Strong

I'm starting to see just how strong being a mother and a foster mother has made me. When my baby boy left last March I seriously didn't think I was going to live through it, and as you all know I'm still dealing with the issues of grief and loss. I feel now that no matter how devastated I was(am) I do feel now that he is where he is supposed to be. Or maybe I just have little other choice. Bella is going to be moving to a concurrent planning home soon. This is something I am really struggling with. Granted she's only been here 3months how do you "give up" a happy healthy adorable baby girl? As a child I used to day dream about opening my front door and finding a basket with a baby in it. Being asked to adopt a child is a really amazing feeling, almost beyond flattering. I wonder how I could be SO lucky. I know of foster parents who wait years fostering dozens of children before they are fortunate enough to find a forever child. We've foster 6kids in this past year and of those 4 have gone to adoption. 1(my baby boy) is being adopted by a relative. 2(Emily and Mackenzie) are being adopted by us and 1(Bella) is moving to a concurrent planning home. I have accepted that we are not Bella's forever home, as hard as it is. She is a happy healthy adorable baby girl and some couple(or single) is going to be SO BLESSED to have her. I don't doubt there are literally dozens of families who are lining up to adopt her. That almost makes it harder...how do *I* just let her go? Give her up? Because I know that its not about ME. Its about her and I do really believe that there is something/someone(s) out there who really are FOR HER. Just how I am so for my kids. Something happen today that scared me so deeply that I found myself once again wondering how I would ever live through it. I received a call today that Mackenzie's bio dad is once again fighting the termination of services and making threats demanding that he get his child. Remember this is the same dad who has seen this child once in 18months and didn't show for a single visit after fighting in court to get them set up. After I hung up the phone I was just devastated. Her CW ended up driving an hr up the hill to my house to sit down and talk with me about it. She did her best to reassure me, but I am still living and breathing every moment in fear that I will lose my child.

Mackenzie has my heart 100% She can do no wrong, every look she gives me melts my heart and I am 100% convinced that she is here because she is supposed to grow up here in this family, I am her mommy---Olivia IS her sister and her Emily and Olivia are just all so sisters. You cant deny it. They all "match" and really none of them even look alike. They share a chemistry and a bond that is unmistakable. Even though *I* don't really see it I get comments from everyone everywhere I go about how much they "favor" one another.

Anyway I'm rambling here and haven't even made my point, yet... As I sat here between hanging up with the caseworker and her pulling into my driveway I cried. I cried so hard I had no voice and seriously swollen eyes when she walked through my front door. I felt like my life was literally flashing before my eyes, the thought of losing my child was so overwhelming and terrifying yet somehow in those few hours I found a really strong sense of peace. I'm a big prayer(something many ppl don't know about me) I always have been, but I haven't always felt like Ive heard what I needed to hear in the moment. Typically I can look back weeks or months later and find peace. But today I found peace in the moment. I feel like I was able to give myself a glimpse and realize that even if she DID leave, that *I* really WOULD be OK. and that MAYBE it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for her(then CW showed up and convinced me all over again of all the obvious reasons why it would not be good OR safe for her to go to him, ever!) but still. I think that everyone in life has a gift, and I think that mine is seeing the good in people and situations. Being able to see the big picture and look into the future. Not just focus on the here and now but really see where each road would or could take me or others years from now. How one single reaction or decision can change the course of many lives. Sometimes I think I use this gift to a fault and sometimes it leaves me feeling drained and taken advantage of. But most of the time its what makes me feel very UP to the task of being a foster parent. I passionately love what I do. Someone who I love dearly today said to me "if they take Macks I am coming to your house and ripping your license off your wall" in the moment I agreed if they take my baby girl I am DONE! But the truth is I know I wont be, maybe ever. I feel for the first time in my life that I am strong and so comfortable in THIS skin and Ive never been so sure about anything that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I find myself excited with anticipation about them finding just the perfect family for Bella. Its so hard to put into words how easily you can fall in love with a child and how its that love that makes it possible for you to let them go when you know its what you have to do. I remember that moment almost exactly one year ago when I walked into a foster home and I met my daughter Emily for the first time. I remember hearing a caretaker say to her "This is your new mommy" I remember my eyes filling up with tears and feeling so scared and overwhelmed and just stunned that here I was looking at this tiny little girl that would grow to call ME mommy. I know there is a family out there just waiting to find out that they have been matched to a beautiful 17month old baby girl named Bella. I know that as a foster parent having children come into my home who will eventually be available for adoption is a given and I cant even say for certain that I wont adopt again. But I will say that fostering has been hands down the most gratifying experience of my life and as the stakes get higher the rewards become richer. Recently a thread appeared on my foster parent support board where a new member was asking for advice about becoming a foster parent. One response she received was to run away and don't look back, and I can say that I too have wanted to say that countless times to those who ask me about doing it. I do think it takes some level of insanity to be able to do this. There are some great books out there one is Another Place at the Table and the second is One Small Boat. There is a running joke on my support board about peoples reactions to these books. When I read them I sat down and read them in one setting, I literally couldn't put t he books down and it only reinforced to me that I truly did want to foster. Then there are those(usually friends of ours who we loan the books to as a means of exposing this world to them) who tell you that if you want to do this your crazy and that the book scared the shit out of them and they quit reading half way through. I'm so glad that this is the calling I was assigned. There is nothing else in the world I can imagine doing.