Merry Christmas!

I just want to take a minute to say Merry Christmas to each & every one of you. You're following our crazy journey through fostercare & adoption. It isn't always easy or predictable, but I try to keep it honest & sometimes very painfully raw. Adoption is born out of loss & there are so many bumps & sorrows along the way, that doesn't mean it isn't worth it. I hope each of you can take a little peace or comfort in our story, or find that maybe we've already gone through what you are now. I know that sometimes you just need to know you aren't alone or that your feelings are real, valid & very normal on this journey! This can be a very bitter time of year, and a difficult time to be waiting on your forever child. Merry Christmas from our little family to you!

Time to Give Thanks & Be Merry!

Its CHRISTMASSSSS!!! Oh yes, yes it is! I LOVE this time of year. Though, going through the adoption process during the holidays is just plain tough. Being in the matching process is so discouraging. So many things have happened in the last few months, I won't get into them NOW, but I will say they have led us to some new decisions. The number one is that we are willing to straight foster. A few things came to light that have made us realize we may need to take time before we rush to adopt again. I don't really know if or when I will go over everything that has happened recently, but its been a ride. We also took the kids to the local Renaissance Festival & have been enjoying all the things this season brings. I'm sure I will touch base if we get a placement & how that whole journey goes, or update a little bit about our Christmas! On a side note, the day after Thanksgiving we lost one of our precious dogs. She had been with us for 12 years, and we were crushed. She had been in declining health for the last 2 years, and we had been fighting for her the prior 2 weeks. In the end, her heart just couldn't keep up & we made the decision to put her to sleep. It was NOT a good way to bring in the holidays, but we feel SO grateful for 12 great & healthy years with her.

Halloween, Disney & Other Things.....

Halloween!! This is my favorite holiday, with the exception of Christmas. I love the spooky decorations, the costumes, just ALLL of it! Last year I made Delilah's costume, but this year all 3 wore store bought. I know. If it is any consolation I did alter the girl's dresses, a BUNCH. We went out to my Mom's & our kids went trick or treating with my niece & nephew. Our kids are cousins & we try really hard to get them together & let them grow up together as much as possible. A couple of weekends ago we also had my mom keep the kids overnight, for the first time EVER. Chris & I enjoyed it by spending the evening at an amazing sushi dinner. Sunday morning we had brunch & went shopping all alone. I know shopping at the mall may not seem like a huge "Date" to some people, but for us it IS. We never shop at the mall, just the 2 of us. In other news last weekend we took the kids to see Disney On Ice. I made the girls outfits & we made Tuck a shirt too. They LOVED it & the show was amazing as always! On the adoption front, we are still in the slow process of matching. Things usually slow waaaaay down this time of year. They hate to move kids from their foster homes this time of year & so many people take vacations too, so placements stay put a lot unless its unavoidable. We went into it this time knowing it could be a VERY long wait. The more people in your family, the more obstacles to work around & the more personalities to match. Our 6th family member has to fit into this crazy puzzle & there are already 5 other pieces. We are being patient & knowing that our child is out there, somewhere. When the time is right, and everything is perfect, they will come home!!

Almost that time!

I can't believe we are sneaking up on the holidays again! It's hands down my favorite holidays of year (despite the cold weather which I loathe). We have become fully licensed & are currently waiting for a match & placement. We are willing to do low legal risk foster to adopt. This process can take awhile, or go SO quickly. We waited 8 months with Tuck & were open for placements less than 2 weeks when we brought the girls home. For now we are all busy with work, school & just life in general.

Summer & School...

Our favorite time of year came to an end...it was a great summer! The kids are so much older this summer I could easily handle all 3 of them alone at the water park so we went 2-3 times per week. We also took the kids on vacation for a few days to the beach & had an amazing time! We went to Schlitterbahn, Moody Gardens, The Rainforest Cafe, the beach & spent many late nights swimming in the heated pool. The week after we got back the kids started school! I'll make another post all about that! But the kids are at such a great & fun age. They are all potty trained & really able to do ALL the amazing & fun things on vacation. It was a huge difference this year versus last year on vacation. The kids had a blast & I really hope they made a bunch of great memories.

We're BAAAACK!!

