Well, we've had two babies for 7 weeks now.
It finally feels like we've settled into a new normal. And let me tell you this normal is crazy. I've had so many ideas the past several weeks about things to blog. Clearly none of them contained enough content to become actual posts. That's just how my brain is now, all over the place. All. The. Time.
Life with two littles under the age of one is a little insane. I'd like to be able to say that it's all fun all the time. If I did that I would be lying to you, so I'm not going to say that. This life definitely has its ups and good times, but there is also a fair amount of tears and screaming--from the babies and from us parents.
The older of the two littles has had a hard go of life so far and my heart hurts for her when she is hurting because she is still struggling with trust and feeling safe. Due to this she has horrible screaming fits when she is tired or hungry. The poor girl, when she gets so tired she won't drink her bottle, then she wakes up starving and even then will sometimes refuse to drink. We are working on transitioning her from the bottle to a sippy cup/straw cup as well as moving from baby food to table food. She seems to enjoy feeding herself finger foods, when she successfully gets a bite to her mouth her little smile is priceless. The sippy cup is still a struggle for her. I never knew how hard it would be to parent an infant who we didn't know from birth. Because this poor baby has not yet successfully mastered the ability to trust adults she will become upset and scared when she crawls to us and we do not pick her up. It's a delicate balance because at her age she is definitely learning that when she screams loud enough or long enough we will pick her up to stop it. I want so badly to pick her up every time and comfort her, but I also don't want to encourage the behavior. It's rough sometimes.
It's not all bad though. When this girl is happy it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen. She will smile crooked and her four little teeth will cross and her whole face lights up! She is learning new things every day and now knows how to clap when you say "yay", follows when you say "come on", and is working on covering her face for Peek a Boo (though right now she covers her mouth instead of her eyes). So cute.
Then there's the tiny one. She had a super rough start but is now coming into her own and getting a cute little personality. She still wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat, but I'm ok with that because she usually gives me a toothless grin when I get her out of her bed to eat. This little one can hold her own, though, when it comes to the screaming competitions with the bigger one. She can also go from zero to 60 quickly and without warning. Especially when she is hungry, or at least she thinks she's hungry. She is finally starting to up the volume she drinks, but she still thinks she should have a bottle every 2 hours. It can be exhausting. Thankfully she is my little snuggler and will usually calm by being held and/or swaddled. She is cooing and smiling socially and she tolerates tummy time well. I love our little conversations, they are definitely the highlights of my days.
I'd always heard that parenting was hard, rewarding, but hard. Being a foster parent adds a whole new level of difficulty. To everything. Being a foster parent means taking care of a child who isn't yours, loving a child who isn't yours as if they were. It also involves a lot more people than parenting your own children does. People who you have to ask permission for almost everything involving the child. Foster parenting means taking time to take the children to visitation, and sometimes extra doctors appointments due to the circumstances they were removed from. It means that you have to go to court for your kids and pray that the judge makes rulings that really are in the best interests of the child(ren). It involves aiding the children in reunification with biological parents/families, if that is the goal of the case. It often means putting your own thoughts and feelings aside because what you think is best for the child is not what the judge has ordered.
I truly believe that God is at work here in this house with these baby girls and with us as their parents, no matter how temporary or permanent that may be. I never imagined that this would be my life at 28, but here I am, and I wouldn't change a thing. Yes, I would have loved to have biological children before starting our foster care journey, but I'm so thankful that we were open and ready to accept these children into our care when they needed us. Loving and caring for them is what we want to focus on now and for however we have them in our home.
What does that mean for our infertility journey? Well, right now that means taking a break and moving into a different phase of attempts to have biological children. Financially we cannot currently afford to give these girls the lives we want them to have while also paying for fertility treatments, so we are stopping all of that to focus on them. That does not mean we will stop trying, it just means that we aren't going to put money into those efforts. Though this does make me somewhat sad I am content to care for and love the little ones I have right now. Should God choose to bless us with a biological baby we will be thrilled. If it's not the time, that is ok too. It's taken me far too long to get to this point, but at last I'm here. I don't feel baby-crazy any more. It doesn't make me sad to hear of someones pregnancy announcement since I haven't yet had my own one of those yet.
God is once again wrecking my plans. He's taking the ideas that I had about what my life would look like and making them what He wants them to be. I'm so glad He is, too.
I wish I could leave you with pictures of these adorable littles, but since I can't I'll leave you with this picture of the cutest doggie ever.
