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A lot has changed in four years......

I forgot how much I missed blogging and sharing my journey and stories. A LOT has changed in the last four years and over the course of the summer, we are for sure going to dive deep into the mental health all these changes have had.  To say I have went through a lifetime of changes in a short amount of time would be an understatement. So with a new blog title as I am officially a forever mom and this is now more than just foster care, it is time to kick things back off.  So here we go...... Since my last post May 2017, we reunified my second foster daughter (there was a brief single mom with two under two), I reconnected with a high school friend, reunified my first foster daughter, took my third foster daughter home from the hospital, got pregnant, got engaged, learned my baby may need surgery as soon as he was born, had weekly ultrasounds, bought a house, had a baby (no surgery was needed!), sold a house, reunified our third foster daughter,  got married, gained a step son, started
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Recent posts

Mothers Day

It’s interesting. As I lay in bed next to the pack n play on our families yearly Tennessee trip (that always starts on Mother’s Day), I can’t help but reflect about what this day means now that I am a foster mother. As I lay in bed at 6:50am scrolling through Facebook I come across this “Motherhood challenge”. Now please do not get me wrong, I am so envious and happy for those who are able to post pictures of their pregnancy, the day they first became a mother and a picture of the child now. That is so cool! But my journey to motherhood wasn’t that simple and could change at a moment’s notice. It makes me question do I really have a right to celebrate this day as a mother?  Foster moms get the short end of the stick. They get a call for a child and must react. They quickly find child care if they are working full time and within 24 hours of placement are back to work. They learn to live life on 3 hours of sleep, work 40 hours and raise children who are not their own.   No ma
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In her shoes

Ever have that moment where you are in someone elses shoes? And I don't mean mentally putting yourself in someone else's situation or literally putting someones shoes on. I mean you give someone so much grief (even write a blog post about it) then 6-7 months later are doing the exact thing they did and go "ah, I get it now." Well, I had that today at work and I made my boss uncomfortable when I cried because of this realization. For the last 5 months I have been the Licensing and Training Coordinator at a local private foster care agency. Until a couple months ago, I was primarily doing training of prospective foster parents and recertifications of current foster parents. At the begining of February, I got my first assessment for a new foster parent! I was so excited to make a difference to someone's life and do "such a better job then my home assessor".  I thought we would be done by the middle of February. We weren't. I was for sure I would have
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Lifebook struggles

Here in the State of Ohio it is important and "mandated" for the foster parents to create lifebooks. Now I am an over achiever. Per the rule, foster parents are to just make sure everything about the child's life while in foster care is written down and they receive some pictures from their time in foster care. I, on the other hand, NEED to make a scrapbook. Baby Girl has been with me for about 5 months and I am just now starting! I have had the first Halloween, first Christmas, first New Years, first birthday, first steps, first words and an array of other events that have happened. I picked up the 105 pictures from Walgreens (that were just on my phone and selected down mind you) and I am so overwhelmed about how to start! Do I include myself, my family? If so, what do I call myself? If she goes home, I don't want it to say "my mom" and have a lot of pictures of her and I all over it but if she stays and gets adopted, I want it to say "my mom" an
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A weekend away

So baby girl arrived on October 27, 2016. From someone who travels a lot, spends time with friends every chance I get and enjoys a cold one- the last four and a half months have been rough. Not because she has been a difficult child or that the majority my friends have not been supportive, but my life has moved to work, get a babysitter so I can work some more, sleep, play with the baby in the evening and sometimes see my friends. I have felt guilty about getting a babysitter on weekends or evenings because I want to make sure she feels loved and not passed off to other people all the time. Now I know that it is better for parents to have that time away, trust me, I teach it to prospective foster parents but when you are in the throws of life and working 87 hours in 2 weeks (all during her wake hours) taking more time away from her doesnt seem fair. A male friend of mine said something to me a couple months ago on one of those rare nights I got to go out (it was cut short because she
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So much has happened 4 months

Wow.... So much has happened in the last 4 months. Shortly after my last post, I got a new job (in a totally different demographic) and started as a Licensing and Training Coordinator at Agape for Youth, Inc. (a private foster care agency-- go figure!) :) Then 2 weeks later received my first placement from the county! A beautiful 10 month old little girl. Figuring out my new position at work and how to juggle the single parent role on no sleep has been my life. I will be getting back in to the swing of blogging about the wonderful world of  foster care (and maybe will be able to give some better insight since I live and breath it everyday!) Stay tuned!!!
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The First "No"

It happened. I got a call. And then it broke my heart because I had to say no. The thoughts going through my head when that call came in was excitement and then heartbreak as there was another child who needed a home. As my social worker began to describe the living situation of the children (yes they were siblings and it was 2 sets that needed a home), my heart began to break. As the shock of their situation was wearing down off of me, the first set of siblings had found a foster home and I was not needed. As my social worker began describing the next set of siblings my heart sank. There was more of them then my home would allow. I have a crib and a twin bed, there was 4 of them over the age of 5.  Even if we split the kids up and did 2 in 1 home and 2 in another, I still did not have enough beds. It was so hard to say no, I can't take the kids. I didn't want to say no, but taking in 2 kids over the age of 5 with only 1 bed was no a feasible option. So now, I wait for anot
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