A Year of Foster Parenting… Sort of

08/02/2012

Saturday was the one year anniversary of our first placement, dubbed Ladybug here. I thought about her a lot the past week. I pray that she’s doing well. No news is good news, I suppose. If you’ve been reading here long, you probably know that while we still consider ourselves foster parents, our home is in closed status while we’re temporarily living with my parents and building a new home. Technically we haven’t had a child in foster care with us since November when Precious was moved into our legal guardianship. Specifics aside, we’ve been parents for a year now. July 28, 2011 is one of those dates that will be permanently etched in my memory. Ladybug holds a very special place in my heart. She was the first child ever to call me mama.

We started our our day with a get together of old and new friends who are all touched by adoption or foster care one way or another. I call it a community group: people on similar life journeys hanging out with no agenda but to support and encourage each other. If nothing else, it’s a place where people don’t ask dumb questions or use wrong terminology about adoption. There was one brand new foster mama there with her 10 year old first placement. There was a couple and their daughter adopted from Ethiopia 2.5 years ago. There was a woman with her one year old who was an unexpected domestic infant adoption. And there were several friends who are waiting for domestic infant adoption matches. An eclectic mix with a common thread.

From there, we spent the afternoon with some of Precious’ biological family. I have so much going through my mind since then but little of it seems appropriate to share here. Maybe writing will help me sort out my thoughts … Precious has 4 older biological half-siblings, living in 3 different homes. It was great to get them all under one roof, to see them all loving each other so well and getting along great. They’re all just as beautiful as Precious, if you can believe that. I got a few photos of the five together but I don’t feel it’s appropriate to share here.

With foster care, there is not really such thing as “open adoption.” All adoptions are closed for reasons you can imagine. But at the same time, unless a foster parent is really determined to avoid the biological family all together—or if the bio family is gone—they’re going to meet or at least know each others’ names. This was scary to me at first. Partly for Precious’ safety and emotional health, but also for selfish reason: I don’t want to make things more complicated. (Ha!) I’m finally starting to understand the sentiment I’ve often heard in regards to open adoption: a child can never have too many people who love and care about her. Seeing how excited Precious’ bio family was to see her and how they couldn’t wait to shower her with hugs and kisses confirms the value of maintaining those connections when it’s possible and beneficial.

I’ve written before about how valuable it turned out to be to have some visits with Precious’ birth mom, because not only did she show us how much she loves her, she told us and also generously affirmed us as her parents. It was so beneficial, even though it was uncomfortable. As Precious gets older, we’ll be able to give her a say in how much contact she wants to maintain with her biological family, as well as gauging how it affects her to see them. It’s so hard to know what to do but we want to keep the doors open. Anyone out there have experience with open adoptions have some insight to share?

(Story behind the pink daises here.)

2 Comments | Family, Family: Adoption, Family: Foster Parenting, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Father’s Day

06/18/2012

A very brief recap of yesterday. I posted this on Instagram from church:

Father & Daughter. These two have such a special bond. Someday she’ll understand how hard he fought for her and how close she came to not having a daddy. Happy Father’s Day, Jason. We love you to the moon and back!

And then Precious look a nap on her daddy’s lap during the sermon and we got to sit through the whole service for the first time in as long as I can remember. It was awesome!

On our way home we stopped at Wendy’s to get frosties because I saw this post Friday at Adding Members. We love the work that the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption does. On Father’s Day weekend they donate $0.50 from each frosty sale to the foundation and Wendy’s Wonderful Kids. Frosties and french fries…no need to twist my arm!

We got our Wendy’s frosties! Support kids in foster care today in honor of Dave Thomas and his adoption advocacy!

After that, we went down to our property to dream about landscaping while Precious was napping. (Progress reports coming soon!) We ended up standing out in the tall weeds for a couple hours talking to our new neighbor…getting devoured by chiggers. UGH! I hate chiggers. We capped the evening off with a poolside dinner with family and friends and swimming. It was a lovely day.

4 Comments | Family, Family: Foster Parenting, Family: Jason, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Why Aren’t More ‘Fertile’ People Adopting?

