Breaking the Silence in the New Year

I’m not even sure where to begin here … it’s been quite a while (“hiatus” indeed, right?!). I suppose I’m here to reflect. How unique of me to do around New Years.

2013 has been certainly the most memorable year of my life – the highest of highs and lowest of lows. A quick review:

• January 20 – E proposed, I said yes!
• February – E and I officially start our journey toward foster parenthood by attending an info session
• March – MAPP classes begin
• June 27 – We became parents to a beautiful 10 month old
• August – We celebrated Monica’s first birthday
• August 23 – We said tearful goodbyes to our first child
• August 24 – Our wedding shower
• November 9 – E and I said “I do,” the happiest day of our lives.
• Our first holidays together as a married couple

I’ve tried many times to blog here again, and I never quite know where to start. I’m all too aware that my readers (if indeed I still have readers) are a dizzying mix of people who know every detail of what has transpired over the past four months, those who know just enough, and those who know nothing at all. As I’m sure those of you who don’t know have guessed, E and I are no longer parenting Monica. Though I cannot (nor do I want to) rehash the whole story here (I know, I’m sorry), Monica was moved from our home at the end of August. We are no longer privy to information about her, but we believe she is still in foster care. She was moved to another home in our state, and is (per account from a social worker months ago) doing well. I’ve had the past four + months to think about (in detail) all of the broken components of this system that, from our perspective, failed Monica, us, and countless future foster children we most likely will not care for. Despite all of this time, we still can’t quite sort out all that we’ve been through, and why. 

When it comes to Monica’s departure from our care, the most difficult thing for us was how sudden everything happened. From the time we found out about the move to the time we said goodbye was less than an hour. Neither of us were prepared for the total lack of time to prepare ourselves, say goodbye, pack her things … it was a truly upsetting emotional experience. Worst of all, poor Monica was just as suddenly thrust into yet another world she didn’t know, with not one familiar face. E and I are so lucky to have had our amazing support system of friends and family to help us through the loss; Monica had to deal with loss on her own, with only new people around to help her through. Unfortunately, our ability to grieve was disrupted significantly due to our need to deal with the workings of a broken system, including protecting ourselves. We had done so much to prepare ourselves to say goodbye to Monica. In fact, we knew it was an inevitability. Regardless, nothing could have prepared us for the manner in which we eventually had to say goodbye. Only now, more than four months later, have we begun to be able to talk about Monica, laugh about her quirks, bring her up in casual conversation … It was only two weeks ago that we went through all of her things and started the daunting task of dismantling the nursery.

Although all of the things that drove us to foster parenthood still remain, at this point, we are not fostering. I believe we may revisit fosterhood at some point, but for now we need to focus on healing from our experience and starting our lives together. Obviously, we’ve had quite a year! Our wedding was so perfect, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be legally wed (it really does feel different!). We are hopeful that Monica is in a good home, continuing to thrive and to transfer her healthy attachments to her new foster parent. This year saw us become parents, and now we are parents without children. I truly hope (and believe) that 2014 will be a year of healing, of love, and maybe even pursuit of parenthood (foster or otherwise) again. 

Still Amazed

It still amazes me how easily this kid goes down now. Given that the first night she screamed for a half hour before falling asleep only out of exhaustion, and that she has cried herself to sleep almost every night since (up until a few days ago) … I just … it feels impossible to believe. It’s the little things. Tonight she was totally not tired when I put her down. And she just went with it. She stayed awake babbling to herself but didn’t cry. at. all. Why is this so exciting for me? My life is so weird.

Today in pictures:

We have cruising. How exciting. Obviously you can’t tell in this picture (we’re not at Hogwarts after all), but she is scooting along the couch.

Monica is now doing this headstand thing. I think she is trying to stand up without having something to pull up on … but she is can’t actually stand without holding on to something so her efforts are fruitless. Fruitless and cute.

We did a little shopping today for some fall clothing (don’t worry, we only spent like $17. No big if she’s not here when the weather cools). Upside down shopping is the best way to do it.

Foster Family Fun Day

I’m pretty sure I broke my toe this morning tripping over something or another strewn across the floor. That was the only downside of today though!

