when these kids leave, but I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to continuously witness God's grace and goodness in the most unexpected places firsthand.

And, in case you were wondering, I did buy the Fall Festival shirts...because...well, faith.

3 months, 1 month, a birthday and our village.

Today is leaving me with all the feels and for those of you who know me, you know admitting that is quite an accomplishment.

It's been three whole months since our world got flipped upside down. Since we entered into the most challenging and yet infinitely rewarding experience of our lives. I thought we survived a lot with our infertility journey and yet the foster care part of our story is so much more. More challenging, more mentally exhausting, more emotionally draining, which makes the triumphs more triumphant and the small victories more victorious. Most days we find ourselves sifting and shifting through joy and sadness and allowing the good and the bad of foster care to permeate our daily lives is exactly how I think we're surviving it. Somewhere along the way we find ourselves smack dab in the middle. Even if it's just for the simple fact that choosing which emotion to feel the greatest is just too dang challenging and so we sit right there in the middle of it all....because it is what is.  Our first child settled into our lives so ridiculously easy. It's as if the baby had been here all along. The blessing of the baby is that it couldn't talk...the curse of the baby is also that it couldn't talk. So while we had no sass or talking back, we also had a lot of questions in regards to basic baby needs. Routine? Food preferences? Sleep schedule? But, overall, the three months with the baby has been so, so sweet (in regards to the baby...not the babe's story).

It's been one month since our world was ROCKED. Since an elementary schooler infiltrated our lives and our home. For those of you who have kids, I hope you'll understand what I mean. With babies, they have a lot of stuff, but you can put it where you want to and there it stays. Kid's stuff just explodes. I'm not even entirely sure how or when it happened, but one day it wasn't there and the next day...BOOM. And the blessing of elementary schoolers is that they can talk...and the curse is that they can talk. And talk, ours does. Our one month with the elementary schooler has felt twice as long as our three months with the baby and I don't (necessarily) mean that in a bad way. I am certainly not negating parenting a biological child, but there's this added level of parenting/exhaustion/guessing when it's a foster child and we are quickly learning how much of a difference the child's age makes. I feel like I'm merely stating the obvious here so I shall move on. This past month has been such an eye opener. I've said it before and I'll say it forever...once you see the brokenness...you can't unsee it.

We celebrated the baby's birthday today. We are so grateful we were given the opportunity to do this for the baby yet so painfully aware of the reason why we have this opportunity. We held it at a local Children's Museum and they treated us so well. It was the perfect spot to entertain the age range of the kiddos who joined us today. My only regret is feeling like I did not have enough time to mingle with my favorite people, but I think it usually goes that way. We went with a theme that was special to us and the kiddo. Every morning for the first 2.5 months of the baby's placement, the little one snuggled on our laps with a morning bottle and we sleepily watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse together savoring those snuggles.

And now, to the most important part of this post, our village. You know the saying "it takes a village to raise a child", well, it is infinitely more true when the children arrive unexpectedly, with super-sized back stories and minimal physical items. My last post briefly discussed how our village showed up big time with helping us stock up on those physical needs as soon as our kiddos showed up but I have not touched on the most important part of our village. I am in complete awe of every parent who was in that room with us today. They are selflessly weaving our foster children into not just their life stories but their children's life stories. They are taking on the challenge of potentially having to answer very hard questions from children who like to ask the hardest and most honest questions. They are showing our foster children love and support and consistency by being present as adults and interacting with our kids, but when they add in their children...they are allowing our kids to make new friends when their old friends have been ripped from them which means new relationships and memories will be made to fill our children's buckets. As foster children, whose lives are full of trauma in such a magnitude of different ways, these sweet, simple interactions and moments (even the normalcy of two children fighting over a toy) provide opportunities for growth and connection. While we do not get a say in how our children's stories will unfold, we do know every parent in that room had a choice to include our children into their children's stories. I don't know about you, but I didn't know any 'foster' kids when I was a child. If I did, I certainly wasn't aware of it. To all of our friends who showed up in a big way today....we are so insanely grateful for you. For choosing to explain to your kids in whatever way needed how we ended up suddenly with two children. For choosing to have the even harder discussion (when the time comes) how we suddenly no longer have children.  We know those gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, out-of-the-blue questions will be doozies and words cannot adequately express our thankfulness for your grace and your compassion. Your willingness to walk through this chaos with us (when we didn't give you a choice) is beyond humbling. I remember sitting in one of our foster care classes and we were given a few minutes to fill out a chart of our support network, of the people who we felt would support us in various ways. It was so easy for us to fill out that chart, but I never stopped to think of the ripple effect on our support system's children. Thank you from the very bottom of our hearts for loving us and our children so well during this season of life.

