The Holidays - An Unexpected Tradition

Holidays with kids is something truly special. Seeing the world through their eyes no matter what you have chosen as your traditions brings back the magic feeling you had as a child yourself. It's a time to reflect, be generous, celebrate with family, and have hope for what you may accomplish in the new year. As someone who dealt with infertility, this time of year was the hardest next to Mothers Day. Kids are everywhere...commercials, TV specials, sales at the store, Facebook posts with Santa, and even if you avoid all of that you have the cheerful smiles of families arriving to your mailbox reminding you another year has gone by.

You'd think now that we have children these worries and stress would have gone away. It has for the most part but it's morphed into something similar to guilt. It's the only time of the year the kids birth Mom contacts us and her words spell out the anguish she's in over not having them with her. It makes me wonder what she's doing constantly since I know she's thinking about the kids. It has me wishing we had contact with her to help ease that pain somewhat but also has me scared to do so because I know that longing for the kids is the strongest right now and I'm too worried about what contact like that could result in.

Last year and this year we're lucky in the fact this is a burden on only us the adults. Next year I might have questions from my sweet little girl about what her other Mom is doing and why she can't be there with us. It has sparked an inner competition in me to make the Holidays so incredible for the kids they couldn't possibly want for more. In a way that feeling is always there because it's the only way you feel you can control sparing your child pain over wondering about their birth parents. I know it's not possible or even healthy to think that way but it's the honest raw reality of what I think a lot of adoptive parents feel.

One of the things that weighs on my mind is a conversation I had with their birth Mom the only time I spent alone with her. It was last year in early December so Christmas was on my mind. I asked her if there were any traditions that were important to her so we could help give that to the kids. She told me no, she had no traditions and that she didn't have much of a family. That broke my heart and now I know why she must have the hardest time now because perhaps she hoped these kids would finally be a family of her own. I didn't have the thought at the time to push her a little more and ask if there were any traditions she hoped to have with kids but it's something I wonder about all the time.

I felt much of the same last year as I do this year...almost stolen moments of joy since I know someone else is longing to be doing this with the kids right now. Last year I had the added worry of it being our only Christmas with the kids because things were up in the air about if we'd finalize. I hope each year I'll feel less and less conflicted. I wanted to document this so I can look back and hopefully see how this tradition of guilt has faded to only joy and peace for us all.

A Family of Our Own

This morning a friend gave me the gift of a poem he wrote about our adoption story. It's so beautiful I just had to share. Thank you Jamie!

A Family of Our Own

Seems distant now-

That it would be just us.

Yet we settled into that mind.

There were flashes of hope.

Just flashes.

And wanting-

Then a moment.

A moment of Grandeur,

One call-

One gift-

Four souls transcended.

A welcoming of growing,

The extension of a home.

A love we never thought we’d know…

And a family of our own.

                                                                                                                          Jamie Burgasser

Adoption Day

I sit here with a cup of coffee in the quiet house before kids are awake. It's a big day at our house but in another sense it's not. The kids are too young to understand the importance of today. They won't understand why we're at a court house and will probably just be squirmy and cranky. Today marks the end of our time in "the system". It means we no longer have to fill out incident reports and send them out in triplicate every time the kids get a mark on them. We don't have to attend all the various social worker meetings every month. And finally what I'm most excited about is we can share photos of our kids online.

One might think this is the happiest day of our lives but it really doesn't hold a lot of meaning to me. The day I'll remember and celebrate is the day we met and were given the awesome responsibility of being parents to these incredible children. Walking in the door to the previous Foster Mom's house and seeing this sweet little girl with a head full of glossy dark curls and a binky in her mouth is what is etched into my mind as my happiest day. I recall studying her while trying not to scare her, drinking in every detail. I remember the tears of joy I cried in this woman's living room as she placed a tiny bundle into my arms. The gravity of responsibility that started to settle in as I realized we'd be leaving this house with these two little beings and we were now responsible. Driving away with them both tucked into their car seats was surreal. That my friends was the best day of my life.