06/06/2012

This is a difficult post to write because it’s such a touchy subject. But I need to get it out: I hate that adoption seems to be linked to infertility 90% of the time, at least in people’s minds. I don’t have any problem with infertile couples adopting. If medical intervention isn’t their thing, or they’ve tried that and had no success, many couples who are unable to conceive turn to adoption. I think birth mothers who are unable to parent their children (and willingly surrender their rights) like to know they’re helping out a couple who couldn’t become parents without adoption. That’s all fine and dandy. My problem is the assumption that adoption is (only) for people who can’t have babies biologically.

It bothers me on two levels.

First, quite a few people have made the assumption that Jason and I really wanted—or still want—to have children biologically and we turned to foster care and adoption as a Plan B. They say things like, “Maybe you’ll get pregnant after you adopt! That’s what happened to my second cousin” and “We adopted two kids and then my wife finally got pregnant after 7 years. You never know!” It’s always said with kindness and sympathetic smiles. But, in our case, we felt like we were supposed to become foster parents and open our hearts to adoption and put the idea of having biological children on hold. Perhaps, indefinitely. I don’t know if we will ever have a child biologically. Honestly, at this point, I have no desire to become pregnant. We have chosen a different route to building our family.

Second, and the main reason I have a problem with the adoption=infertile assumption, I would LOVE to see more kids adopted. My passion is for the orphans in our own country, though there are millions around the world waiting to be adopted, too. There are over 130,000 kids in the United States with their mugshots next to short biographies on photo listings, desperately waiting for parents who will adopt them. Another 300,000 kids in foster care need loving, stable, temporary (but potentially permanent) homes. I don’t have patience to wait for 130,000 infertile couples to exhaust all other possibilities and get desperate enough to consider adopting an older child. And the kids don’t have time to wait either. Every year, 24,000 of them turn 18 and get pushed into adulthood alone, unprepared and unsupported. It’s tragedy upon tragedy.

We need some of the millions of fertile couples in this country to join us on the adoption road!

If you feel compelled to do something, check out:

Adopt US Kids and follow them on Twitter

Adopt America Network and follow them on Twitter

or call your county Department of Childrens Services (Dept. of Human Services in some states, I think) and ask about becoming a foster parent.

(Look at the photo listings of waiting kids if you’re feeling brave.)


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Posted by mahlbrandt

Foster Parenting: What to do the day the kid(s) arrive

05/24/2012

Having our foster care license on hold because of our new home build is hard because Jason and I have both been growing more and more passionate about helping the kids in the system. Trying to learn what I can and stay connected while we’re unable to open our home, I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading blogs. This one, I Was a Foster Kid, is raw and difficult to read at times, but so insightful. LT has a whole list of posts that are geared towards foster parents and things we can do better. I found these Top 10 Things to Make a Foster Child’s First Day Easier to be especially helpful. It got me thinking about how I want to set up some things in the bedroom for foster kids, our kitchen and items to have on hand when we get “the call” again and accept another placement.

Things like… making sure I always have kid-friendly snacks on hand (should be easier next time around because of Precious); giving a tour of the house, especially a detailed tour of their bedroom, explain house rules like bathroom etiquette and where to eat as we walk through the house; having lots of stuffed animals, pillows, a bop bag for punching and a swing for calming overwhelmed senses. Another thing I gleaned from her blog (from this post), is to make sure the kid(s) know we want them at our house, they’re wanted and loved; not a burden to us. And they’re not in foster care because of anything they did wrong.

(Photo above: breaking the ice with Ladybug, our first placement in July 2011, the morning after she arrived.)

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Posted by mahlbrandt

New Home: Kids Room Plan

05/23/2012

At our last house, I designed a combined nursery and kids room as we were becoming foster parents. It had to be suited for 1 or 2 kids, either gender, newborn up to age 5…all within a 10×11 bedroom. In our new house, we’ll have a nursery for Precious and another bedroom that’s set up for our future foster kids. I’m not really sure what parameters we’ll set next time around so I’m planning this room for 1 or 2 kids, boys or girls, ages 2-12. The room is approximately 10×12. We already own the bed, dresser, curtain, book ledges, owl, sheets and chair. The rest would be new purchases.