Foster Care

     It dawned on me today, for the first time in a long time, that, once upon a time, blogging was my outlet. I did it consistently, frequently and for many years. It was my coping mechanism, my version of therapy. Writing things out to document that they had, in fact, happened and then moving on. I suppose it says a lot about how we (I) have been doing recently given the fact that I blogged once on here in the entire year of 2017. Even The Sister Stories hasn't seen a blog post from me since October 2016.

To recap, it looks like I left things off ridiculously excited about how 2017 was going to play out and the truth is, we ended up exactly where I thought we would. Honestly, I knew in the summer of 2013 that this is where we were meant to be all along. Before we did the two Race to Parenthoods, before we pursued almost every possible avenue of ART, I knew Foster Care would be our final destination. I also knew back then, it wasn't where WE wanted to end up and we knew, in order to embrace this avenue fully and compassionately, we had to feel we had left no stone unturned.

It feels odd to sum up our almost 5 year journey of getting to this specific week in one measly paragraph. It's like describing your entire high school or college career in the sentence "One day I started classes and then 4 (or 5) years later, I graduated". It's a true statement, right? You knew (hoped?) that when you started, you'd eventually graduate, but that statement, while true, does nothing to acknowledge the lessons learn, the personal growth that occurred, the heartache/heartbreak you undoubtedly endured, the people who shaped your days, the reasons you made certain decisions and how you come out a different person in the end.

We wrapped up 2017 by completing all the requirements to become Foster parents and we waited to get our official letter in the mail.

As it turned out for us, we got our first request to take children the same day our social worker told us she would be mailing out our certificate within the week. The details behind our first two requests are too personal, both to us and the children involved, but let's just say we learned some big, important and hard lessons in about two weeks.

And now for the real reason behind this post. I think I would be missing a major milestone in our life if I didn't document it on this blog. My very first blog post said hopefully the main purpose of this whole blog would be to update you on a baby and by gosh, 8 years and 5 months later, I finally get to do just that.

It's been one week....(cue Bare Naked Ladies song in my head). One week of absolute joy. One week since a little one entered our home for us to love, nurture and protect. One week of all things baby.

A week of firsts. Firsts that I think many people don't think twice about.

Y'all. I had a baby (not a niece or nephew either) in Target. I can't be sure, but according to social media, I think having a baby in Target is some kind of unspoken mom rite of passage. Or maybe it's getting to Target without the baby? Oh whatever. I had a baby in Target. And you know what the baby did? That sweet thing let out the loudest, shrillest scream I have ever heard while I was in the check out line and I'm pretty sure every other mom in the store did a quick duck and cover while I resisted every urge to throw my hands in the air and proudly exclaim "Yep, that one belonged to me!"

A week of groggily walking down the stairs in the middle of the night to make a bottle. Of coming downstairs exhausted just to see a sink full of dirty bottles. I'm not sure I have ever seen a more precious, welcome sight.

And boy did I wear those unknown stains on my shirt at work proudly.

This little child was in our care within two hours of getting our phone call. I was able to 'nest' for about 30 minutes while Britt and the children at her house that day played with and loved on the new-to-us baby.

We could not have gotten through our first week without the outpouring of love and support from our tribe. I can't even begin to thank all of you who have provided us with baby items (used and new), who made us meals or yummy goodies, who stocked us with diapers and formula and clothes. We are eternally grateful for how much you valued and cherished this one along with us. Seriously. You made this week easy.

Most importantly, this week, we learned that we are, without a shadow of a doubt, in the right place. Our hearts are here. We remain confidently committed to loving, nurturing and protecting any child that comes into this home, no matter how long we have them. Our future with this baby is uncertain for sure, but we know our paths were intended to cross and this one was meant to be ours, even if just for a short while.

2017

I'd like to say Happy Anniversary, but this month marks an anniversary that I wish we didn't have. January 2017 officially closes out our 9th year of trying to conceive. 

I re-read the last post I wrote on here back in September and I slammed the door to advanced reproductive technology pretty forcefully.

