Building a Bethards

Man is it hard for me to keep up with this blog. With so much going on I have so much I want to say, but for now I will just do a quick(ish) family update. As you all know we are foster parents. Just about 6 weeks ago now we said goodbye to our little man as he reunified with his biological mother. We had him for almost 21 months and gave him back just before he turned two. After pouring so much into this little guy for so long we are currently taking a break from new placements to focus on our daughter. Caroline is growing and learning so much now. She is 28 months old and in the thick of the terrible twos! She's sassy, opinionated, fiercely independent, loving, and amazing. Since the departure of little man, whom she affectionately called "Bubba", it's been good to finally be able to pour all of our attention into her. The transition was hard at first, I mean we basically took away the only sibling she's ever known (she doesn't remember our other littl...

There is always something we’re (I’m) doing wrong. Breastfeeding. We all know that “breast is best”. Breastmilk is often referred to as “liquid gold”. I mean come on, it’s packed with all kinds of nutrients, vitamins, and immune system boosters for baby. But even though we know this information, and we know how important it is to breastfeed babies we scorn and chastise moms doing such a great thing for their babies, just because they are doing so in public. How can we say “breast is best” and then in the same breath add “but only if I don’t have to see the baby eating?” On the other side of that is moms who are often shamed, whether outright or in whispers, when they do not breastfeed. Breastfeeding is hard, y’all (or so I’ve heard). There are SO many reasons why breastfeeding might not work for a mom and her baby. And as a passer-by (or even family/friend) you have absolutely no right to condemn a mom for pulling out a bottle and formula. You don’t know their story, eno...

They say the statistic for miscarriage is 10-25% per 100 pregnancies in the US. 1 in 4 women will experience this loss. Personally I know more women who have miscarried, some more than once, than that statistic allows. I am now part of that statistic. Friday May 26, 2017 after just over 3 years of trying to conceive we got our first ever positive pregnancy test. The test line showed up almost immediately. Of course, it was a Dollar Tree test so we had to test again with a Clear Blue digital later in the evening (after 3 years you learn to buy the cheap ones before double checking with the expensive ones.) Both tests were positive. The screen of the digital pregnancy test read positive. It was surreal. Was this really happening? After waiting so long was this dream becoming reality? Five days later the dream began to fade and concern and fear crept in. On Wednesday I began spotting. After initial concern and a call to the nurse at my new Ob/gyn office I was reassured th...

500 days. 500 days ago we brought home a precious little bundle of joy from the NICU. Much like any new family we were full of excitement and happiness over this little blessing. We had prepared a place for her in our home. We had clothes and a bed ready and waiting for her. We loved her from the moment we laid eyes on her. It has not been an easy 500 days. Some of those days, many of those days, were bittersweet. The days with caseworker visits, resource worker visits, licensing checks, biological family visits, staffings, and court hearings were not easy. Those days were the ones that reminded us that this little baby girl who we loved as our own was not ours. It was hard. But she was worth it. So we kept going. By God's grace we were able to love her through it all. It's now been 5 days since our last court hearing for her. The beginning of our forever. Our happily ever after. It was at court on April 18, 2017 that the bundle of joy who had been with us for 495 days ...

Y'all. Life is busy. Caring for an on-the-move 9 month old and a special needs 5 month old is, well, busy. Yep, you read that right. We currently have a 9 month old AND a 5 month old. Two infants. Approximately 4 months apart in age. We are just that crazy. There is so much I wish I could say here. So many stories and cute things I want to share. SO many pictures of adorable smiles and videos of sweet laughter that I can't share with you all. It's been almost three months since my last update and so much has happened in the time that has passed. It's amazing how much life can happen in what feels like such a short time, but also how slow time can move when waiting for specific dates. Sometimes it's as though life is passing me by, like I'm standing on the sidelines while everyone else is moving forward. As foster parents it can feel like we are living two separate lives. The one that everyone knows about and sees, and one that is secretive and hidden to...

I realized the other day that it has been two months since I last posted. That is how crazy life has been lately. Foster parenting sometimes feels like a whirlwind. Well, maybe more like a hurricane I think. Lots of crazy, followed by some calm, then a little more crazy before the calm comes back. It's like a roller coaster of hurricanes. Constantly. As soon as you adjust to a new normal something changes and you have to adjust all over again. Then, before you get fully adjusted something else happens and you start all over. It's hard. It's crazy. It's worth it. In the two months since I last posted so much has happened. We had court dates for both our girls. It's incredible how many parts and people are involved in each and every case. Caseworkers, foster parents, biological parents, kids, attorneys--for each party at that, supervisors, the list can go on. Three weeks ago tomorrow we assisted our older foster daughter in her reunification with her biologica...