DCF held a foster family fun day at a local park/zoo this afternoon. They had lunch (hot dogs, hamburgers, etc), a bouncy house, pony rides, balloon animals, and a raffle. It sounded super fun and was something free to do on a Saturday afternoon, so we went for it. As with all things, Monica had a blast. There was a pretty wide range of people there, but I would say most of the kids were 3-9 years old. There were a few little ones, and a smattering of preteens and teens. The families included foster parents, kinship foster families (those caring for children related to them), and foster/adoptive families. It wasn’t very baby-centric (there weren’t many babies to cater to anyway), but we had fun just playing in the grass. E and I decided to make friends there (since we have had trouble finding a foster support community), and were kind of awkwardly on the prowl. Lucky for us, a young couple with a little one only 3 weeks younger than Monica sat down right next to us. They are an adoptive family with a super cute little guy. Not only is the little one super close in age to Monica, he was also placed with them only a week before Monica was placed with us. Since the world only gets smaller, I’ll also mention that the grandparents live in the town next to the one I grew up in (in Ohio), and the husband is almost as big a baseball fan as E. Monica and the little guy had fun playing together/near each other/sharing toys. Oh, and I won the first raffle prize – an edible arrangement (which has obviously already been eaten).

Monica and my awesome raffle prize enjoying family fun day. Side note: she loved the tag on the edible arrangement almost as much as we enjoyed the chocolate covered fruit.

After family fun day, we took a family trip to Target. For any of you who have been to our home in the past two months, you are probably aware of its current state. Now, E and I are generally neat people. And I say “neat” here to mean both “awesome slash super cool” AND “kind of anal and very tidy.” It may sound a bit of a contradiction in terms, but go with me here. Add to the mix a baby and all of her accompanying stuff, and things have gotten a little out of hand (though most people who come over think we’re crazy for saying our house is a sty). Given the temporary nature of all of this, we have hesitated to change much in terms of how our home is set up. Read: we haven’t wanted to buy a place to put all of her toys. So we haven’t. We had everything in little baskets on the floor, but it was driving me batty because you could still see everything. It was a glorified pile of toys and other baby related crap. Ugh. Anyway, back to Target. We finally broke down and bought a little shelf to put all of Monica’s things in and we already feel a million times better sitting in the living room. It’s amazing how much a glorified pile can affect my ability to relax. Life is good. I am kicking myself that I forgot to take a “before” picture (I literally said out loud that I wanted to too … dummy). Those of you who’ve been here will appreciate this (or maybe you think I’m nuts, which I’m also fine with). For readers who haven’t had the pleasure, I’m putting in an old blog pic that doesn’t fully capture the pile, but at least should give you an idea.

BEFORE

Just baskets on the floor. And Monica digging through them.

I’m using this photo for the angle. Obviously the toy pile is generally contained to the baskets, not strewn about the floor. Still.

AFTER

How nice and organized is this?! *Audible sigh or relief* Sheba thinks it’s a bit less exciting though apparently.

Needless to say, this is my new favorite thing. Speaking of new favorite things … Monica’s current game of choice is starting to get on my nerves (when it isn’t cracking me up). She constantly takes whatever she’s holding, holds it out over the edge of the changing table/high chair/stroller/grocery cart, looks us in the eye and says “uh ohhh …” then drops it. Hilarious slash super annoying slash adorable. I love that she knows what “uh oh” means now. She used to just say it whenever the spirit moved her. I just can’t get enough.

Not to jinx it …

I think it’s been long enough to be an unjinxable pattern (see what I did there? I totally jinxed it) – Monica has gone to bed without crying for four nights in a row. It’s my new favorite thing in life. She just thrives on consistency. Bedtime is the same every night, and she totally figured it out. As soon as her bottle is done, she turns around and lies on my shoulder. When I stand up and walk to the crib, she leans down to get in. It’s a beautiful thing.

Also, as of today, Miss Monica has been with us for 7 weeks. I’m here to tell you that, apparently, 7 weeks is approximately the time it takes me to feel completely acclimated to something new. Monica is a part of our lives and the routine as smoothly as if she always has been.

Since I know why you’re all really visiting my blog, a few pictures:

Reading Curious George on the couch.

Her new favorite activity – looking out the window.

Seriously, she’d do this for hours. If she is not at the window and suddenly remembers it’s her favorite place, she will forcefully point to the window and demand (via a shout) that we take her there. It’s actually very cute.

Did ya miss me?

I can’t believe I haven’t updated in 3 whole (eventful) days. I blame it on the new job. And the eventfulness.

Our visit from the SWs was a nice check in, and offered us some additional information about the case. First of all, we found out that Monica’s mom actually did not attend the visit. Her dad (and one of his other children) did. We also found out that Monica’s mom has other children who have been adopted (her parental rights having been terminated) in that other state. Fascinating new information. That info doesn’t affect us at all because Monica has a different father, but interesting (and sad) nonetheless. It was nice to see our family resource worker. She informed us that only 2 other people from our MAPP class (remember how there were like 30 of us?) have had their home studies completed and now have placements. She also said that multiple times over the past 6 weeks they’ve had kids come into care and she’s wanted to call us and stopped herself. As in, there is a chance in a parallel universe that we would have multiple children here right now.