It's a door I can promise you we will never open again.

Unless we win the lottery and someone says here's some adopted embryos and a surrogate and then we'd be like...well, yeah, duh, we're in. 

But that won't happen, so the door shall remain shut.

4 months after writing that post and we're as confident as ever about that decision.

See, life flows on. Rapidly.

The years pass by.

I'm not telling you anything new.

And Paul and I continue to make the daily decision to spend time in the present and focusing on the future and not dwelling in the past.

We expect life's random sucker punches...it does however suck that they're random. The amount some of those punches knock us off our axis can be quite dramatic, but luckily the punches are very few and very far between these days.  We've developed a thick skin in response to this whole infertility thing.

I am still puzzled by the amount of people who've yet to grasp that we can not only be okay with our reality, but actually embracing it and enjoying it.

I can't reiterate enough how freeing it is to not be focusing on the how's & when's & finances of using ART.

We've got some big plans for 2017.

I'm so excited for the year, y'all, I can hardly stand it.

So cheers to the new year.
Cheers to putting our 9 years of ART adventures into a box and sticking it on the top shelf in the closet and (kind of) forgetting about it.
Cheers to new adventures.

And most importantly, cheers to our next ten years of marriage.
The best is yet to be.

The hardest part

Since the very beginning of our infertility journey, we've been warned that the hardest part of all of it is knowing when to stop...or in every day terms...when to call it quits.

But that statement, that thought, is so far off basis in our world and I'd like to shed some light on what many couples (or at the very least-us) think in regards to 'calling it quits'.

For us, this is admittedly one of the easiest decisions we've ever made. 

The actual hardest part is conveying to the outside world the why's and the how's behind our decision.

Which is, undoubtedly, one of the worst parts of infertility...feeling like you owe the outside world some grand explanation.

Because sometimes, just sometimes, you think that if you can explain it to the outside world, you can somehow better understand it yourself. 

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In every phase of our family planning, we have always, always been at peace with whatever we were trying in that moment. It doesn't mean we didn't think parts of what we have had to go through have been fair, it doesn't mean we liked always having to figure out another avenue to pursue, and it certainly doesn't mean any of it was easy, it just simply means once we arrived at our decision for the next step-we were comfortable with it and always all in. 

But when we were on the hunt for the next direction to go, the what ifs, the financial burdens, the questions for how to accomplish the next step were always weighing heavily on our shoulders.

So this decision, the decision to close the chapter of using Advanced Reproductive Technology, is incredibly freeing.  

Hear me loud and clear, we are not calling it quits.

We are choosing joy.

We are choosing financial stability.

We are choosing to focus on all the other areas in our life that are so richly full instead of wasting another second on the one thing that hasn't gone according to our plan.

Y'all, there are hundreds of ways to arrive at a destination. We have just simply said no more ART. 

Those closest to us know our next move. 

They know what's been tumbling around in our hearts for awhile.

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It's hard to write this blog post without feeling like I'm trying to sum up our infertility journey in one package because no matter how hard I try, I could never put it all in one box and wrap it up with a pretty little ribbon. It's too messy. Infertility has changed us and molded us in a way we never expected. 

Being open with our story happened more because of The Race to Parenthood than a true need to share publicly what we were going through.  I can't stand nosy people and here I've been writing a public blog for almost six years now, providing the ultimate wide open avenue for every nosy person out there.  But then I think if reading my blog helps just one person to stop and think before they say something ludicrous to someone who's hurting privately and deeply...then read away all you nosy nellie's ;) 

I have often pondered what could possibly be the purpose behind our infertility story. What's the greater meaning? Why were we chosen to go through this ordeal?  Which are all just a more adult version of the 'why me' childish tantrum I'd like to have every now and then. 

I do know that we feel honored God had more faith in our marriage than we did in the beginning. To have a marriage not only survive infertility, but actually end up thriving because of it is a blessing not lost on us. 

Perhaps it was to renew a faith in each of us we didn't know was missing.

Perhaps it was to share our story so others wouldn't feel alone.

Perhaps it was to share our story so people would become a little more compassionate towards this subject. 

Maybe it's our fast approaching 10th Anniversary that has me in such a reflective mood.

We fought for every one of those years. 

But, when I really stop to think about it, saying goodbye to everything from the first 10 years, just leaves me really, really excited for what's to come in the next 10 years.