The Withdrawl

Well I did it. On Friday I officially withdrew our application for adoption from LaVida. I have put it to the side for sooo long. As I have come to the conclusion that this is just not the right time for us. Now, I am not saying I feel one hundred percent our family is complete but it is not the right time for us. Any who, I was surprised at my reaction..... I cried and cried. But it is truly not the right time for us and what prompted me on Friday for the withdrawal on Wednesday we found out that in September Malcolm will be loosing 20% of his income. So with withdrawaling officially hopefully we will get our fee back that we paid. His decreased income is the result of the economic times and a grant not being renewed. Hopefully it will be covered somewhere else and it won't happen or he just finds another job!!! How am I dealing with the stress? I am sporting a big fever blister on my bottom lip.

Also, back to I cried and cried. I think there will always be a part of me that will continue to grieve for the family I didn't have. Don't misunderstand this, I am truly grateful for the family I have now and awed that I get to be a mother to the children I have. They're such a gift and a blessing. I just hope one day I feel we are complete.

A Flawed System

For those of you whoever wondered how a child ends up with serious harm once Children and Family Services are involved here is how it happens! This story involves my family, so I will give you the history on why the call was placed.

My sister is a bipolar alcoholic, who if you know her it is like a roller coaster! Since she had her daughter, a month shy of 6 years ago has depended on her family for all kinds of support. All but one year she has lived with our mother since her daughter was born. She is the queen of bad decision making with no concept of long term consequences, she is an instant gratification kind of girl. Case in point in 2005 she had her boyfriend take pictures of her and mailed them into Hustler magazine, which this past summer earned her $300 when they were published. So she meets this guy on the Internet dates him for 4 months and decides to marry him in a month. After the marriage, thinks it is a great idea for this man she has not known for at least a year to adopt her daughter. Now I will tell you that when she was married to her 2nd husband, she legally adopted his son, which when they split up she fought paying child support and now to this day she has nothing to do with him. Yup you guess it she is a walk away kind of gal. Her current, 3rd husband is about $80,000 in debt because of consumer and lawyer fees of fighting his ex wife over custody of their boys. Which he tells us it would be great if he could adopt her because this way he wouldn't have to pay as much child support to his ex wife and would have another deduction on taxes. So yes the interfering family that we are step in and said No it is not a good idea that he adopts your daughter. Called the biological father and told him why we thought it wasn't a good idea and please don't sign off. Thank goodness he didn't. This made the husband very mad and it was directed at my mom, partly because he is a coward picking on a 65 year old lady. During this time these are the things we have learned about him in their first year of marriage, caught him in lies about his past, has porn addiction, ex wife accused him of child porn and kick my sister out of the house twice, once she had to call police because of his bad temper. This is what we know he has done to her daughter, taken a bath with her(that turns my stomach!), stepped on her foot when she would not get out of his way(hard enough to leave a mark and left her with a limp), disciplines her with a trick: if she argues with him he will tell her to go ahead and do it and when she does she is spanked, spanked when she spills something and was never spanked until they were married and has only been by him. When we confronted my sister with this she would defend her husband telling us how she is trying to save her marriage. This is the incident that lead to the phone call to Children and Family Services: She was sitting on my mom's lap and they were reading a story, mom put her hands on her hips to move her and she winced. Inquiring what happen, she was in bed doing her homework and had a question and started down stairs to ask her mom that is when her step father stop her at the top of the steps and told her to go back to her room, she didn't listen and he spanked her hard enough to make her loose her balance and fall a couple of steps bruising her hip. When my sister was confronted again defended her husband. That day was the last time my mom has seen her granddaughter.

This is why I think the system is flawed:

I will agree I don't think that would warrant a child being removed from the home. I would think it could constitute parenting classes for both of them. The social worker assigned to the case never contacted any one in our family, including the person who made the call for a different side of this so called family. The didn't conduct any surprise visits to the house only scheduled ones, show up there any given Monday afternoon and my sister has put away a 12 pack. Led the social worker to believe this was all at the hands of a jealous over dramatic interfering mother in law and this social worker believed them, shame on her. Case is now closed.