Sources

1. Sherwin WIlliams Mélange Green – accent wall color

2. Sherwin Williams Greek Villa – other three walls

3. IKEA VANDRING RÄV duvet cover and pillow case $20

4. Woodland shower curtain from Target Home (as window curtain) – no longer available

5. Owl wall art – vintage

6. Dresser – vintage

7. IKEA VANDRING RÄV Soft toy, set of 2 $8

8. Jimco orange lamp with drum shade from Lowes $40

9. IKEA KURA reversible loft bed $199

10. IKEA RIBBA picture ledges (to use as book ledges), x2, $10 each

11. Target Home 325 Thread Count Wrinkle Free Sheet Set – Blue Diamond $28

12. Chair – vintage

13. IKEA RINGUM 2′ round rug in green, x3, $10

Floor Plan (to scale)

2 Comments | Art, Art: interior design, Art: new home build, Art: new home kids room, Family, Family: Foster Parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Mother’s Day Hurts

05/13/2012

I don’t usually blog on the weekends but it’s Mother’s Day and there is so much going on my head, I need this space to sort it out. (OK?)

It’s technically my first Mother’s Day today. Yay! I love being a mom. It’s even more fun than I expected. I say it’s technically my first Mother’s Day because last year at this time I was expecting. Not pregnant; we were in the midst of training to become foster parents.

At what point does a woman become a mother? Is it the moment of conception? Is it the moment her child is born? Is it the first time she sees her child’s face? Is it the day they meet for the first time? Is it when she’s aware of her child’s existence? I pondered these things one morning last Spring and I asked God. I felt His answer wrap around me, You became a mother the moment you decided to become a mother.

So, you see, a year ago, I already felt like a mother in a lot of ways. I had a car seat installed in my minivan, for crying out loud. I just didn’t have any kids to buckle into it yet. But I could feel their existence like an ache inside of me. I prayed for them and cried for them as I arranged childrens books on ledges, painted a nursery and stretched a sheet over a new crib mattress. Last Mother’s Day was full of excitement and preparation.

Mother’s Day has never been a hard day for me. Never a sad day. I know it is for a lot of people… women who long for children, children who long for mothers, mothers who have lost children or lost touch with their children, children who have lost mothers or lost touch with their mothers. I’m not one who was brokenhearted on my childless Mother’s Days because I never doubted that I’d be a mom one day. I was not in any hurry. I knew God put it in me to be a mom and I didn’t care that much when and how it happened.

This Mother’s Day is sad for me, though. I am crazy in love with my little girl. She fills my days with joy with her sweetness, giggles and gigantic smiles. Her baby browns pierce into me and melt my heart. She’s everything I could ever want in a child. She is a blessing. But I am her mother because she was taken away from another mother. And that is why I am sad this Mother’s Day. On my way to church this morning, I’ll drive past the hotel where she lives—the woman who carried my precious daughter for 9 months, who decided not to abort this one, who brought her into the world hopeful she could parent this time, that she would be able to be the mother her daughter needed. But it didn’t happen. She messed up. Again. And a child was taken from her. Again.

(photo: beth rose photography. bethrose.com)

I have an irrational amount of respect for my daughter’s biological mother, her first mom. “How could someone give up such a beautiful child?” a friend once asked me, without thinking of the implications. Before I met her, it was much easier for me to judge her, too. She wasn’t a “real” person to me yet. I knew on paper what she had done and I was angry about what had happened to Precious, what she had been put through. However, getting to know this woman forever changed me and my perspective about the parents of children in foster care. She was not a monster. She was not an evil child abuser. She was not a heartless, selfish, careless person. We all make mistakes, some with more serious consequences than others. I can say without a shadow of doubt that she loved, and still loves, Precious deeply. She has dreams and hopes for her future. She misses her terribly and I hate to think of what she might do to try to cover the wound left by the children that were ripped from her. She’s a hurting woman—just like many others on this day—and my heart breaks for her.

So that is on my mind today.