The fear of loosing the kids is not entirely gone. There's no legal risk of them being taken away and I haven't worried over that since August. Now it's my fears of their birth parents finding them that comes into play. Before their rights were terminated we had the state to hide behind with no contact. Now the contact is our choice. They have no vested interest in trying to play by the rules because there's no chance for them to get their kids back. I do want them to have contact with the kids but I don't know what that looks like or when we'll be ready. There is no instruction book on this so we have to go with what we feel is best. I think we'll take a little time off on thinking about that for now.

It's been a year and a half since that wonderful day we were united as a family. It's going to be strange to hear us pronounced as their parents because we feel as if we always have been. Hearing Zoe proudly and possessively announce to people "My Mommy" and "My Daddy" is one of the best things in the world. I hope she tells the Judge that today because there's nothing he could say that we all haven't known in our hearts for quite some time. There is no finish line in parenting, we're just moving on to the next phase with open arms and thankfulness in our hearts.

Updated: today held more meaning than I knew. It caught us both off guard and we nearly started crying in court. It was emotional in the best kind of way...all in all a perfect day.

The home stretch

Today we completed one of the final steps of the process for adoption, the negotiation of adoption support. I've included a link for those curious in details on the program for my state. You start by filling out an application detailing your income, expenses, and the special needs of your children. Special needs means a lot of things. For instance if you are adopting and your financial situation prohibits you from providing for the child they would help you out as it's in the best interest of the child and much cheaper in the long run for the state to have them in a stable home instead of a perpetual foster child.

I awaited the call from the state to negotiate with some nerves because negotiation is usually work. We started off the conversation with the woman telling me a story about how her husband was a infant model for the company I work for. She was friendly and upbeat. She then gave me two options which were both more than we expected. She explained the only reason my kids were eligible was due to their ethnicity. It was unexpected but a nice surprise and will allow us to better provide for our kids.

It was so easy...which is shocking. Nothing thus far in this process could really be considered easy. And then we're told we'll be placed in the very next court hearing we can. In fact we'd be finalizing in less than a week if we were not taking a vacation.

This whole process has been high hoop after hoop. It's pretty shocking for something to come easy and even better, that soon there will only be the normal hoops of parenting. These are by no means "easy" but the relief of being out from under the microscope is HUGE!

Our next post will be a photo of us at court all sporting some big smiles...no faces covered!

Thank you each and everyone of you who have prayed and supported us to get us this far. Your love and support even if we don't know you has been felt!

The Final Steps

Today at our monthly social worker meeting we were presented with the kids full file. This happens when they are legally free (so we've been waiting for it since July). It gives us all the information the department has on the kids. This includes the social workers notes from each monthly visit, supervisors reports of visitation, and all the info they have on the birth parents. The stack of paper work is no less than 8" thick. I can't even imagine where we're going to store all this along with all the paperwork we already have.

I of course can't and don't wish to share any of the information it contains but I want to hurry and finish this post to get back to reading it. The process is such that we have to sign a release stating we have read all available information on the case before we proceed with negotiations for Adoption Support from the state. The information in the files could give us insight into something we might need support with. Once the support is negotiated, which we think will be done in the next two weeks, we submit all the paper work with our lawyer and get a court date to finalize.

November is National Adoption Month and there is a HUGE mass adoption that will be happening in our county the week we'll be in Hawaii. Our lawyer is really busy getting everything in order for other families to make that date so we're holding off since we can't be part of it anyway. It's looking like we'll be going to court in December if we get a court date then.

We're a bit of a unique situation when it comes to the paperwork. Many kids have been bounced around to several homes or have several reports from CPS before the kids were removed from their home that remain classified. For us, we've had the kids since my son was released from the hospital so we know just about everything in the paper work. It is pretty interesting reading Social Worker notes about us and detailed reports of what happened at the few visits the kids had.

Part of the plan for their birth Mom to get the kids back was her requirement to have a full evaluation with a psychologist. It is a comprehensive 16 page report of her responses and observations by the person who conducted it. I devoured each page, eager to learn anything I could about her and her thoughts on the whole situation. I'm sure I'll read it many times over. It struck me that the feelings of devouring each word and mental images of physical appearance and body language it caused me to be thinking about would only be heightened for both kids. In a sense it's the closest they may ever get to their birth mother. It's incredibly sad thinking about that. I can't imagine my only connection to my birth parents being though words on paper and the one photo we have.