I know its been forever! But, I really just wanted to take the summer off & really enjoy it. We had SOOO much fun & as sad as we are to see it end. I will start on the adoption front. We changed agencies & have been SO happy. Currently we are ONLY waiting on homestudy, yes again. With a new agency you have to get a NEW homestudy, so here we are again. Hopefully we get that knocked out soon & move along. We also just took a fabulous vacation! I am happy to have all 3 kiddos in school!! WHAT! Yes, Tucker started 3rd Grade, Everly started Pre-K & Delilah now goes to a private Preschool 2 days a week. I will share a bunch of photos from the Summer over the next few blogs! Meanwhile we are getting into a new "normal" and so far it is going SO well. All 3 kids are doing well in school & really like. I would also be lying if I didn't say I love it too! Even though they go in a 2 separate times & all 3 get out at different times I do have 2 hour blocks with no kids, or just one of the girls depending on the day of the week. Not only does it give me a much needed break from ALL 3 at once, it gives the kiddos one on one time that they love! Here are a couple of photos from this summer!

What the..........

So, I have said many, many times how humbling this experience is. We went to homestudy committee with our agency a couple of weeks ago. The next day we got a call basically saying "yea sorry not right now". We had to pry & pry to get ANY type of explanation. We were finally given a generic answer that our girls were too young & they felt they weren't far enough into their placement. The girls placement is 2.5 years old. After everything they didn't even feel like we deserved an explanation past 2 sentences. Like we weren't real people with real kids & a real family. I honestly believe it had NOTHING to do with "US" (they told us repeatedly our family was perfect & we couldn't change anything) and had everything to do with my tendencies to voice my disgust with their unprofessional nature as a whole. Our last experience with them was a train wreck, mainly due to their inexperienced & untrained staff. They tossed me, my husband & our girls to the wolves. We had to educate their employees on what their own policies were according to their manual. We debated even licensing through them this time, against our better judgement we did it anyway. We felt that there was still an established relationship there & maybe things had changed since we were there last. After taking a few weeks to think everything through we decided to move forward with a different agency. We met with them last night & felt really good about it. We took them copies of everything we had done with our old agency, as well as a new application etc. At this point they are reviewing our application & requesting copies of all of our documents from our old agency. After that they will assess things & let us know what they think. We have a great optimistic feeling about this agency & how personal their whole process is. The people who approve your homestudy are people who have been working with you the ENTIRE process, not people who have NEVER met you & look at you as nothing but a file folder. I will update a little when we know a little more & whether we ultimately decide to move forward with them!

Homestudy, check!

This past Sunday we finished our homestudy!! Yay! I feel like things are taking FOREVER, but we really only turned in our application in the middle of March. We are now waiting on our homestudy worker to type everything from our interviews up & present us to the licensing committee. The licensing committee only meets every Tuesday, so it may be a couple of weeks! I'll keep you updated.

Fun in the Sun...

Summer is here!! Yay!! We are so excited to swim & enjoy the outdoors! Our local waterpark opened up this past weekend! We took the kids & of course they loved every minute of it. We can't wait to take them all the time. I'm coming up on the slow season for my business so we are gearing up to take time as a family. As far as the adoption goes we are still waiting for homestudy. Apparently things are moving slow in the homestudy department.

Easter and....

What a beautiful time of year! We spent this weekend at my parent house to celebrate Easter. The kids played until they fell asleep! They had lots of fun on the trampoline, the boat & the water slide we got. We really took advantage of this amazing Spring weather. We also completed our adoption file & were moved to home study! Yay!! We are now waiting on the homestudy worker to contact us to schedule her visit. At that point she will come out & do an update (everything that has happened since the girl's placement). She will then write up the report & then present us to the homestudy committee! I will keep you guys updated!

Bring on Summer...

Can I just say the Summer can NOT come fast enough! It's been a long, cold, did I say long, winter in South Texas. We had more freezes & snow then I can remember, EVER. We all (mainly me & the girls) spent most of it bundle up & hunkered down in the house with chili & hot chocolate & movies & a fire! The days are getting warm enough to open the windows & let the Spring in. The kids are loving every minute of it but counting down the days until our waterpark opens (less than 4 weeks). As far as our new round of licensing goes, we are waiting for our frequent visitor's background checks to come back as well as a couple of our last reference checks. Once those things are completed we will move to home study!

