Round the Gum Tree

Saying No To A Placement

September 4, 2015

*as always, names have been changed for peoples protection and privacy

As a foster mom I’m always looking forward to getting more kids. I love getting that phone call and I love hearing about the kids that could join our family for a while. I love the feeling of being useful that I get when I take care of these kids. I love helping them grow and meeting their needs. The opportunity excites me. In my career as a foster mom I’ve gotten 9 calls to foster placements. Of those calls we have said yes four times. Those phone calls were Mr.H and his brother, Sam and Olivia, Hiccup, and a baby who never made it to our house before kinship was found.

Incase you missed it, there were 6 other times we’ve been asked to take kids in that we had to say no to. There were two Native American girls, A baby girl in December, A little boy who we got a call for at 10 pm, A child who was found in a car with a person who had warrants out for their arrest, a child whose father had kidnapped her and whose mom was a mess, and two little boys whose case was so far along that parental rights were going to be terminated in a month and adoption was the option they were looking for. I remember them all. I remember my heart breaking when the answer to prayer was to say no. I remember my heart breaking when the answer to the prayer was that they wouldn’t be part of our family, even for a little bit.

I was talking to a friend who is a also a foster mom, lets call her Kristin. She got a call about a baby whose case was also headed for adoption. Like me she struggles with infertility, so it was extra hard for her to say no to a baby that could potentially be a forever baby. However after a lot of prayer she realized she wasn’t supposed to say yes to this one. Her heart broke. However her hands were full with her birth kids and the placement she already had. I understood because that is what we had just gone through a few months ago with the two little boys.

There are people out there who try and make foster parents feel guilty for saying no to a placement that we know nothing about. Some people judge foster parents for saying we can’t handle what this kids dishes out, or what their birth family dishes out. Some people get mad at foster parents for having kids in their home and then acknowledging that they can’t meet the child’s needs and asking that they be removed. Some of these people work in the foster system and others are outsiders with no idea what they are talking about. The truth is that even the people in the system who think you should always say yes are outsiders too because they don’t know everything that the foster family is going through and they aren’t the ones who have to live with it all day in and day out.

The truth is that sometimes we just aren’t the family that the kids need. Sometimes the kids need parents with different parenting styles or different personalities. Sometimes the kids need siblings or no siblings and thats not what’s in your home. Sometimes the kids need parents with more experience in the areas that they are struggling. Sometimes the kids are just not right for your home for reasons that only Heavenly Father understands, but he understands and he has an amazing plan.

A perfect example of this is Mr.H. He had been to a different home for two weeks before he and his brother came to us. I have no idea why those foster parents changed their minds. I do know that I am so grateful they did. We are meant to be Mr.H’s forever family and we were meant to help his brother on his way back to his dad. It never would have happened if the former foster family hadn’t had the courage to admit that they were not able to take care of them. My son who calls me mommy would never have come to us and we would be missing him without knowing who he is. I also know that we were not ready for them to come at the moment they entered care. Those two weeks they spent with the foster family made it so our boys could come to us. While I imagine the other foster parents were very sad and confused about sending the kids back, Heavenly Father knew what he was doing and I appreciate the other foster parents willingness to follow His plan even when it hurt.

So dear foster parent who had to say no to a placement you were excitedly waiting for, don’t cry too many tears. You will get the call that is right one day. Dear foster parent who has done all they could, yet still has to call a caseworker to let them know that the placement isn’t working and the kids need someone else, don’t beat your self up. You did your best and it wasn’t for nothing. These children are Heavenly Father’s children. He will look out for them, we just have to follow the promptings He gives us.

What Foster Care is Teaching My Forever Kids

August 10, 2015

Allot of people worry about how being a foster family will affect their forever kids (kids already in your home). Its a valid concern. There are some extreme (and exaggerated) cases out there that I am sure you’ve heard of through your local busy body.

Apart from that their is the emotional roller coaster that your forever kids will experience.

I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it will be a piece of cake for your precious kiddos or for you. It won’t be. I get it because I’ve experienced it. I’ve comforted Mr. H as his heart filled with sadness that his (foster) brother Sam and his (foster) sister Olivia wouldn’t be coming home to him again. He was crushed and it was hard. I’ve watched as he experienced the loss of most of my attention since there were very traumatized children that needed me. I’ve seen the bite marks Sam gave him that nearly drew blood.

When I contemplated these things I seriously considered never fostering again. I would just make myself stop caring about all the other kids out there who need homes (as if). I would simply let go of my dreams of a big family or I would find a different way to expand our family. My son just might end up an only child who spent a lot of time with friends in order to satiate his desire for great amounts of social interaction.

As I comforted my little boy and pondered all these things the thought came to “It is good for him”. It was a calm and peaceful thought that was definitely not my own. In fact I credit it to the Holy Spirit. Why then is it a good thing for my son to experience these things? Upon reflection I realized that these experiences are teaching him things in a way no other experience will so vibrantly provide. Being a foster family is providing me with a wealth of opportunities to teach my son that I might not have had or noticed. Even better, we are having all of these teaching opportunities with him at home while he is young. He is learning things that probably wouldn’t have come up before grade school, but these lessons are preparing him for what he will face when he finely starts spending most of his waking hours outside our home.

In the end, its totally worth it.

Becoming Mom and Dad {Our Journey to Being Foster Parents}

August 1, 2015

I want to share something with you. It is the story of how we first became parents. It isn’t filled with cute announcements, a creative way to tell the dad to be that he is a dad to be, or a baby shower. There was no gender reveal or pregnancy shoot. There was infertility, tears, prayers and answers.

We got married in 2010 after a quick engagement. Hubby had job starting in a different state and we wanted to be married before then so two months was all the time my wonderful mother (bless her) had to prepare a wedding for her starry-eyed daughter whose head was in a cloud (sorry mom). Hubby and I knew we didn’t want to wait to have children and we didn’t feel that we should use birth control anyways. We hoped a baby would come soon but the baby never did. When I described the time I thought I was pregnant to the doctor he said that I had most likely miss carried. My body did that twice. I cried….a lot.

We moved again so my husband could finish school. Two years went by. We prayed. We used the bit of savings we had on some fertility tests and treatment. Still there was no baby. We prayed some more and fasted. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were supposed to be parents and that their was a child who needed us. We desperately wanted the privilege of having children in our home. Being a mom was the thing that I wanted to be more then anything when I grew up and I just knew that Hubby and I were meant to be parents.

Adoption was something that I had always thought I would do. At the time our church had an adoption agency where the costs were significantly lower then any other agency. The fees were so low that we could afford it even on our student budget. We also considered adopting a waiting child from foster care, being foster parents or just continuing to focus on the chance of a biological child. We did our research, prayed some more and then felt that Heavenly Father wanted us to be foster parents.

We took the classes, got our home study, and then got our license. Amidst all of the todos I felt to ask the Lord that our first placement would be one that would need us forever. A placement that would make it so we were never childless again. We both knew that not all of our kids would stay. We were both ok with that. We also knew that sometimes kids have to stay, so for our first go around I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask Heavenly Father for one that was going to need a new forever home. When we became available we were placed with a wonderful little boy. We became Mom and Dad to him. Two years later that little boy is our forever son and we are so grateful for him.

Have a g’day,

Gum Tree