Then, there is the problem of orphans. There are thousands of kids in this country who have no mothers to celebrate today. I’m not even going to try to carry the weight of that burden because I would be instantly crushed. Lord knows I can only handle so much. But I weep for them, too. We’re making more room… I whisper into the wind. Our new house will have 4 bedrooms. FOUR! But there are so many motherless kids. So many more than our home will hold.

I read this awesome blog post on Friday called Where is the Mommy-War for the Motherless Child? and wanted to run around shouting, YES! YES! Why are we moms not more outraged about the number of motherless kids around the world? I get that stay at home moms are offended that working moms think they don’t work hard and working moms are offended that stay at home moms think they’re doing better for their children. I get that some moms advocate for breast feeding while other moms choose formula for valid reasons. In all these situations, these kids have moms who love them and are providing what they believe is best for their financial, nutritional, emotional needs. In light of the fact that there are thousands and thousands of kids WITHOUT mothers, IT DOESN’T FREAKING MATTER. Kristen says it better than me, so please read her post.

So there’s my broken heart this Mother’s Day.

I will be happy today, I promise. I will savor the sloppy wet kisses of my baby girl and hug her a little tighter, endlessly grateful for the blessing she is to my life. I will thank my mom for setting an awesome example for me and for continuing to love, encourage and support me as an adult.

Who knew Mother’s Day could become such a tangled mess of emotion?

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Posted by mahlbrandt

A Mother for Choco

05/08/2012

A sweet friend recently gave us a copy of this book, A Mother for Choco. It’s the best kids adoption book I’ve seen, not that I’ve seen many. (My bloggy friend and fellow adoptive mom, Annie, recently sent me a long list of suggestions so I have many more to check out in the future!) But back to Choco and his search for a mother. It starts out sounding a bit like the P.D. Eastman book, Are You My Mother?, which I loved as a kid, mainly because of the way my big brother would read it to me and “SNORT!” for the crane at the end. But then A Mother for Choco takes a brilliant twist when Mrs. Bear helps Choco identify the qualities of a mother aside from physical resemblance. I won’t tell you the whole story here but it’s super sweet. I just read it again to Precious yesterday and she humored me by acting like she really understood the story. At the end she looked up with her big baby browns and melted me. I’m so thankful to be her mother. We don’t look alike and it doesn’t matter.

“No matter where Choco searched, he couldn’t find a mother who looked just like him.”

Just in time for Mother’s Day: A Mother for Choco. I highly recommend this one for foster and adoptive moms or ANY moms, really.

BONUS: There is an Ally the Alligator character in this book! (Ali-gator is my favorite nickname for Precious, whose real name starts with “Ali…”, in case you hadn’t guessed that.)

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Documenting an Adoption

05/03/2012

A sweet commenter suggested that we hire a photographer to document our adoption day. I had thought about getting a photographer to get some family pictures of us around the time of the finalization but it didn’t occur to me to have someone document the actual day. She sent a link to the video that was put together celebrating their family’s adoption day. The audio from the courthouse really gets me because it stirs up memories from being in court with Ladybug and Precious. This brief documentary is so beautiful. I’ve cried every time I’ve watched it. (Fair warning.)

I am so looking forward to our adoption finalization day!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

My Lovely Girl

03/15/2012

Everyday I’m in awe—not just with how stinkin’ adorable my daughter is (of course, I’m biased)—but that I get to be her mom. I’m fully aware that things could have turned out very differently for us all. Thankful doesn’t seem like big enough of a word.

This journey hasn’t been easy. We had some really trying times back in October and November. But everything now is so…easy. And fun. Do you see that giant smile? Everyday we get to soak up that joy that oozes out of her and we could almost forget how difficult things were at the beginning with the DCS drama. And like her older half-sister, she could have been bounced around from foster home to foster home before being adopted. But we are thankful for the way this chapter is turning out. We are thankful for her. And thankful for this season of fun and easy.

