2013 Part 1

This blogging thing is not all that I hoped it would be. I thought it would be easy and that I would enjoy it. The fact is that it is very hard for me and that makes me not enjoy it at all. A lot has happened since my last post and there have been several times when I've tried to blog about them but just couldn't get the words out the way I wanted to. When I was pregnant with Bryson we blogged about everything all the way through his first year of life and for his first birthday we made the blog into a book so we could have it forever. I realized that my other children might want their stories in a book also. So here is Part 1 of their story.

 

On January 23 I was fixing dinner when the phone rang. Earlier that day I had gotten impatient and called our agency to see if they had forgotten about us because we had not gotten a call about a placement yet. I just kept worrying that there were babies out there that needed us! Our case manager informed me that they thought they had a placement the day before but it didn't work out and she assured me that it would not be long. So when the phone rang that evening I though nothing of it. My hands were dirty so I had Chris answer for me. He handed me the phone and told me that it was the agency and that they had a placement for us! I took the phone and our case manager gave me what little information she had. She said it was an 11 month old girl and her 6 week old brother. She told me that several other families were also contacted about them so it would just depend on who contacted CPS first. We wouldn't have anymore information until the next day. I hung up the phone and then it hit us... did she say 11 months and 6 weeks? That's only a 9 month age difference! We immediately called our family and filled them in and then called some friends with younger children to see if we could borrow some clothes, car seats and other baby items we thought we would need.

 

We were already scheduled to go to a training at the Buckner office the next morning. We walked in expecting to hear some more news but nobody said anything. I can not tell you what that training was about because my mind just wasn't there. We finished around 11 that morning and finally our case manager called us back to our office. She told me that we were the first to contact CPS so that they would be coming to our home! The next thing she said was that she had never had this happen before but CPS wanted one of us to go to Houston to pick them up. The 6 week old was a preemie and he was still in the NICU and one of us would need to be there for his discharge. We agreed that I would be the one to go and Chris would stay here to pick up Bryson from Mother's Day Out. We laughed at how surprised he was going to be when I came home with two babies because we had not told him anything the night before.

 

I few hours later I was on the road with a CPS worker heading to Houston. I wondered how the 2 hour ride home was going to be with two babies. The case worker had more information about the children and their mother. She explained that the girl was currently in her second foster home and that we would be her third. She also said that the mother had not visited the baby while he was in the hospital for one reason or another. She was also unsure of who their fathers were. We were about 45 minutes outside of Houston when the case workers phone rang. It was the hospital and they told us that he would not be able to go home that day. All preemie babies are required to do a car seat test to make sure that being in a car seat does not effect their breathing. They had planned to do the test once we got there but decided to get it out of the way. The nurse told us that they would have to wait 2 days for him to retake the test. We decided to go ahead and visit him at the hospital because we would not be able to pick up the girl for a few more hours.

 

So let me just tell you that God has a very funny sense of humor! I'm not sure if you remember or not but we decided to do fostering to adopt because I can't carry babies full term and didn't not want to have another preemie! So here I am about to walk into the NICU to visit a baby that would soon be mine! He was a 6 pound little bundle of cuteness! Absolutely perfect! I was able to hold him and feed. It was sad to leave him there that evening but it was also a relief knowing that I would be able to go home with only one baby instead of two which would make things easier for me to get things together for them both.

 

We walked out of the hospital and waited in the parking lot for the other foster mom and little girl. We literally picked a baby up in a parking lot! She was the most beautiful little girl ever! Since I can't share her name I will just call her Lady Bug. The other family unloaded all of her stuff into the trunk of our car, gave her a kiss, told her they loved her and put her in my arms! I was in love! I had brought her an extra outfit and it was a good thing because she was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt in January. She actually came with a huge box of clothes which I was not expecting. They told us in our training that most of the kids would be coming with just the clothes on their backs. We loaded up in the car and headed HOME!

 

We got back to the house late that evening. I think Bryson was already asleep but Chris had explained things to him earlier. He was upset because her name was not Lily like he wanted, (we had friends that just had a baby named Lily) but other than that he handled the news well. I took Lady Bug to her new room and rocked her to sleep and put her in her crib. I slept on the twin bed in her room to make sure she was ok. The other foster mom had told me that she cried in her sleep. She didn't wake up once that night but I'm pretty sure I never went to sleep. Over the next few days we all just learned how to be together. We had to learn what she liked and didn't like. Now we just had to wait to bring her brother home too!

 

Well, since this is starting to turn into a novel this might be a good place to stop for now. I will finish up in the next few days. This maybe part 1 of 7!