EEG & Spring!

A few weeks age Delilah had a seizure. It was very short but unexplained. Her pediatrician wanted her to have an EEG done to check for epilepsy etc. Thank God everything came back normal & they still have no real explanation for the seizure. We are also completely done with training!! Yay! We have turned in everything for our new application. Our recruiter is currently working through our application & documents to see what all she needs before we can move on to home study! She should have everything wrapped up hopefully in the next couple of weeks! After that we need to go back to have our home study updated, a fire inspection, TB tests then we will go to the commitee to get approved. I will keep you guys updated!

What's the fuss all about?

              (My new car sticker)

As you probably guessed, were going back to adopt one more time. We have our fingers crossed for another boy. After everything that happened with the kids regarding their bio siblings we realized we really did want one more child. At first we thought we would just wait & see what happened, but ultimately decided to just move on. We can't live our lives waiting for siblings or to see if their bio moms get their life together. We have to live OUR life & live for right now. So at this point I'll tell you where we are in the process. We did have to get re licensed since we were inactive for a year. We turned in our application last week & have been doing our training this week. We go tomorrow for CPR & 1st aid & we will be DONE with training. At that point we just have a bunch of little stuff to gather to complete our file before moving on to home study. I will keep you updated on our progress!

Here we go....

Stay tuned!!

Little by Little..

Life is returning to normal these days, little by little. The days have been slipping by faster and faster. The weather is warming up & I have to say it is a great mood lifter for me! In church on Sunday something really struck me. It seems there is always something that I need to hear so much. It was the shortest verse in the bible. It was when Jesus went to his friend Martha only to find Lazarus had died, and his family was in mourning. Upon seeing them "Jesus wept" (John 11.35). He didn't weep because Lazarus was dead (after all he was about to resurrect him). Instead Jesus wept with his disciples, he wept for their pain & their suffering. I know that during all of this, he wept with us. He was by our side. Just as Jesus could have told Martha he was about to resurrect Lazarus, he could show us the answers to our questions. But, it's all part of a plan that is so much bigger than us. As much as I would love to know all the answers & outcomes right now, I know that He has a plan for us, our babies & our family.

Never ending...

I spent the last 5 years in a stage I like to think of as "ignorance is bliss". I spent this time thinking the worst & most painful part of adoption was the time between placement & the day you finalize. The day you finalize all the pain ends & it's happily ever after! The last month has been a giant slap in the face. It has been the hardest time in this whole process. It has been full of tears, deep gut wrenching pain & sleepless nights. I can't even put into words what we have been through. I'll start at the beginning. A few months ago we found out one of our bio moms was expecting again. I don't think we were prepared for the roller coaster we got on. Initially we swore off taking the baby. We weren't ready & we didn't want to travel down that road. We had to be prepared for what we would say & as the day neared, we knew deep down we wouldn't be able to say no. We started to prepare ourselves mentally that we may have a new baby soon! Of course we know how this works, but you can't prepare your heart & guard it at the same time. I believe you go into this with your WHOLE heart, or you don't do it. We found out she went into labor & delivered. We were shocked when we found out she was allowed to take the baby home. After everything she had done in the past she was allowed to take that innocent baby home. The long term ramifications of this situation aren't lost on us. We can't go back & foster or adopt right now, because what if that baby does come into custody in 4 months, 10 month....2 years?! Would we then send away our foster or adoptive placement to foster a sibling? We surely couldn't keep both. Before we could even come to terms with all of that, we had salt rubbed in the wound. We found out our OTHER bio mom has a one year old child that was taken by the state & we were never called. I was instantly sick. That baby was legally adopted in September, it was too late. To this day I haven't been able to get an answer as to why we weren't called, contacted, notified.... anything. I can't even describe what it feels like to have a sibling taken from my children. It's very hard to mourn a child that isn't yours but so much a part of you & your children. Every bit of this is our kid's legacy & will be the truth of their future. We don't know what to do but continue with our lives. Day by day. Raise our kids & pray for peace everyday that there's a purpose... a plan. I know I've said it many times that God has never left my blind faith unrewarded & I know now isn't going to be different. But I also know God is OK with my pain, my anger, my confusion & my mourning. For now we're past the anger & the raw hurt. Our life moves on, even with little pieces of our babies scattered all over. I have to accept I can't put those pieces together. The pain of adoption isn't ONE sided, it isn't reserved for bio families, it's all around. It's everlasting.

