Some days are hard

The boy I was supposed to have for respite this past weekend never came – his foster mother changed her mind about needing respite. I’m still a little miffed about being asked to take him as a foster care placement. I guess what bothers me the most is that it makes me feel like I’m good enough to be a foster mother but not good enough to be an adoptive mother. Like, why won’t I just be what they need me to be? I haven’t heard anything about any other potential placements and the only viable placement was one I said no to. It has been just about two months and I’m starting to get the itch. I want my phone to ring. I want to hear something, have an interview, something, anything so I feel like I am moving and not just standing still waiting. I mentioned to a foster-to-adopt friend about feeling like the case workers at CHOR don’t care about what I want they just want to fill the need they have in front of them. She understood and said the case worker was probably told to call me and see if she could butter me up and convince me to take the kid as a foster placement. She said it took her and her husband a solid 5-6 months waiting to be placed with the daughter they finally adopted. I did not find this very encouraging. They were a couple waiting that long! Do I have any hope as a single mother? Some days I have to force myself to believe that my child is out there and that I shouldn’t just give up and move on with my life. I mentioned to my friend that I wanted to give up and she said no, think of all the money you spent doing this – to me, this is not a reason to not give up. Besides, I didn’t spend money to be approved to adopt my paperwork was paid for by CHOR because I had a foster care placement at the time. Some days I just wonder if I’m really meant to be a mother. I feel like at every turn there is some impediment to me finally becoming a full-fledged mother, not a wanna-be foster mother. First, there was the issue of uncovering a fertility problem. Then the issue of not being able to pursue a more aggressive infertility treatment followed by a placement that was taken away. And now, here I sit waiting and not getting any real interest in placing a child in my home. I don’t want to admit defeat but I’m getting rather discouraged. I think it’s a good thing we don’t always know where our life’s journey will take us because I think if I had known all the heartache and pain I would have endured on this path, I might have opted out. I don’t let myself think about it, but sometimes I still get flummoxed by how easy it seems for some women to get pregnant and how hard it can be for others who are so desperate to be a mother. I want to stay positive. I want to keep believing that my perfect child is out there and that God has a great big wonderful plan for my life. But, some days are harder than others to truly believe that there is more to life than heartache and pain.