Yep, that's right. We've now been unsuccessful at conceiving a child for two years now. I've come a long, long, long, way personally since those first few months. Heck, that first year was killer. Surgery was supposed to make it happen. Medication was supposed to make it happen. Procedures were supposed to make it happen. God is the only one who can actually make it happen. Though we've not given up trying to conceive a biological child we are also not pursuing anything medically to help us do so. We are good where we are, and if God blesses us with a biological child then we will be thrilled. But I'm done obsessing over it. A few months back I began this post and wanted to share it now. It's been on my heart lately to write this, but I hadn't been able to find the words (or time) to get out what I want to say. Before I came out about our struggle to conceive a child my life was all about keeping up the appearance of "having it all together."...

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 w...

Y'all, we've been parents for 6 weeks now. We've been parents of two for 3 weeks. Life has changed drastically in the last 6 weeks, and we love it. We just experienced our first Christmas with babies who were having their first Christmases. So much fun. We got to go see Santa at the Bass Pro Shops with our older baby and she did great; we got an incredible picture with Santa that I'm sad we can't share. She was so happy in his lap, she had a huge smile on her face!! We now have a plethora of items that say "Baby's First Christmas" and I love it. Seven weeks ago I couldn't tell you what day of the week it was without first thinking about what day of the cycle I was in, today I can't tell you what day of the week it is at all without remembering what day it was yesterday or looking at the calendar on my phone; I have no idea what cycle day it is without looking at an app on my phone, and that feels amazing. The last 6 weeks have been crazy,...

We are now one week into being a family of 5 (4 humans and a dog). What a crazy weeks it's been. Thankful for my mom who has been able to stay with the newest itty bitty so I can work part time. We are so in love with these girls and thankful that God has called us to parent them, no matter how temporary it may be. Since accepting our second placement we have had several of you ask how you can help us, so here are some ideas! The number one thing we covet is your prayers. Prayers for functioning on little sleep; prayers that we parent these little well; prayers for biological families and their ability to do the court required things to get their babies back if that is God's plan. Just pray for us. A week into being parents of two we are beginning to see more tangible things that we could always use more of, the biggest of those being diapers. Boy to babies go through a lot of diapers each day!! While the girls are at home we are using hybrid cloth/flushable diapers ...

This still counts as later this week, right? Finally getting a chance to sit down and get out my thoughts about the last few weeks. We've had our precious little for 3 weeks now and we are all adjusting fairly well. We got our newest itty bitty just last night, straight from the hospital! Wow. Almost 2 years of infertility and now within 3 weeks we have two babies!! And I didn't have to go through the discomfort of pregnancy or pain of labor! Yes, it also means that there is a good possibility that I'll have to give both of them back to their biological families and once again be left with an empty crib, but for now I will enjoy these babies. Our little is still struggling to get in a rhythm with her naps, but is doing so much better eating than when we first got her. She takes food from the spoon like a champ and is now working on straw drinking! This girl requires a dark room with music or silence to sleep, so we are starting to understand why she won't sleep a...

I wrote the post below after our first few days with our little one and forgot to post! Mommy brain is a real thing, y'all. And just over 2 weeks in now its even worse! I'll post more about how things are going sometime this week :) 11/25/2015 Well, we've got our first weekend and our first two week days in the books. And I'm happy to report that we're all still alive! Our sweet girl had a pretty good first night with us, only waking once for a bottle then going right back to sleep. The first full day we had her, Friday, I was off so I spent the day with her so we could start working on getting her on some sort of a nap schedule and so that we could get to know each other and start the bonding process. I also got her enrolled at a new daycare. She pretty easily went down for a morning nap the first day, the afternoon nap was rougher, but it eventually happened. That second night she slept through the night and woke up in a good mood just babbling away in ...

We got the call today. The crib is no longer empty. There is a sweet baby sleeping in the next room. A precious baby who has been entrusted to our care. We don't know how long we will have her, but we will love her while we do! Jack was incredibly excited when she arrived. Wonder when he'll realize that she's staying for a while. Thankfully, she didn't mind all his licking, in fact after just over an hour she started reaching for him! So adorable. As you may know I will not be able to post any pictures or details of her or her case here, so please don't ask. I will be posting our adventures in parenting this sweet baby, though! And of course I'll continue to post about our fertility journey. Pray for us as we love this little one. Pray for this little one as she learns who we are. Pray for her family and the issues that removed her from their care. Pray for all the foster families who are loving all these children. Continue to pray for our fertil...