While we were out....

First I'll update on Delilah & the quarter! We ended up going in for her procedure the day before Christmas Eve, they did one last X-ray so the Dr. could see exactly where the quarter was for reference when he went in. After the x-ray we had to go to another area of the hospital for the actual procedure & turns out the quarter was totally gone & she had passed it! YAY!! What a great ending. We felt so blessed & relieved to have that done with! What a crazy story. Some of you guys may have noticed the blog was down for a little while. There are lots of things going on behind the scenes here & I really just wanted to take a break. I also took the blog down for privacy reasons & personal family reasons. I can't go into specifics, but the next few weeks will be a trying time for us, as a family. In other news, Everly celebrated her 4th birthday! Can you BELIEVE it? I can't! We took the kids to Schlitterbahn indoors & the kids had a great time! After we went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch!

The kids also had an amazing Christmas. Chris was off the whole week after & it was amazing. We spent the 3 days before Christmas at my parents & left Christmas afternoon. We opened most of our presents at my parents house but saved some for home. We stayed bundled up all Christmas afternoon & evening opening presents & playing with all the new toys.

 

We also had a stay at home New Years Eve party. The kids had pizza, played with balloons,decorated cupcakes & drank "wine". They didn't make it to midnight, but that's OK! We didn't mind. 

We have also spent the last 10 days passing around a very dangerous strand of the flu. 3/5 of us got it, but we were lucky & caught it early so it wasn't too bad. I've also been super busy with work. My sales are going great & I really couldn't ask for more! I have amazing customers that keep me busy & for that I am always so grateful!

So Much More..

 The reason for today's post is simple, I've always been very careful about sharing the kid's "stories". Basically their history, their abuse, their neglect. I feel like a lot of that is THEIR story, not mine. It isn't mine to tell. I still feel that way very much. But over the last 3 years our son has a new story with us that has been so challenging. Tuck was always a blissful, happy & free spirited kid. Since the day we met him his smile could light up a room & his love for life was infectious. The first signs something was wrong was when he was 3. We noticed he was very methodical in things he did. Primarily in the way of counting, when he washed his hands, when he did certain things, he counted (usually to 7). If he became interrupted he would start over & repeat the process again. We immediately started interrupting the behaviors &  distracted him with conversations etc. Deep down now I know he still probably did those things, just in his head. Tucker's first year of school in pre-k went great. He was happy & well behaved. He never had anything I would consider an "issue". But slowly over the last 3 years he has struggled with his behavior. He would do crazy things, like throwing stuff or screaming, that were so unlike him. My happy joyful baby changed. His smile wasn't as bright, his personality just wasn't the same. It happened slowly, almost without being noticed. Last year we started noticing new things, like his "heart beeping too fast", and him not being able to catch his breath. My heart was breaking for him. We had reached out to his pediatrician over & over but were told it was his age he would outgrow it. But when I watch my son cry in fear because his heart is pounding or he can't breathe, I KNOW something is wrong. During all of this we have also struggled with his school. They were unable or unwilling to place him with a teacher that would satisfy what I felt was a level of consistency in THEIR behavior, that made me confident that the issue was HIS behavior. Finally after 3 teachers this school year alone he was placed with a wonderful teacher who did everything she could to help him. She communicated with us on a daily basis, she was consistent with reinforcement & discipline at school & most importantly she brought us to the point that we felt we had done EVERYTHING we could do to help our son, without medication.  All of these signs pointed to an impulse control issue, and it was confirmed by a NEW pediatrician. We did recently put Tuck on medication to help him, and things have been so amazing. The very first day he was on it, we noticed such a HUGE difference in him. As the days went by we realized how much of our son had slipped away! I know you're thinking, how did it go on so long? It happens slowly, and you start to forget what the old child used to be like. Most importantly I have seen my happy confident son come back. His anxiety is gone & he is PROUD of himself again. So often people think parents medicate their kids to make their own lives easier. I didn't put my son on medication to make MY life easier. I did it to make HIS life happier. He is no longer anxious about trying so hard to be good at school, even though its beyond his control. He likes going to school, his grades are improving & most important, HE is happier.