All of this is sinking in and I want to do all I can to ease the emotional battle my kids are sure to face. It's yet another thing I wish I could spare them. I plan to talk about their Birth Mom often so she will not be a mystery. Answer any question I can. Most importantly, honor her in the role she plays in all of our lives. No matter what reports say and the negative picture some of them may portray, She is part of them and they are part of her. Therefore we all love their Birth Mom, just in a very different way than most.

So many reasons to celebrate

I've said it many times before but I feel so blessed to have the experience we've been given. Yes our road to being parents was hard, damn hard, but that makes the rewards all the sweeter. We have been given so many more milestones to celebrate because of how we have become parents. There was a huge out pouring of congrats and love when we were placed with the kids and that was reason for all the normal celebration that comes with most new babies.

Over a year ago we experienced the baby showers, the dinners people lovingly provided, and visitors from near and far to meet the new members of our family. All of this was wonderful and to be honest a blur. We were so overwhelmed with having just become parents we didn't relish in all the cute little gifts and organization of all their goodies like most parents I imagine do. It was wonderful none the less.

Becoming a parent through Foster to Adopt some unique milestones that may or may not happen with an adoption where the child has been relinquished by their birth parents. There's the day you find out you have been matched, which may or may not be the day you meet the child(ren). Then there is the day they come to live with you which could also be the day you were chosen and met. Finalization is the last step in the Foster to Adopt process and worth the biggest celebration of them all.

I'm a person who LOVES traditions so I've taken full advantage of being able to celebrate things that have been unique to our experience in addition to birthdays, holidays, and family events. We will always celebrate June 30th as Family Day. It's special because it was the day we met and started this journey together. It will entail a photo of us all together, doing something everyone in the family will enjoy doing together which will of course change as we all age, and Jay and I writing a message to the kids in their journal from us to them.

This weekend we threw a HUGE party inviting both sides of our large families and friends who have helped us along the way in celebration of being so very close to finalizing our adoption. I envisioned the party happening and then finally being able to show photos of the kids at it but that will have to wait. We wanted so many people to be part of the celebration because so many have helped us tremendously. We decided to take advantage of the last bit of decent weather and invite everyone to our house. We did a theme of family and had a photographer available for people to take family photos (ironically I'm not sure if we got a decent one of the four of us) and a family tree with finger print leaves as our guest book.

We're just weeks away from knowing what the Finalization date will be. I'm sure we'll do a much smaller scale celebration on that day, such as dinner out, but the joy in our hearts we felt in celebrating this weekend will be alive and well. We'll feel the cheers and hugs we've received from everyone all along with us there in the court room as we're pronounced a legal family.

Bring on the evidence of my life

This is kind of a heavy topic for a Friday night but it's something that's been rattling around my brain all week. Not long before my Dad passed away I discovered Greg Laswell and listened to him a lot. One song I loved but haven't been able to bring myself to listen to until just a few weeks ago is What a Day. If you've never heard it, give it a listen.

There's a line from that song that brings up so much emotion "bring on the evidence of my life". I am the evidence of my Dad's life in a physical sense. As I struggled to have a family of my own, this line captured the essence of one of my deepest fears - having no evidence of my life. It depressed me to create scrapbooks because I would think to myself no one is going to care about this crap when I die if I don't have kids. Of course that's not entirely true but if it's in your head it can make a pretty convincing argument when there's no one to bring reason to it.

Listening to this song again made me think about this fear and how my thoughts on it have changed since I've become a mother. It's taken actually becoming a mother, especially through adoption to realize how entirely irrational that thought process is. I'll never have physical proof of my existence unless I'm somehow mummified. It really doesn't matter if you have kids or not. Your life is about the connections you make and the impact you have on peoples lives in whatever form that may take.

When you want something so bad it's all consuming, it can be hard to be rational. I doubt coming to this realization sooner would have changed our decision on becoming parents but wow how I wish I'd figured this out to save myself some depression. It makes me realize seeing a physical version of me is entirely something that would be pleasing to me but how I parent that child is what matters. To both them and the world they live in. This is pretty basic stuff but maybe someone else is struggling with that fear and all they need to hear is there was another irrational person thinking about it. It's important to recognize your progress as you grow wiser and I'm proud to say I've accomplished a big "a ha" that will help me be better in every sense.