So, where is it today? Well right after this happen my mom got harassing phone calls from her and his family which didn't stop until I told my sister we recorded them and would file charges if they continued. My sister has told my mom she is the cause of all their problems and now that she is out of their life she is at peace and they have a wonderful marriage. She told her she will spare her daughter the life of dysfunction and will fight to protect her from my mom. And that my mom needs therapy. What do I think? Crazy is as Crazy does! The girl is Crazy, mentally unstable. My mom will pursue grandparents rights. Even though she was told by my sister that if she did and lost she would never see her granddaughter again. Then, lastly she told mom that her granddaughter didn't even ask about her.

For the four years it took to get pregnant with Katy, it was a really difficult time for me. It was more than the 3-4 times a week trip into Center City, Philadelphia at 6am, more than all the crazy hormone pills or shots I gave myself, more than all invasive procedures and when I say invasive I mean the doctors, nurses, ultra sound techs saw more of me than my husband ever did, more that the track marks left in my arm by the viles of blood they would take to know what my hormones were up to, it was the emotional pain that I agonized over the most. These emotions of wanting another child are still very raw and painful for me even to this day. I always thought the emotions would be different if I was adopting, I was so wrong. What I didn't know is that receiving the information packet would bring all of that pain of infertility back, because once again I needed someone else and their approval to have a child. After having Katy I knew I never wanted to go through that again but here I am...

I have been thinking(among other things) a lot lately about our adoption plan. No I haven't gotten out the information packet, it is still in the basket in my kitchen. Infact, if my eyes happen to catch a glimpse of it my body just shudders with intimidation and fear. But usually when I have my next thought it comes after prayer or scripture study or quiet times during one of my many trips to and from Westminister taking and picking up kids from school. I was thinking what is my journey. We all get to where we are at, whether it be physically, emotionally, spiritually,or intellectually by taking our own journeys. So here is my epiphany: This is my journey it is the road we(I, Malcolm is just along for the ride) need to take to know the decision we make or the outcome is the one right for our family. Maybe it is what I needed to go through to have undenying faith that there is another one out there that will join our family and then again this journey will also let me know that our family is complete. A dear friend that I have made here in Maryland titled her blog "Wait a little while to welcome what you're after" and I think that is what I am doing. What am I after my complete family, whom ever that might include.

Katy Rose

This girl is funny. She doesn't mean to be. Some of the things she says..... I came around the corner the other to find her using a roll of tape to secure closed her Dad's Valentine's cards, when I asked her what she was doing she told me "my licker wasn't good enough." Last night we were laying in bed, and she announces to be that when she has her birthday party we can't invite one of the girls from her preschool class at school. When I asked why she told me it was because she has bad breath. I told Katy that is okay she can still be her friend and she could come to her party. Her reply.."aaah mom, I have a nose you know."

I thought I was having a real tender moment with her waiting in the pickup line at school. She was singing I AM CHILD OF GOD, very sweetly and sincere, just as my eyes were welling up she finishes the song and then breaks out into Elvis' Hunka Hunka Burning Love. Yes, in addition to the Primary Song CD for church we have been listening to the sound track from Lilo and Stitch. Katy and Stitch are very similar in some ways. Our family would be boring without her that's for sure.