I’m eager to get back into foster parenting. Having our home “closed” is hard. Even though it’s the easy road. It’s hard because we signed up for the challenge; and now we’re not doing it. I suppose in a way we’re still doing it. Precious came to us through foster care (though she ended up being removed from state custody and put into our custody) and we still haven’t finalized her adoption…but it just doesn’t feel like we’re doing enough about the foster care situation. There are so many kids still out there in our city that need good foster parents. And I want to help.

I probably need this forced break more than I want to admit. It’s time for the three of us—me, Jason and Precious—to bond as a family. We were still reeling from the situation with Ladybug in a lot of ways and this break from foster parenting gave us time to process all of those feelings. By the time our new home is finished and we’re ready to reopen (late summer or fall, hopefully), Precious will be over a year old. We will be a very different family than we were last July (when we were first certified) and it was just Jason and me. There are a lot of things to think about and different ways to prepare this time. We have our daughter to think about now—what is healthy and safe for her—when we consider welcoming new kids into our family.

Sorry for the rambling. I’m sleepy and I was just going to post pictures to publish in the morning. Then I decided to pour my thoughts out and try to make sense of them here. I don’t have a neat little conclusive bow for this. I’m very thankful for our daughter and I’m thinking a lot about our future as foster parents.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

“If you live your life too safely…”

03/08/2012

I was trying yet again to bring it up subtly, to work foster care statistics naturally into conversation. I don’t remember which freshly learned fact I was offering. Maybe I said, “Did you know there are half a million kids in foster care in the US? And over 200,000 of them are waiting to be adopted.” Or I may have been explaining why the Adopt US Kids lists rarely showed infants and young kids on the waiting-to-be-adopted lists—because they were usually adopted by their foster parents; because the foster parents the kids already know and trust are typically offered the first opportunity when the kids become legally free to adopt. Perhaps I was mentioning how it doesn’t cost anything to become a foster parent, the government even pays a small daily board rate to help with expenses, and that adoption through foster care is practically free.

Jason looked at me from across the dinner table with tears welling up in his eyes and said, “I can tell this is something you really want to do. Why don’t you go ahead and take the first step—call whoever you need to call to find out what we need to do to get started.” After our previous foster parenting conversation (when we talked about how heartbreaking it would be and how it wasn’t really in our plan), he had agreed to think and pray more about it. Maybe this was something God was putting heavily on our hearts for a reason. I was amazed at how quickly Jason had warmed up to it. I had expected more resistance to this crazy idea to become foster parents and now I was wondering if I really was ready to practice what I had been preaching.

This is what I tweeted that night (3-10-11):
“On the precipice of something big and feeling equally excited and inadequate. Thank you Lord for lighting the path… one step at a time.”

Later that evening an intense headache came upon me—the kind that makes me want to just curl up in bed and do nothing. What if I had a child right now? I wondered. How could I care for someone else who is dependent on me when I don’t feel like I have the strength and energy to do anything for anyone else besides myself right now. What was I thinking? How in the world am I going to have the energy to not just care for a child, but care for a child who is coming from a difficult past with the potential for all kinds of behavioral and emotional problems? I have no experience as a mother. I’m not good enough… I’m not strong enough… I’m not selfless enough… Those thoughts rolled around in my head as I tossed and turned all night.

When my alarm clock went off, I slipped out of bed, made my way into the bathroom, slid my Jesus Calling book off the back of the toilet and opened it to that day’s passage, March 11. It said…

Walk by faith, not by sight.
As you take steps of faith, depending on Me,
I will show you how much I can do for you.
If you live your life too safely,
you will never know the thrill of seeing Me work through you.
When I gave you My spirit,
I empowered you to live beyond your natural ability and strength.
Thats why it is wrong to measure your energy level
against the challenges ahead of you.
The issue is not your strength but Mine, which is limitless.
By walking close to Me, you can accomplish My purposes in My strength.

My feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy melted away as I stepped off the ledge into the unknown and started the most challenging, rewarding, stretching, joy-filled, faith-building year of my life. Thank God for giving me the courage to take that first step in obedience and for working through me despite every shortcoming.

(The picture above is from the day we said goodbye to Ladybug, our first foster placement, on arguably the most difficult day of my life.)

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Posted by mahlbrandt

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