There is Work to be Done

At our therapist's suggestions, we have started talking about the A word more at home. We selected our adoption attorney, and she seems fabulous! She deals exclusively with adoptions and has already proven to be a wealth of knowledge. During our first conversation, she told me that if I drove our paperwork to our state's capitol city, I could have the kids' new birth certificates as soon as the day after adoption. No months of waiting! She has also adopted personally, and I feel at peace with her guidance. 

We are back to the paperwork. We have signed subsidy contracts. We spent two days filling out attorney information forms. I have chased copies of birth certificates, social security cards, and TPR orders. Name changes to be solidified. Psych evaluations have to be administered. 

I think the kids are feeling reality setting in. Emotions have been a bit heightened, and I have seen hints of behaviors that have been absent for over a month. We are persevering and doing our best to keep them all appropriately updated on the adoption progress. 

The possibility that Miss A will decide not to be adopted is in the front of my mind these days.  At fourteen, adoption will ultimately be her decision. I keep looking for ways to let her know that she is forever family even if she decides against adoption, but I don't want her to think that we're not over-the-moon excited to be her parents. I don't want her to choose adoption because she worries about disappointing us. I want her to know and trust that we love her unconditionally, but I know that isn't a reasonable expectation for me to have. 

Ultimately, I am, once again, doing my best to let go and let God. He's navigating us through this maze, and I try (and fail daily) to keep my focus on Him. There is much to be done. But allowing God to work on our hearts and our family bond HAS to be my priority now more than ever.

Diamonds... The Pressure is Worth It!

A few months ago, when our honeymoon phase was just ending, I sat in church and listened to our priest speak about diamonds. Incredible pressure and intense heat is required to turn a dark lump of coal into a precious, radiant gem. I remember sitting in my pew with Amos and our five kids, wiping away a few tears that I just couldn't hold back, praying that God would, indeed, make something beautiful and precious from the pressure that we were feeling.

For a while, the pressure increased, and sometimes I thought it might crush us. 

We stayed the course in spite of our terror, 

our doubt,

my weak desire for our former, simple life. 

We stayed the course. 

We endured the pressure. 

We clung to our hope for diamonds. 

God is faithful, and he answered our prayers in a BIG WAY! 

Suddenly, I saw our precious. Our rare, beautiful, treasure. I kid you not, within a week, our misery subsided, and I found my family in this incredibly peaceful place. 

Don't get me wrong, life with our five very individual kids will likely always keep us on our toes, but the kids are seriously AMAZING these days. Our younger three play beautifully together nearly all the time. Mr. J has had a complete turn around. He is helpful, polite, a hard worker, and his attitude is awesome.

Our family is feeling like a real forever family. 

I'm thinking and planning ways that the seven of us will serve our Lord together. I am starting to look forward to fostering again. I can hardly believe that our life felt like hell just a month ago. That's God, folks! 

I'm finding myself looking forward to finalizing our adoption. We will sit down next week to review and sign adoption subsidy paperwork. We are preparing the kids for last name changes and considering the addition of new middle names. Adoption will likely happen in early March. In less than two months, we'll be legal, official parents of Mr. J and Miss A. No more double checking Instagram posts to be sure that I'm not posting their sweet faces. No more asking permission for travel, no more fumbling though my answer when doctors ask what my relationship is to them. I won't have to explain that I'm both foster and adoptive mom. 

I'll JUST BE MOM. 

Christmas Break Felt Like a Christmas Miracle.

Christmas break drew to an end on Sunday, and we're back into the swing of things. To my surprise, the time with the kids home was actually good for me personally. I really expected to be crying into a bottle of wine before New Year's. Don't get me wrong- I shed a bucket of tears around Christmas, and one day, after a tough yesterday with A, I could barely hold myself together long enough to open presents with my parents, siblings, and niece and nephew. I was pathetic and embarrassing, but the day after a Wash Day is exactly that. It's just that usually no one is around to see me in the thick of it.

I expected to be crying into a bottle of wine by the new year, but the routine of having to mother all day long proved satisfying. I think I had started to slip into a bit of a depression prior to the holidays, and the long quiet days while the kids were at school made it oh so easy to feed my laziness and call it self-care. 

For the record, self-care is NOT sleeping for two hours in the middle of the day. It is not Netflix binges. Self-care is productivity. It is active prayer. Helping others. Socializing. Playing games. Going for walks. Living, at least loosely, by a schedule. Doing your job and doing it well. 

In the past three weeks, I have been proud of my mothering. It hasn't been perfect, but my heart has been in it. We are a world away from where we were a month ago. Our boys have spent much less time trying to force each other to be the sibling they hoped for. I see acceptance starting to sprout, and I'm praying that God will show me how to nurture it. 

Over the school break, I reached my limit of ignoring Mr. J's disrespectful answers to nearly every conversation we shared. I was tired of the sarcasm, the hateful exasperation Mr. J would throw at us constantly, and the incessant defiance. Attention seeking, we were told. ODD, we were told. Sibling competition, we were told. Trying to figure out his role in our family, we were told. I was done. It was time to stop excusing the bad behavior with a list of tough circumstances. I sat in our minivan and lectured my new son. I spoke to him sternly and lovingly. I told him we were finished with the behavior he was hiding behind. I assured him that I saw the boy behind all that and loved him more than I could explain. I told him that we were done with his attempts to hurt others' feelings. From that moment forward, I would tolerate no more of it. He was golden for the rest of the day. The next morning, Mr. J tossed an eye roll and a sarcastic "I'm goooooooooooing!" my way when I asked him to put his shoes on.  I directed him to sit on the stool beside me, got close to his face, looked him in the eye, and said, "I told you we were finished with that behavior, and I mean it's OVER NOW." Another hateful remark landed him home for the day while the others were brought to play with relatives in from out of town. We have lived with a zero tolerance policy for Mr. J since then. By God's grace, I have gradually seen less of Mr. J's mask and more of Mr. J.

A couple months ago, a parenting effort like this one would have led to a meltdown complete with screaming and threats of self harm, running away, or hurting others. I was SO proud of how Mr. J took my ultimatum- unhappily, but calmly obliging. What I see in that change is growing trust.

Mr. J has started to tell stories, talk about his bio mom and his life in foster care. I listen intently to every word. The glimpse into his head isn't very comforting (there's a lot of pain there), but the fact that he is sharing leaves opportunity for healing. 

We are not out of the woods, but we are in a place where I believe there is a clearing ahead. I can see God's grace around me again, and I am able to do more than simply keep everyone safe and fed. God is good, and He has not stopped working in this house, in these hearts.