As far as the actual case, nothing is any more clear. The inter-state work that has to happen is just a big unknown. It doesn’t happen often enough (and is apparently different every time), so no one really knows what will happen, how quickly it will happen, and generally how things will go. Ah well.

In other news, E and I had our first date night. Cousins S and C came over to baby (and doggie) sit. I was much more anxious than I thought I would be! I definitely micromanaged with the instructions (sorry guys), and needlessly worried about her ability to fall asleep without me (ha). She, of course, was a champ, despite deciding that while we were out was a good time to develop a cold. The evening went off without a hitch (except maybe a backwards diaper … but it still held!), and E and I got a much needed night to focus only on each other.

Today we took Monica to the zoo for the (probably) first time. She was so attentive and absolutely loved it! She took every single thing in and didn’t skip a beat. I loved seeing her little face as she saw each animal. She would get entranced and stare, then look at us and point. Adorable. As if she could be anything else.

E and Monica enjoying one of the free-roaming peacocks.

Monica showing me where the gorillas are hanging out.

She was mesmerized by the fish.

 

Showing E the giraffes and zebra.

L was thrilled to show Monica how the bouncing bug worked.

Checking out the goats! Monica showed this goat her supreme skill of knowing where his (her?) nose was. Glad she still has all of her fingers.

 

Opinions

Pre-Monica, I had a lot of opinions. Okay, I still have a lot of opinions. The ones I am referring to here are about parenting. Now, I am actually a very tolerant and inclusive person. I am all about different parenting styles. No mommy wars over here. Anyway, I used to have all of these opinions about how I was going to parent. And I no longer have so many. Examples:

These ridiculous things that you strap onto a crib that play music and project light shows on the ceiling. Ew. What’s the point of distracting your baby while they’re trying to sleep? My new opinion: Aahh, this is the magical thing that makes that terrible “I’m dying” noise stop. Okay. Love it.

Microwave dinners for babies. Okay I am kind of steadfast in my opinion that these are no good. If your kid can eat these, they can eat whatever you’re eating. The old K says, “WHO WOULD BUY THESE?” The new me? Ah, this baby goes to sleep before I eat dinner … soooo … sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

And there are more. The list goes on (leaving babies in clothes with food all over them, diapers visibly sticking out …). It’s amazing how quickly things change when practicality is the guiding force.

So back to foster care …

Monica has had a busy week. Her first EI visit was on Tuesday (we were just meeting her permanent provider and signing things), she had her one-year check up yesterday, and her lawyer visited again tonight. In terms of updates – she is still a healthy happy little nugget, making excellent developmental gains (crawling, pulling herself up, more and varied babbling, increased self-feeding and helping with dressing …). I learned a little something about the court system – apparently (in MA), the child’s attorney represent’s the child’s desires. If a Guardian ad Litem was assigned, they would represent their best interests (remember that often their desires do not align with their best interests – I know mine never did growing up). When the child in question is so young, the attorney has to take in all of the information they have and make an assumption as to what the child would want – which can be different from the child’s best interests (or the birth parents’ best interests). It’s good that Monica has someone advocating for her. The whole system is set up to advocate for her parents (while simultaneously ensuring her safety) – every piece of the plan that is made must be with the end goal of reunification (until the court moves to terminate parental rights).

Anyway, her visit tonight was helpful. She let us know that the plan set in place at the last court date was still in motion – that our state and the other state are in the process of doing home studies on one of Monica’s out of state relatives with the intention of transferring the case. I believe that the hope is that that will happen at the next court date (late September). I know that her lawyer will advocate for Monica’s perceived desires – and she made it seem like she sees our home as preferable to Monica (considering the only information she has to go on is the reason for removal from her family, their behavior thus far, and what she has seen of Monica’s progress and happiness in our home). Of course, her lawyer is just one of many involved in this case, all in a system that aims to keep birth families together at all costs. But it is nice to know that (and how) her interests will be advocated for independent of her parents.

