My! How life has changed since last posting. I will warn readers ahead of time - this is being written at lightening speed (during nap time) and from a very emotional Mama (who is sleep deprived and whose heart is filled to overflowing)...so please don't hold mistakes or very honest words against me. :)
Our official foster care approval date was either December 12 or 13th (can't remember), but I do remember that for some reason I expected the phone to immediately start ringing the moment we saw/heard the word "approved". I didn't sleep well that first night or two because I didn't want to not hear my phone if it rang in the middle of the night. It was a long weekend...Aaron and I just sat around looking at each other, checking our phone every few minutes to make sure we hadn't missed a call. At church that weekend I sat through the sermon with my phone on my lap so I could see it light up since it was on "silent". To be honest, I felt like a woman waiting to go into labor at any moment to meet her precious baby.
At work on Monday, December 16, I checked my email on break and had received an email from our amazing home study supervisor that simply said, "You may be getting a call today. PRAY!". Oh. My. Goodness. Was today the day?? I called Aaron to share this news with him, and while my body was in work mode the rest of the work day, my mind was all over the place! Five o'clock came around and still no call. My home study supervisor tried to prepare my heart that if we had not received a call by now, they may have found other placement for the child. Ugh. Literally felt like a kick in the gut. I came home and began preparing dinner, was about to go put my pajamas on...and the phone rang. Time stood still and for a moment I had forgotten everything I knew about how to answer a ringing phone.
It was THE call. Chaos is the word that definitely defines our night from that moment on. Not only were we to make the decision if we would take this baby, but her sibling as well. Two girls. Aaron and I literally took about 2 minutes to make our decision. Why in the world would we not take these children?!? Would we really close the first door the Lord opened to us after months and years of preparing our hearts and home? Sure, we just asked for one child. But...hello, we were given two of everything...cribs, swings, car seats. This was absolutely no surprise to our God...of course we would accept these baby girls.
We picked Little Miss #1 up that evening from a social worker at our local McDonalds. Yes, McDonalds. Our lives changed forever in that little Mickey D's. Four days later, we got sister...no fast food establishments were involved this time.
Fast forward to today...where has the past month and a half gone?!? Our little world as we knew it before December 16th, 2013 seems like a distant memory now. It was no longer just Aaron and I...and it wasn't even Aaron and I, plus one. It was now Aaron and I, plus TWO...babies!
I won't lie...even though we loved these little ladies from the moment we laid eyes on them, we were sort of in a "babysitting/survival" type mode for the first couple of days. It was just all so very surreal. I was so consumed that first week with writing down every bottle consumed, every nap that was slept, every pee that was peed, and every poop that was pooped. That, in and of itself, was enough to exhaust about 10 people. After the days went on and we began to relax a bit and wrap our minds and our bodies around the fact that we were now parents of multiples, we started allowing ourselves time to notice those little eyes that locked with ours, those little mouths that would give us full on, open mouthed smiles, those sweet little fingers that would wrap around ours when being fed, and those soft little heads that would nuzzle up against our faces just to get in some extra cuddles before bed. We began to fall head over heels in love. I'm talking SO in love. A love we never imagined was humanly possible.
Our days have been crazy and full. My days are not only filled with bottle washing, bottle making, diaper changing, clothes washing, baby playing, baby napping, baby feeding, etc. Foster parenting is hard...I'll just say it. And it's not so much the children that make it hard, it's all the appointments (most weeks there are more than one), and it's the situations that bring those children to you that are so difficult. Let's just say, these girls came to us sick and we have no doubt that it was by God's great design that I'm a nurse. I have yet to even return to my job yet due to us working so hard to get these precious babies well. I'll just throw in here now how very thankful I am for my job. I am convinced if I were anywhere else right now in the working world, they would have already thrown me to the wolves.
We wouldn't know what to do without our families. We honestly didn't know how our immediately families would take to the girls...after all, they aren't our biological children. Would they begin to love them as their own like we had? Yep. They sure would. Several precious friends have jumped right in and have poured themselves out for our sake during this time, not only offering physical help but encouragement from God's Word that we have so craved during this time. This is another difficult aspect of foster parenting. We get that not everyone has the same calling as we do to foster children in their home. It's different. It's not the
natural way to bring a child into your lives. It can be scary for some...it's scary for us! I think I had these grand ideas that once we were placed with a child that we would receive the same treatment as a new Mom and Dad that had just arrived home from the hospital with their new bundle(s) of joy. After all, we were new parents, I just didn't have some of the same physical scars as other women might. However, we still feel that same pride and joy that any new parent would and we absolutely cannot wait to share them and show them off with those we love! Maybe people are afraid of getting attached to these babies. I cry so much sometimes and the pain in my heart almost takes my breath away at the thought of these babies possibly having to leave us one day. So often I want to keep them at arms length as to not fall any more in love with them than I already am. I've even found myself asking God to please not let me love them so much so that the pain will lessen. First of all, how selfish is that? And secondly, I'm finding that this is 1,000 % impossible. If that day comes, God is absolutely more than capable of getting us through what I know will be one of the most difficult times in our lives. In the meantime, we will love them with abandonment (as a family member who has fostered suggested), and we will continue on in obedience, even when it hurts and even if we never see the results we hope for out of that obedience...as some precious friends reminded us of.
Aaron and I have never been more convinced than we are now that it truly is the Church's job to take care of these precious children. It always has been and oh, I wish we had figured that out before now. I pray that we will be forever mindful of this from this time on. Even if it's hard, we must choose to do it out of obedience in some form or fashion. Continue to pray for us! Our days are sweet and our muscles continue to strengthen as these babies grow and grow and GROW! Pray for their biological family. As hard as it is some days to pray for them, we know we must. Pray that we would daily lay our desires down and that we would ultimately seek that which will bring Him the most glory.
Come see us...but not if you are sick! We love company...I promise you'll leave changed for the better after meeting these precious ones!