We are once again an open foster home! We were officially approved last Friday and opened for kids a couple of days ago. We are incredibly excited and so ready for that call that there is a baby who needs us. As excited and ready to help as we are we also know that for us to get a baby like this it means that a family is being taken apart, and that is heart wrenching. The jobs that I have had over the years have placed struggling families in my life in a variety of ways. Through working at daycares I was able to see so many working moms and dads striving to make the lives of their children good and fun. At Early Head Start I worked with some incredibly vulnerable families and children; the struggle these parents went through to make a good life for their children was evident. Some did a better job than others, some struggled constantly. These children lacked rules and boundaries and didn't know how to get love and attention without behaving badly. My work at the variou...

Calm is not a word I would say has been in my vocabulary lately. Calm is also not something that has been in my life lately. However, this past cycle I have been given an overwhelming sense of calm. Now, that's not to say life has slowed down at all or we've had changes in what is happening to give me this calm. This feeling is definitely a blessing from God. Last cycle ended up being one without medication to assist ovulation. This happened for several reasons, the main one being that I was unable to get into my doctors office for an ultrasound at the beginning of the cycle to get a new prescription; another reason we went med-free this cycle was to see if I would ovulate on my own. Well, I can say I ovulated, but it ended up being a painfully long 40 day cycle because I didn't ovulate until sometime between CD 25-28. So when most girls finish their cycle on day 28 I was just ovulating. Fantastic. Not. Late ovulation can be an indicator of poor egg quality, but my RE ...

As my body continues to defy what it is supposed to do we are soldiering on in the process to open our home to foster children once again. For any of you who have gone through this process or have close friends who have done so, you know that the state is very slow with these things. You'd think with all the kids who need placements they would step it up and go faster, but that is not the case. So, we are still in the process of waiting. Seems like most of adult life is about waiting. Which makes it hard not to get lost in the future and the what-ifs. As for now we are waiting on our resource worker to come visit our home to give the final stamp of approval before we are officially open again. All the paperwork has been turned in. All the continuing education hours have been finished. The room is ready for babies. The dog is ready for babies, too, for that matter! Not much needed to be done to the room, as I mentioned before, we were keeping the empty crib as a faithful sign ...

This post is definitely going to be picture heavy, so be prepared for all the cuteness!! For those of you who know me well or have known me for a long time you would probably agree with the statement that I am not a dog person. I grew up with a mom who is allergic to dogs, so it was not really an option to want/get a dog. We were always told the negatives about dogs, so I never wanted one. Then I married a boy who grew up with dogs. Lots of dogs. I married a dog lover. When we were dating we discussed dogs and he knew how I felt. He once told me that he would teach himself to be ok without a dog. That didn't last long. About a year into our marriage my sweet hubby started researching dogs that were low allergen, so it wouldn't prevent my mom from coming to visit. After another year of trying to sneak the topic of dogs into conversation he decided he wanted to go to the dog show in LR that summer, you know, just to see the dogs. Yeah, right. He of course met a bunch of sweet...

So often recently I find myself trying to occupy my time; to fill the waiting with things that are not related to infertility or trying to make a baby. It's exhausting. Infertility is exhausting. Trying not to think about infertility is exhausting. Dictionary.com defines exhaust as: to   drain   of   strength   or   energy,   wear   out,   or   fatigue   greatly,   as   a  person That is where I'm at. I am drained. Most days I really fight to make myself get out of bed. I don't have the strength to get through the day, especially when that day involves pretending that I'm ok when I'm not, which is most days. At this moment in time, as I sit here on day one of a new cycle, the only strength I have is to cry out to God. To pray to him to give me strength to make it through another day, another week, another cycle. I came across a note in my phone this morning that I had typed out last July. Exactly 14 months a...

I've always been one to try to prepare for things. I try to make plans. I love writing out lists and making a calendar. Infertility is hard because it takes all of that away from me. I can plan as many pregnancy announcements as I want; they're different every month based on when the baby would be due. So far they've all gone unused. But, hey, now I'm prepared with 18 months of them, right? When our first foster child was placed with us we were not ready. Yes, we had gone through all the classes, read all the material, and completed all the necessary home visits & requirements from the state. Our home had a space for a child. We had a closet full of clothes and the crib set up, ready to go. But we were not prepared. Our hearts were not ready. Looking back on that experience now I think it was just too close to the heartache of our failed attempt at the fostering and adoption of the baby in the hospital whom we both loved. We were also not prepared ...