Speaking of her parents, Monica’s 6th family visit was scheduled for today. Drumroll please … they showed up! We don’t really know how it went yet, since her SW picked her up and dropped her off at daycare, but our SWs will be visiting tomorrow evening and hopefully will let us know how things played out. I’m happy to hear that they were able to have a family visit. I am really looking forward to hearing how it went. It’s so easy to build fictional ideas of who they are and how they would be with Monica when they are completely absent from our lives. We signed up for this – to be foster parents, to parent and fall in love with children who will be with us for just a little while, but also to work with, get to know, and hopefully support birth parents. It just makes it difficult when you fall in love with the child and so easily lose sight of the part where they are going to go home. I have mantras – I constantly remind myself that Monica is our beautiful, happy, and charming child for a little while, and then she will go home to her family to be their beautiful, happy, and charming little girl. But I do believe that foster parents need more than just will power and mantras – we need to be included as a part of this system, reminded not just that our children’s biological parents exist, but also who they are and how hard they are trying to get their kiddos back. Even supported and encouraged to work with them and be ongoing parenting supports. I know that this also causes infuriating situations when the families are not working hard to get their kids back – but that’s part of all of this too. The more we, as foster parents, are kept on the outside, the harder it is for us to buy into, work with, work around, and exist as a part of the system.

So that’s my opinion on that.

I have one more opinion, and that is that this little ball of sweetness is far too adorable for words (recognize that bedtime soother thing and the sticking out diaper?):

Whadda Weekend

E and I continue to be insane people masquerading as calm, cool, collected, no-big-deal-we-got-this type ladies. After our awesome partay on Friday, we headed to Connecticut to our engagement party. Lucky for us, we learned a thing or two on the last road trip and I think this one went much better. It helped that we were going about half as far. Some highlights:

Hey, look at that! That’s a sleeping baby thank you very much. She took nice long naps each way and barely complained for the parts she was awake. We didn’t even have to pull over once.

All three of my girls, relaxing at the hotel.

Seriously, this is the life. Can we do this every weekend? (hint: no)

The engagement party was really lovely – and the first (and only other than the wedding) time all sides of our families were together. It was an odd clash of worlds, but in a great way. Who wouldn’t want to see everyone they love in one place, right?! And Monica was a hit (duh).

Monica entertaining Cousin C by trying to grab the flowers off the wallpaper (it’s the small things).

Monica couldn’t get enough of Uncle T’s antics.

E and I cherish the time we get with our families, since they are out of state. While we always wish there was more time to go around (and I’m sure now everyone wishes there was more Monica to go around!), it was a lovely 24 hour trip and we made it back in one (well, three) piece(s).

Monica enjoying a bottle (okay, me enjoying giving Monica a bottle) at breakfast with the immediate families. Sorry for the creepy face blurring … but love that you can see her little wisps of hair! It’s growing!

Just to keep things spicy, I’m going to start my new job tomorrow. Good vibes appreciated.

Sneak peek: Monica has her one-year well visit this week (still can’t believe she’s one, even though she’s only been around for 5 and a half weeks), her first EI visit, and we have a visit from both SWs (hers and ours). Hopefully updates to come. We’ll just keep loving on her and watching her grow for now! Not too bad a deal.

Life Goes On

The scheduled visit with Monica’s parents today didn’t happen (again). All of the missed visits make me feel really sad for Monica, and for her parents. I don’t want to assume the circumstances or pass judgement on people I don’t know. All I can say is that it must be very difficult for them that they haven’t seen their daughter. It must be hard to now have missed the visit that would have been closest to her first birthday. I can’t imagine the pain of missing your child’s first birthday … or missing all of the milestones that she has met in just the past 5 weeks. The last time they saw her she wasn’t crawling, wasn’t pulling herself up, wasn’t holding her own bottle … It must be hard.

Lucky for us, Monica isn’t old enough to be aware of the missed visits. So life moves on. Our play time today included:

Playing her favorite game of “take all of the things out of whatever they are in” – today it was the books. Luckily we wised up about the book box and took all paper page books out, leaving only the durable board books in there for the taking. Phew.

At least today’s game progressed into interest in the discarded books.

Reading (also known as, “Oh hey! These aren’t just for throwing!”).

Showing off her genius baby skills – she now knows the answer to, “Where’s my nose?” (Of note – she also knows the answer to, “Where’s Monica’s nose?”) (Also of note, she is hugely proud of herself and gives a big toothy grin and giggle every time she does it).

I’m not even cleaning this up. (Sheba? Little help?) Those of you who know me know that means I’m exhausted.

