Adoption

If you knew what you knew now would you have done anything different?  Being a foster parent is the most amazing and fulfilling thing I have ever experienced. It fills my heart with so much joy and hopefully helped in the life of the children that were in our home.

But let’s get real, there is not a lot of transparency and information that comes from the case workers and navigating the system can be very challenging and frustrating at times. You definitely have to be the advocate for the children in your home or they can get lost in the system.  I also understand that reunification is the goal in all cases, but sometimes it’s like really? How can this be the right thing? You can only pray that the best thing for these children will be done. 

Then there are those days when you get to stand in front of a judge with your child and they now have your last name and are officially yours! Unfortunately, though, in our case when they take your last name, they also lose all services that they had available to them when they were in foster care. It is sort of like okay, “You are on your own now, good luck!” I would say this has been the biggest struggle in the day to day raising of my kids. Especially when you get them as newborns and there is not a lot of family health history, somedays you think “they never told us any of this is the foster care classes.” Haha.

We have gone through things that most people could never imagine but this is real life folks! From trying to get diagnosis, and then over and over trying to get proper diagnosis, dealing with multiple diagnosis, trying to find support, educational support, health care, you name it and it has been a challenge.  Children that have been exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero brings on so many unknowns and challenges, especially as they get older.

Like I said 4 of my 6 children are adopted and they were all exposed in utero and had very little prenatal. That is just the medical part during pregnancy that we know about; then there is the family history of medical illnesses and more commonly the psychological history. The unknown is very hard, and you just have to take it day by day, sometimes minute by minute! My amazing therapist told me “You have to learn to forgive yourself, you have done everything in your power to help these children.”  Somedays I feel as though I am failing as a parent as one is experimenting with recreational drugs because they don’t like the side effects of their medication and another has punched another hole in your wall because you told them no.

I have learned over the years that if you have zero expectation, your life will be so much easier. I am not saying for a minute that you should expect your kids to amount to nothing, but when you have less expectation the little wins are so much sweeter when they happen. If you are constantly comparing your special needs kids to other kids in the neighborhood or at school you are setting yourself up.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard, “we would have never acted like this” or “my parents would have never allowed us to talk to them like that”, well guess what? Good for you and your parents!! Until someone has walked in your shoes they have no room to judge or criticize your parenting. My kids have made such amazing progress over the years so if there is a broken piece of furniture, a hole in the wall, or a slammed door; so be it.

There are some great books on special needs, fetal alcohol syndrome, ADHD, you name it. I have found the more you educate yourself the better advocate you can be for your children, because nobody will fight for them like YOU!