*I started out thinking this could be a FB post, but writing is my therapy so it got longer than first expected.
Long Post Alert, Vulnerable Post Alert
We have had some changes in our foster journey. Chapter 1
has come to a close. I can’t go into most of it, but we are at peace as changes
have been made and the family is reunified in love, safety, stability and real
change.
I love that our network of friends and family ask us
questions about the process. I hope that our answers are helpful, true and
might make you consider supporting foster care in your local area. So, in that
light here are the most common questions we get, and my answers.
1.
How can you give them back? I would fall
in love right away and not be able to do that.
It’s a complex answer but part of it is, I
am trained in Elementary Education, with a Masters in School Counseling and a
certificate in Marriage and Family Therapy. I spent 6 years in school learning
kids and adolescents. I know in my brain that the best place for children is
with their birth family, when the family is loving, safe, stable and healthy. I
ALSO know that is not the case in many homes. The next best place for children
is a loving home with trained adults (in trauma care), who have open hearts,
faith ( for us this is key but might not be for all), and actually “see”
children and want to help provide the best family they can.
So, we can love our foster kids and also
understand on a fundamental level, that the placement might not last but the
love will. To me, it’s just something you either can do, or you can’t do. I don’t EVER
suggest going against your instinct, if you can’t see it, then please support
in another way.
2.
Doesn’t it break your heart? The family
lost them, how can you not be mad or angry with the parents?
Before we went to our first training,
during one of many conversations and prayers, Stephen looked me in the eye and
said, “Babe, are you sure? You are going to get soo attached to the kids and be
upset when they leave. Are you sure?” And I remember what I said then and I
would say it now. It’s ok. It’s ok to have your heart break or be sad. I am a
grown woman with many blessings, and I have the life skills to have heart break
and be ok in time. But many kids don’t and I would rather be sad and know that
we did our best for a child. I would rather shed tears and be confused
sometimes, if that helps a child to be able to have a fair shot at this thing
called life.
From that point on, we started training etc
and the rest is history.
*There is SO much to do in foster life, for
us at least, there is not a ton of time to be mad and resentful with the
parents. So many of us would have a different life if born to different people.
So that perspective helps.
3.
What next? Is Foster child #2 on the way?
Do you and Stephen want to have a baby? Adopt?
So, because life does whatever it wants, let me share this. At the start of the year just as we got licensed, my job, with a federal Dept of Education grant program supporting first-generation college students with income restrictions, was threatened (is still unsure in all honesty). It was a mess, I was stressed, and yet we were so close to starting fostering! Life is both sour and sweet… ya know. Anyway, I won’t even waste my time explaining how grants like mine change cycles of generational poverty and provide access to needed post-secondary outcomes. I will say that I need a bit of time to be laser focused on my professional future. I have some conferences to attend, and professional mapping to consider. So, we will take about 2 months of a “pause” so I can get some things settled.
In June, we will be open to our next placement😊 Along that line, family planning will take its own course. If baby Melvin ever comes to be…ya’ll know me, you would know😊 The only thing for certain is if our path were to have to include IVF etc. that is not the path for our family. So that’s really all I can say about that. Oh, but if a foster to adopt chapter of our life comes to be one day, we are open to that.
4.
This last thing is just a message from us to
you. You all who love us, and lift us in prayer, and care for us, and have
given us the tools to be able to become first time parents through fostering. Little lady enjoyed
everything, and we sent her with some items like clothes, books, toys,
toiletries, diapers etc, as she resettles back home. We have the other
donations and gifts that you all have given and will be so happy and way more
ready for Chapter 2 this summer and beyond. Thank you for all that you mean to
us. In this book called life, I would not change a thing😊
