The Day Finally Arrived #majorlatergram

You'll notice the last post was entitled "calm before the storm" and oh my word. I guess it was because that was October. And it's January. Sorry folks! I think once we were suddenly in the middle of things, I almost felt like I couldn't compose my thoughts enough to post ANYthing!

Here is a brief rundown of what's transpired for us in the last months, with the hope that I can keep up better from here on out :)

Sometime in November: Actually cannot remember the date. But somewhere in there we got our first placement call for a sibling set, an infant and a toddler. I kind of felt like a nervous wreck and wasn't really sure what to say to our case worker other than "yes, we'll take them!". Supposedly they were supposed to arrive the next day. Frantic getting ready for two more kids ensued. Next day came, and I get a phone call from my case worker (while the kids are with her in the car none the less) saying that the judge had ordered the kids be returned home. End of story. No placement. And this folks is the name of the game in foster care! You never truly know how things are going to work out, and you just have to be flexible. Lesson learned though - don't prepare for kids. Just wait to see if they actually come, then go get whatever you need :)

This was definitely a let down, but my case worker assured me there were lots more placements out there, and in fact she had heard something about a 5 mo old and was going to make some inquiries. Fast forward a week or so. Turns out there WAS a 5 mo old, and she needed placement that very evening. "yes, we'll take her!". But really, I was prepared for something like last time to happen, so I was just waiting for them to actually walk in the door with her. I didn't even buy diapers. Nothing.

This time, she did show up. It was pouring down rain that night and they brought her in covered up in her carseat. I peeked in at her and she was the most peaceful, content baby. Wow, I could hardly believe how fast things happen in this world. Remember the no diapers part though? Well, needless to say we made a late night trip to Target with a baby with which I didn't even know when she last ate or slept! She screamed the entire trip. The ENTIRE trip. We ran into some friends of ours, Ben and Sophie, while wandering the baby aisle. They are our witness of this. :)

Really though, considering her day and what she had recently been through, I would be screaming too if I were her! Turns out we had nothing to worry about. She turned out to be the most calm, peaceful, quiet, happy baby I have literally ever come in contact with.

Sidenote: the question we get asked the most is by far. "so what happened?! why was she taken away??! are her parents on drugs?? do they not want her??" We understand everyone is well meaning in these questions, but the reality is we are under confidentiality and basically can't tell you much related to our foster kiddos. And generally WE don't even know that much. So there you have it, in case you were wondering where all the juicy details were.

So there we were adjusting to life with an infant, which wasn't really much of an adjustment considering how easy she was. This was all right before Thanksgiving, and we got another call the night before Thanksgiving about a 5 year old boy. Now I know what you all are thinking - "you guys are crazy!". Well, maybe. If it makes you feel any better, we actually said no at first to this placement. Mainly because of the room setup at our house, we didn't want them all in one room, and our downstairs bedroom wasn't totally ready to be a bedroom. BUT. Chris and I talked after the initial "no", and basically the question we asked ourselves was this: are we really that important that the way our bedrooms are setup is why we would say no? When in all reality we could make it work?

We called our case worker back and told her if they still needed a place for him, we would make it work and would be happy to have him. And with that, I will leave this to a continuation. Since that 5 month old is now an almost 7 month old that needs a bottle :)