Early this year we started this adventure full of unknown things to us and our friends. A lot of our friends have started asking what's it like? Are we glad we're doing it? Would we be willing to adopt? Or they've said I've always wanted to foster but I'm worried about X, Y, & Z. So I thought maybe I'd write a bit about our experience so far.
1. The very first thing I learned was expect the unexpected. Things you never even dream of happening will probably happen.
2. I didn't know just how many appointments one boy could have in a week. It's a bit insane (This week in four days he had six appointments), but it's all necessary. This boys whole life from living with us, to his interactions with his parents, to his medical needs are all being noted by many, many people. It's all to decide the best place for his forever home to be, with his parents, with family, or with us. They all have different perspectives so when all is said and done the judge will have a well rounded idea of what this boys life is like and what it is going to look like in the future.
3. I'm in LOVE. This is not a long term babysitting thing with a kid I like. I mean love as in it's just as if I birthed him myself kind of love. With that love comes a whole lot of emotion. The grief of one day giving him back to his parents and the joy of seeing a family reconnected. The excitement of watching him reach his milestone and grow into a healthy boy. To the pain of watching him battle the hardships he has now, because every single child in foster care has battles they have to fight.
4. Yes I would adopt. I would have adopted him the moment I laid eyes on him. I knew signing on as a foster parent the goal is reunification. Until a judge says that's not possible that's the goal I will work towards. What I didn't know was just how quickly I'd fall in love or how different I see life to that of his parents.
5. I don't worry about my boys hearts being crushed. I know when we say goodbye that it will be a deep loss to us all. However, I want my boys to have hearts that can love unconditionally. I want them to love others expecting nothing in return. What better way to learn that for all of us then opening up our home, loving a helpless child just like he is ours until it's safe and right for him to go back with his parents. What better way to work through the pain of our loss while we celebrate the baby's joy of being reunited with his family.
6. Yes it's weird to constantly have the government in my house. I have rules I have to follow not only in how I take care of him but my big boys as well. For example the kids are not allowed to sleep in our bed. So if our big boys have a bad dream in the middle of the night we can't let them curl up beside us, instead they have to go back to there own beds. When we were going through our classes Strong man and I talked about our parenting style differences to that of the state and decided while we didn't agree with some of the rules we could follow them because in the big picture sending the boys back to bed isn't really a big deal, but letting a homeless child live with us is.
7. Will we do it again? That is the big question. While we love what we are doing we think for now, at least through the new year, we're happy with just one child. Honestly with homeschooling the big boys I'm not sure I have enough time to teach, do the normal appointments and the after school activities my big boys have, do all of the baby's appointments and then do all of the same appointments for another child. I'm just not sure if I have enough time in my life to add another. Time will tell for us.
8. No our kids are not losing anything by us doing this. Yes the boys are learning to wait because a crying baby wins over me seeing a tower they built, but the boys know as soon as I'm able they will get to show it off to me. Yes there are times when the baby has been at a parent visit that the big ones and I have gone out for ice cream so we could have a bit of time just the three of us. Over all they love helping with the babe. They got as excited as I did about hearing his first laugh. They enjoy being asked to help make bottles. They love it when I take a shower and tell them to keep and ear out for the sleeping baby. They feel like they have more responsibility and are being treated more like adults. They lay on the floor and play with him when he's on his mat. They beg to hold him. Sometimes I swear they wake him up just so they can see his smile. My boys have only gained from this experience.
9. How will we say goodbye? I don't know, I'll let you know when the day comes. As I said before we knew the goal was reunification when we started this journey. Honestly I hope that even when he goes back to his parents we can stay involved in his life. I hope they call when they need a sitter or invite us to birthday parties. He may forget me, but I will always count him as one of mine.
10. Do we recommend it? I think if you love being parent, have the space and time, then yes. However, I think everybody should research the different kinds abuse these kids go through. Then set very clear guidelines for yourself about the kind of kids you'll take in. For example we said infants only for our first one and we had a specific kind of abuse that we had spent weeks learning about so we could take care of him. For our next I'm leaning towards one a bit older. Honestly I don't know if I could handle children who have been physically abused. I don't know how to deal with random violent outbreaks of hurting other children, themselves or breaking things. Until I have time to learn more about parenting a child that's gone through that kind of trauma I've said no to physical abuse. I've also said no to kids in my big boys age range. We don't ever want the kids competing with each other. We want to celebrate everybody's wins as there own. So we've decided the kids that come in have to be in a different stage of life. All the wins they have will be there very own wins that we can celebrate with them for all of the kids in our house, Bios and fosters.