~Sarah
It finally feels like we've settled into a new normal. And let me tell you this normal is crazy. I've had so many ideas the past several weeks about things to blog. Clearly none of them contained enough content to become actual posts. That's just how my brain is now, all over the place. All. The. Time.
Life with two littles under the age of one is a little insane. I'd like to be able to say that it's all fun all the time. If I did that I would be lying to you, so I'm not going to say that. This life definitely has its ups and good times, but there is also a fair amount of tears and screaming--from the babies and from us parents.
The older of the two littles has had a hard go of life so far and my heart hurts for her when she is hurting because she is still struggling with trust and feeling safe. Due to this she has horrible screaming fits when she is tired or hungry. The poor girl, when she gets so tired she won't drink her bottle, then she wakes up starving and even then will sometimes refuse to drink. We are working on transitioning her from the bottle to a sippy cup/straw cup as well as moving from baby food to table food. She seems to enjoy feeding herself finger foods, when she successfully gets a bite to her mouth her little smile is priceless. The sippy cup is still a struggle for her. I never knew how hard it would be to parent an infant who we didn't know from birth. Because this poor baby has not yet successfully mastered the ability to trust adults she will become upset and scared when she crawls to us and we do not pick her up. It's a delicate balance because at her age she is definitely learning that when she screams loud enough or long enough we will pick her up to stop it. I want so badly to pick her up every time and comfort her, but I also don't want to encourage the behavior. It's rough sometimes.
It's not all bad though. When this girl is happy it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen. She will smile crooked and her four little teeth will cross and her whole face lights up! She is learning new things every day and now knows how to clap when you say "yay", follows when you say "come on", and is working on covering her face for Peek a Boo (though right now she covers her mouth instead of her eyes). So cute.
Then there's the tiny one. She had a super rough start but is now coming into her own and getting a cute little personality. She still wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat, but I'm ok with that because she usually gives me a toothless grin when I get her out of her bed to eat. This little one can hold her own, though, when it comes to the screaming competitions with the bigger one. She can also go from zero to 60 quickly and without warning. Especially when she is hungry, or at least she thinks she's hungry. She is finally starting to up the volume she drinks, but she still thinks she should have a bottle every 2 hours. It can be exhausting. Thankfully she is my little snuggler and will usually calm by being held and/or swaddled. She is cooing and smiling socially and she tolerates tummy time well. I love our little conversations, they are definitely the highlights of my days.
I'd always heard that parenting was hard, rewarding, but hard. Being a foster parent adds a whole new level of difficulty. To everything. Being a foster parent means taking care of a child who isn't yours, loving a child who isn't yours as if they were. It also involves a lot more people than parenting your own children does. People who you have to ask permission for almost everything involving the child. Foster parenting means taking time to take the children to visitation, and sometimes extra doctors appointments due to the circumstances they were removed from. It means that you have to go to court for your kids and pray that the judge makes rulings that really are in the best interests of the child(ren). It involves aiding the children in reunification with biological parents/families, if that is the goal of the case. It often means putting your own thoughts and feelings aside because what you think is best for the child is not what the judge has ordered.
I truly believe that God is at work here in this house with these baby girls and with us as their parents, no matter how temporary or permanent that may be. I never imagined that this would be my life at 28, but here I am, and I wouldn't change a thing. Yes, I would have loved to have biological children before starting our foster care journey, but I'm so thankful that we were open and ready to accept these children into our care when they needed us. Loving and caring for them is what we want to focus on now and for however we have them in our home.
What does that mean for our infertility journey? Well, right now that means taking a break and moving into a different phase of attempts to have biological children. Financially we cannot currently afford to give these girls the lives we want them to have while also paying for fertility treatments, so we are stopping all of that to focus on them. That does not mean we will stop trying, it just means that we aren't going to put money into those efforts. Though this does make me somewhat sad I am content to care for and love the little ones I have right now. Should God choose to bless us with a biological baby we will be thrilled. If it's not the time, that is ok too. It's taken me far too long to get to this point, but at last I'm here. I don't feel baby-crazy any more. It doesn't make me sad to hear of someones pregnancy announcement since I haven't yet had my own one of those yet.
God is once again wrecking my plans. He's taking the ideas that I had about what my life would look like and making them what He wants them to be. I'm so glad He is, too.
I wish I could leave you with pictures of these adorable littles, but since I can't I'll leave you with this picture of the cutest doggie ever.
Comments
Post a Comment