I AM LOVED

I couldn't write about this last week when it happened, it was too emotional for me. As you all know how I freaked out after getting the information packet from LaVida, during this time I literally cried out unto our Heavenly Father (on my knees, sobbing, very much with no self control, saying just what came to my mind, a true pouring out of my heart and lacking reverence that my prayers usually have) "I asked Him how come He couldn't just send someone to me with a baby that needed a mom, how come no body could see me for the good mom that I am and want me to raise their child as mine, could He please just send a baby to me." After I had prayed that I felt guilty, I felt like I had just ask to win the lottery or asked for something impossible. I even asked for forgiveness for that prayer. That was on Tuesday, Feb. 4th. This is how our Heavenly Father responded..... I got a phone call on Monday, Feb. 11 from one of my dearest friends, we have been girlfriends now for about 25 years. Her mom was talking to her father's stepmother(that is a very complicated family tree so hang with me). Apparently her granddaughter who is about 20 is pregnant. This young woman has 2 children already that the state of Florida has terminated her parental rights with that her mom is raising. She asked her mom if she would take this child and her mom said no, she just couldn't. She knows that if she tries to keep this baby the state will take it also. She doesn't want to have an abortion. My friend's mom knowing we would like to adopt told the pregnant girls grandma about my family. The grandma talked with the pregnant girls mom and before they aproached her wanted to know if I was interested. So, my friend called me and asked if I was interested in adopting this baby. I cried and cried and cried, I couldn't talk. I am not sure what is going to happen from here, of course I said yes after all it was what I asked Heavenly Father for. My emotions were not from the idea of this could be my next child but I have a Heavenly Father who knows me, loves me, realized my heart was breaking and reach down to let me know He is there, He is listening no matter how impossible the prayer might seem to me, He let me know everything is possible through Him. I don't know if they have talked to the pregnant girl yet or not. What I took from that experience was my Heavenly Father's love, and at the time that is what I needed to know.

Having children has always been an ordeal, a trial, and huge test of faith for me. I thought adopting would be different, would go different emotionally but I am having such a hard time with it and honestly I not sure I am strong enough. I just don't know how everything is going to work from here. I am having the hardest time with knowing His will as opposed to mine, that is why I haven't completely thrown in the towel. I know I might look strong on the outside, but the inside it is all mush!!

Freaked OUT!

Okay, I am not sure myself what happen, but I can tell you I totally Freak Out Tuesday night after sitting down to read the information packet sent from our adoption agency. Called my good friend(who adopted couple years ago from China) on the verge of hysterical crying asking her what did I do! Every reason why we should not do this came to mind, I even emailed our agency asking if we didn't proceed at this point would we get our money back! Spent most of the week an emotional wreck, crying for most of it. Oh, and fighting off panic attacks. Really wondering what have I gotten my family into. Floating through my thoughts were more reasons why not to adopt than there were to proceed. Well she talked me off the ledge and gave me some very sound advice, come to find out it was the same advice I gave her when she was deciding to go to nursing school, pray about it. Pretty simple huh? Well I have to admit that I haven't had the frame of mind to listen for an answer when I have prayed. So, I needed to change focus and proceed with caution. I needed first to seek for inner peace, I started just to ask for comfort and peace, I decided to take on the Hinckley Challenge and read the Book of Mormon in 97 days in remembrance of our Beloved Prophet who just passed away recently, during this time I plan to read it for nourishment for my soul and focus on those scriptures that really testify of the love Jesus Christ has for each of us. Today I also asked for a blessing from our home teacher. With all these things I hope to place my heart in the right place so when I shall seek these answers that I will have an unshakeable testimony that I am following the Lords will and not mine. I feel as if I am standing at a fork in the road with the two directions to take and knowing each one is life altering, knowing either way is okay to take, but not knowing which one our Heavenly Father wants our family journey down. So I am going to take some time and figure out which one is for us, that way the next bump in the road we hit I will know it is just part of the journey and not a road block.

I am still afraid to look into the information packet again, it is a very intimidating pack of paper work. I am thinking of having someone come and seperate it out and put them in seperate envelopes so I don't freak out! They could put them in order in which to accomplish!! That way I would never have to look at them all at once again.

My New Weight Loss Plan

One of my favorite lines from a movie comes from The Devil Wears Prada, it is where the skinny receptionist says, "I am one stomach flu away from my goal weight." Well having the stomach virus twice in almost one week, I have decided that it is my new weight loss plan. I must say that this one makes WW points system seem like a piece of cake!! I first came down with it a week ago last Thursday and since then the entire family has gotten it! And Friday night/early Saturday morning it returned back to me! Hows does that happen? I literally thought I was safe since I was the one who introduced it to the family. The funny thing is was that because of the anticipation I had built up over LaVida accepting us or not, and being some what of an emotional cookie eater, I had made cookies about 3 out of 5 days and thought to myself that this would be a better week to have gotten the stomach virus to undue all the damage. Well next time I will becareful of what I wish/think of as new remedie for weight loss.