Ten Long, Long Weeks

 

Believe me, we tried. We really did!

We loved them up, bought a minivan, rearranged our home, rearranged our schedules, didn’t visit my nephew all summer...

But when you ask and ask and ask for help from the agency that is supposed to be there for the kids and to support you and get told it’s “just the terrible twos early,” we’ll, some changes have to be made.

So the girls we took in ten weeks ago are going to another foster home. It was not a good fit. There was no support. It was taking away from Joshua and Kaylie and affecting my marriage and my mental health.

I know their new foster parents will love them and (hopefully) provide something permanency to their lives.

They need more help than we can give. I feel guilty. I feel a bit of a failure.

But mostly I feel relief.

I want to tell you...

 

I want to tell you that having Baby N. back after so many months of not seeing her was blissful.

I want to tell you that seeing Baby S. who looked so much like Baby N. when she was that age filled us with joy.

I want to tell you that the transition was seamless, that Darryl and I never fought, that I didn't feel like I was neglecting Joshua and Kayle.

I want to tell you that having to live in a hotel for a week with four kids (because we had scheduled months earlier to have our carpets ripped up and our floors redone) was a super fun adventure.

I want to tell you that Baby N. didn't have tantrums on average 10 times an hour.

I want to tell you that Baby S. slept and didn't wake up every two hours all night long, every night.

I want to tell you that I loved having my office in my unfinished basement wasn't a problem at all.

I want to tell you that I still had plenty of "me" time and Darryl and I had plenty of "us" time.

I want to tell you that I had plenty of time to eat well, to exercise, to crochet and read and create.

I want to tell you that my cats still got tons of attention and my dogs still got lots of walks.

I want to tell you that my former student didn't text me constantly about how much she missed her daughters that she ELECTED to put into foster care.

I want to tell you that the 24-year-old case planner was super responsive to my concerns about Baby N's tantrums and throwing herself on the floor and having food aggression like a dog.

I want to tell you that I didn't collapse every night crying because my house was a disaster and I was so overwhelmed I didn't want to be in my own house.

I want to tell you that I didn't regret my decision.

But I would be lying.

Mermaid Room

 

I lost my office.

One of the reasons we bought our current home is because there were more than two bedrooms (we have four).  One was our bedroom, one was Tiernen's, and one was Joshua and Kaylie's. And one of them was my office.

Was.

The baby was easy.  At two months old, we could put her in the bassinette part of a Pack N Play and put her in our bedroom.  Newborns wake up in the night (this baby woke up more, much more than most, but I'll save that for another post).

Joshua was fine in his room.  It was already decorated and had all his stuff in it.  We gave away his toddler bed, bought him new furniture -- including a BIG BOY BED complete with a memory foam mattress --  and took out Kaylie's crib.  His room was done.

But then there was the girls' room, my once upon a time office.  (Once upon a time, this room was paneled with ultra-cheap faux wood paneling!)  If you know me, you know I have a thing for mermaids ever since I started making crocheted mermaid dolls almost five years ago.  An obvious choice was a mermaid room.  

I painted three walls purple, one wall blue, and took advantage of the wooden mermaid summer signs that were on sale everywhere (because summer is over in retail world once July comes, everything was on sale, sale, sale!)  I bought blue and purple hombre curtains and starfish tie backs.  (Thanks, Amazon)  I bought purple sheets and purple and teal mermaid scale blankets.  I already had the white furniture from our former foster room (now Joshua's) so it went together.

I even bought a "mermaid tail" cactus!

Looking at it, it's hard to believe that THIS GIRLY of a room is in MY home, but it is.  

Four!

 

Unless you are a foster parent, I'm sorry, but you just don't get it.  

Not surprisingly, the majority of my local friends are also foster parents.  When Christine and Dale had four under five years old, I told them they were amazing.  When Karen and Heather had five (four fosters plus their own infant daughter), I told them they were brave.  When Nicole and Whitney told me they are up to NINE under seven, I didn't know whether to admire them to refer them to a good psychiatrist.

But...

Here I was.  With four kids.  Under three.  Joshua (2 1/2), Baby N (17 months), Kaylie (13 months), and Baby S (2 months).  

The first thing that happened was... Tiernen decided to move out and started looking for an apartment.  I wasn't insulted.  She is 24 and she has a Master's degree and she was ready.  After two years of living in Albany in an apartment, she was happy to leave.  

Plus.  We had four kids.  Under three.  Four kids.  

The next thing that happened was we started looking for a minivan.  Read that again.  Me.  The antiminivan woman.  I was looking for a minivan.  And we found one.  $5,000 for a loaded 2010 Honda Odyssey.  We bought it and had visions of us happily driving around with our four car seats.

Except... we couldn't register the van.  It ended up taking two months, but that's for another post.  Everywhere we went, we drove two cars:  Darryl with two of the kids and me with the other two.  Talk about lots of gas.

Talk about lots period.

Quarantining... and then...

One of the sort of cool things about having lived all over the country is that I'll get Facebook friend requests from colleagues and students from many, many years ago.  If it weren't for reconnecting on ol' social media, Darryl and I wouldn't have reconnected.  Yup, I am old school and like my Facebook.

Here I was, in the throws of quarantine, taking care of Joshua and Kaylie while teaching 12+ hours a day (because all the daycares were closed) when I got a friend request I was not expecting.  It was my student... the one who disappeared after I fostered her daughter for three months in early 2019.

I accepted her friend request, asked for pictures of the now very-big Baby N., and figured that would be that.  But no.

Apparently, my student -- you remember, the one who dropped out of school the week after she got the baby back -- had ANOTHER baby with Mr. Wonderful.  

Mom (still a minor) was IN FOSTER CARE with the two kids.  She wanted to know if I would take the girls (Baby N. and Baby S., ages 17 months and 2 months).  

Why?

Because she wanted to leave foster care and a program that would give her and her children housing, get her a GED, and get her job skills.  She wanted to be with Mr. Wonderful who physically abused the baby at two weeks old. You read correctly:  Two.  WEEKS.  Old. 

When I tell you that I literally begged, begged her to stay with her children, I am not exaggerating.  I begged.  I reasoned.  I made lists of why she should stay with them.

But she didn't. 

The day after she turned 18, she told the foster system she was ELECTING to leave her girls in care so she could be with her boyfriend.

Five days later, they were in our home.