*** This was typed up last Monday (1/13) but I got sick before I had time to edit and post it (and I do mean SICK!) ***
Friday (1/10) I had my annual review for foster care. It went pretty much as I expected it to go. I aired some grievances and whined about how it’s taking so long that I don’t even remember what life is like not waiting to become a mother. And my case worker put some of the blame back on me for taking in non-legal risk/adoption cases. (You’re welcome, by the way…..) She tried talking me into a placement for a 7 year old girl. My response to her was, “I feel like I am already missing out on so much because I can’t have a biological child. Could I love a 7 year old? Yes, I’m sure I could but I would always pine for the opportunity to have a little one, to have those experiences.” I still don’t think she gets it. Infertility is like having a massive, ugly wound – people don’t want to look right at it because it scares them, it is too raw and nasty to look at without feeling queasy. That’s infertility. Looking right at it is too painful, so people deflect. And those with infertility try to hide their wound. Regardless, I passed the review. I still need to get the animals to the vet but the earliest they had open was next week. I did not bring up the possibility of me changing agencies. I guess I just don’t feel like making the effort because I don’t believe things would be terribly different with a different agency. Maybe that’s just a lie I tell myself. But, it’s not like changing car insurance, where they just send new cards and everything goes on as if nothing changed. This would be a massive undertaking. I guess I would rather stick it out with people I know than try to make connections with new people. Maybe it’s stupid and maybe I’m an idiot for thinking this way. But, there are a lot of hurdles to me making the change and I just don’t have the energy to do it at this time. And, I suppose, despite everything that happened last year with the messed up placement that lingered on and on and on, I still feel some loyalty to CHOR for keeping me on after the incident with the first baby. That’s not a thing to take lightly. My family worker mentioned something about a placement I was notified about the beginning of the year. She said someone calls the county daily to get updates. I told her I had already written that placement off because it is from Berks County. I told her I was pretty sure I was still persona non grata with the county and she didn’t deny this assumption. She then launched into a long explanation warning me that most babies come from Delaware County, but that this county takes years (yes, literally years) to finally terminate parental rights and allow a baby to be adopted. I wondered if she was trying to scare me into accepting an older child? I didn’t say anything, I just listened and then reiterated how I wanted a little one because I wanted to get some of the “normal” mommy experiences with an infant/toddler. I’m afraid this meeting did not alleviate my discouragement and disbelief in the probability that I will actually be getting a placement to adopt……..
So, after the review with my family worker, I had some down time and then had to pick up a young man at his foster home and drive him into town to attend a meeting with his mother. After that, I had to pick him up later at night to come stay with me this weekend. I’ve had teenagers in respite before but they were girls. I had a boy in respite but he was still rather young. This young man is different – he’s into something called Jeff the Killer and he loves Ariana Grande and anime. He’s had a tough life, from what he told me and he struggles with a whole host of issues a kid his age shouldn’t have to struggle with. We had a nice time and he was already asking his case worker Sunday morning if he could come back next weekend (I think he will be because his foster mom asked me if I would take him again). I think he liked having the one-on-one attention, which I think is the same for most of the other respite kids I’ve had. In all those cases they were coming from a family with multiple children/foster kids to a home with just me and my furry kids. I always worry the kids will be bored in my home, but I guess it’s like a mini-vacation when they don’t have to fight with the other kids for everything.
Sunday morning I woke up with the remnants of a dream still so fresh in my mind I thought it was real. I was dreaming that I was on vacation with my mom and sister but I forgot to buy a fancy dress for our dinner out. I knew I had three children, a 2 year old girl and newborn twins, boy and girl. For whatever reason that only makes sense in the dream, I had left the 2 year old and boy baby with my dad and had the girl baby with me. The most vivid part of the dream, the part where I was waking up, was that I wanted to try on dresses but I was wearing the baby in my new Moby wrap (I had ordered one on EBay when I thought I was getting the baby boy and it came in last week) and it was such a chore taking it off to try on the dress. So, I reluctant to try on the dress, mostly for the inconvenience but also I simply did not want to put the baby down in order to change my clothes. I just wanted to hold her and snuggle her tiny little body close to mine. It was the feel of the baby in my arms, snuggled to my chest, that I remembered so clearly I was almost certain I would awake with a baby in my arms. I swear I could feel the weight of her as my eyes opened in my bed (maybe it was the cat on my arm?), I could hear her little mewling noises and smell her baby smell. It was only a dream, of course. But, when we went to church later that morning, there was a tiny baby just 10 weeks old and it brought the dream back to my mind. Her grandmother had brought her along and the baby was passed around to many welcoming arms. I was busy holding someone else’s 18 month old child and managed to get her to fall asleep before the worship time ended. After church, this same little girl came up to me and asked me to pick her up. She’s a curious little thing and likes to be held to see what is going on. It soothes my heart to be able to hold her in church, just to feel the weight of a baby in my arms again. Maybe she senses that. When I took the children upstairs for Sunday school, I helped another baby up the stairs, carrying her at the end. I had set her down outside the baby room, so I could take my rambunctious older kids into their room. The baby teacher was not upstairs as quickly as I had hoped, so I had to go back and pick the little girl up. When I carried her into the baby room, she started screaming and grabbing me around the neck. As the teacher pried this child from my arms, the little girl (she is also around 18 months old) had a vice grip on my sleeve, nearly disrobing me in her attempt to not stay in the baby room (I’m not sure why she hates it so much, but she does). I had flash backs to the three year old I had last year and the times she would grab my arm or hand, crying “I want you!” when I was dropping her off for a visit or court. It’s a hard thing to have a child cling to you like that and then force them to let go. This is a very random paragraph, morphing from a dream to what occurred in church. It’s just the musings of my mind.
In all honesty, I’m surprised I don’t have more dreams like the one I described with how often I think of babies. Maybe this dream will come true? I had this feeling that, since I already agreed to take the teenage boy in again this weekend, that I would get a call for a placement this week to disrupt the plans that have already been made. It just seems that’s how it goes. Although, I would hate to disappoint this young man, I know he has his heart set on coming back. I feel like these kids have so much disappointment and let-downs in their life that I do everything I can to not add to that burden – so, there’s no way I would tell this kid he can’t come back if that is what he wants to do. I don’t think we did anything terribly exciting, we basically just chilled around the house, did some grocery shopping in the pouring rain, watched some movies and shows on TV and took down the inside Christmas decorations. Nothing exciting there! This weekend I want to attend an informational session at a community college the next county over to learn about their honey beekeeping classes. I’m hoping to get some honey bees to keep on my parents farm. I think it would be the coolest thing ever to have our own honey! I know, I’m strange, but I can only be who I am! On Thursday Montana and I went to the State Farm Show in Harrisburg and while we were looking at all the cute bunnies, I told him I planned to get a rabbit or two for my child(ren) as soon as they were old enough to help take care of it and from there graduate to sheep, goats and eventually pigs and cattle, maybe horses. I told him I would love to buy the farm at the end of the lane right next to my family’s farm and fill it up with all kinds of critters – he told me to work towards my dream. Let’s hope that I can……
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