I remember when I started this blog how much I wanted to keep it updated. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve been told that I’m somewhat good at it. I was excited to share this journey as I went through it, in somewhat real-time. I had big plans for this, but I’m a dreamer. It turns out, when you have children, you lose time that you once had. Things you used to be able to do on a regular basis are gently set to the side, and then quickly forgotten. That bottle of wine that you had moved it’s way to the back of the fridge behind the apple juice. The book that you were reading gets lost under a stack of coloring pages and bills, and in turn, those bills continue to get stacked under homework sheets and “I love you Dad” and “Dear Santa” notes. That blog that you started, you forget about for two months, because any spare moment that you have to yourself you just want to do nothing. You want to hear nothing. Or you just want to go to bed early.
At the beginning of all of this, I decided that I wanted to join some groups on Facebook that were dedicated to fostering. I needed people in my life that understood what I was going through, even if they weren’t people that I personally knew. These groups have been a huge help in many aspects of my foster parent life. I’ve been able to ask questions and just scroll through and read the stories that people have posted of their own journey through this. Some of the group members are foster veterans, and some are new like I am. However, not everything has been helpful. Like most things on Facebook, you sometimes get sucked into a black hole. For me, that black hole came at the end of November when I began to feel lost. I wasn’t happy with where I was and what I was doing. I didn’t like who I was becoming as a parent, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about the emotions that I was silently going through.
When going through these groups, there were so many comments about how when you become a foster parent, the child’s feelings and emotions become the most important thing and how you just sort of have to give up a part of yourself in order to be sure that you are meeting all of their needs. Now, I’m not saying every comment was this…but those are the ones that I saw and focused on. I had already started to alienate myself from the people who were a major part of my life before becoming a parent because I just didn’t feel like I had the time to do anything anymore. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to do anything. I was tired. I am still tired, but I can’t continue to use that as an excuse.
I realize now that just because I have a child who depends on me doesn’t mean that I have to give up part of myself. In fact, in order to be the best that I can be for her, I need to set aside time for me. So that’s what I’m working on now, finding that time and rediscovering the person that I used to be in all aspects of my life including my career.
However, that’s not the only revelation that has come in the past two months. Mid-November brought another foster first for me when I attended my first MDT (multidisciplinary team) meeting. These are meetings that take place on a monthly basis to keep things on track and to check-in or progress and changes. They include social workers, guardians, DHHR representatives, attorneys, foster parents, and bio parents. Yes, bio parents.
I was incredibly nervous about this meeting, mostly because I had never had any interaction with L’s mom, but since I had the day off from school already, I wanted to be sure that I went. We never directly spoke to one another, and we never made eye contact, but something for me shifted after that meeting. I realized that there was another side of this story that I was living in now. There was another person who was working on bettering themselves as well. This person had baggage, just like we all do. This person was just that…a person. Suddenly, all of these angry feelings that I had held crashed and washed away, because who am I to judge? I don’t want to be a person who’s hopes and dreams rest on someone else’s failure. I can’t be that person.
I go back and forth on whether this whole fostering thing is for me. I was naive to believe that I would be able to handle the difficult emotions that go along with all of this. I’ve successfully screwed up all of the monthly paperwork that I’ve turned in since L has come to me; the medical appointment logs, the medication administration forms, the monthly summaries, all of them. I continually think about how heart-wrenching it will be if it comes down to it and L has to leave me. I worry, after spending two holidays with my family, how it will affect them to have children come and go. It’s painful to see all of the pictures people post of their own children and to not be able to do the same. I struggle with how annoying it has been to not be able to just get a babysitter for a night or to go and so something spontaneous because you have to have permission to go out of state or go on an overnight stay, though I completely understand the reasoning behind it. I go back and forth, almost daily, deciding if I will continue this in the future, but each day I wake up and think that it’s worth it. All I know for certain right now is that I will continue to be head over heels in love with this little girl who calls me dad.
And this time it counts…because this time she knows my name.