**Update – E is the best and she cleaned it up for me

So despite the missed visit, we salvaged the day. The night, unfortunately, was not so much salvageable. Monica was super tired but refused to go to sleep. If we were holding her, she was squirming. If we put her in her crib, she was doing the crazy death scream. If we brought her out to the living room, she was fussing. I’m reasonably certain that it was teething-related. She finally went down after sucking on/biting her stuffed dog’s ear for like 20 minutes. And our daycare provider literally just texted that she has an appointment tomorrow so her back-up provider will be there to watch the kids from 11-5 (seriously?! good thing I’m off tomorrow).

On the docket for next week: I start my new job, we have a visit with both SWs (Monica’s and ours) where we hopefully get more details, another doctor’s appointment (of course), and possibly her first EI visit. Never a dull moment, that’s for sure.

Busy Busy

OK I know I didn’t post yesterday … things have been busy busy around here! I know I’ve hinted at other big changes here at Chez K and E. For those of you who don’t know, we’re freaking insane. You see, E got a job offer the morning of the day Monica came to us. And the next day? Oh, no big deal, I got one too. So over the past month, we’ve not only been adjusting to parenthood, but also making huge changes in our lives – resigning from our jobs (a first for both of us), transitioning to new schedules, starting new jobs, meeting new coworkers, learning new commutes … it hasn’t been the quietest of months. Well, you can’t say no when life rains blessings on you! Onward and upward.

E and I are really enjoying some of the “normal” parenthood things (read: things that are not related to figuring out what to refer to each other as, when visits will take place and whether they’ll be canceled, court dates, length of placement, permission to travel …) like buying birthday presents and celebrating milestones. And we haven’t even had too much to deal with from DCF (still on the “no news is good news” kick).

Monica has a visit scheduled for tomorrow, and her SW sounds confident that her parents will attend. I’m hopeful that this is the case, and that they are able to celebrate her first birthday with her despite the circumstances.

Given how disjointed this post is, I don’t even feel bad about ending with a picture from Saturday. How great is the placement of L’s cone? Perfectly unintentional privacy protection.

Community

Our girls weekend is off to a great start! Monica, Sheba, and I all miss E (especially Sheba), but we are making it work. I’ll have pictures tomorrow to brag about all of the fun we’re having, but for today, I have a topic: community amongst foster parents.

It seems to me (from the outside) that most first time parents (who do it “the regular way”) find themselves a new little community when they are pregnant – they bond with other parents due around the same time. There are birthing classes, mommy ‘n me groups, play dates, and new friendships. When people become parents through foster care, things are a little bit different. We don’t know when we’ll become parents, so we can’t bond with people over our “due date.” We don’t know how old our children will be when they come to us, so we can’t form a play group. So where can we find our parenting community? Some people find that community in their MAPP class. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t find people we could relate to and lean on in our class. E and I are lucky to have neighbors with children who we’ve been able to lean on and look toward for advice and support. But becoming parents through foster care presents a unique set of challenges, and there is something to be said for finding a community of foster parents with whom we share these challenges and triumphs.

Monica and I spent some time this afternoon with friends of friends (soon to be 1st-degree friends I hope) who are pursuing adoption through foster care and their adorable foster (pre-adoptive) twins. Although their path is slightly different than our own, it was so refreshing to be able to talk openly with people who are facing the same issues as us. I will talk more about our visit in tomorrow’s post, but it got me thinking a lot about the importance of community. Many of us have found a community here, online. Unfortunately, “online” isn’t a place and we can’t easily get together, have play dates, and bitch about social workers and court cases. I feel like foster parents need this community, and it isn’t as easy to find as the hundreds of mommy groups forming on any given week. Foster parenting is uniquely challenging – it takes a great deal of patience, courage, and strength to parent other people’s children, to fall in love with them and treat them as your own, and then to see them go (often to a home that you might not perceive as ideal). We need to find our local community – we need to lean on each other, get advice about which social workers to avoid, where to take your kids to the dentist, which doctors are accessible for last minute appointments, where to find cheap clothes in all sizes, where to find free stuff, who to ask for help …

The friends we visited with today (T and Y … and Frick & Frack) were lucky enough to attend a MAPP class out in Big Suburb (rather than here in Big City), where they found an amazing community. They have a listserv where they share stories of their placements and social workers and court cases, where they share in each others triumphs and challenges. Big Suburb isn’t really close enough either though. They can’t set up play dates and go to the same community events. For E and I (and T and Y), we have each other for now. But I hope that we can carve out a little community for ourselves here, where we can find that camaraderie and look to each other for advice. It just seems like something that DCF could do a better job of encouraging. Or maybe it’s a job for an outside organization, or community organizers. Either way, I’m looking for it. Support groups at our area office start back up in the fall, and I hope that there we will find ourselves taking a step in the right direction.