I love to talk! I love to share my experiences with people. I really enjoy reading other peoples blogs about life-family life-the good, the bad and the ugly.
Where do I begin. Life has been an adventure. Hubby and I married young and wanted to start a family about a year later-but we instead found ourselves in the whirlwind of infertility. As a child all I ever wanted was to become a mom-have children. I went to school for Early Childhood Education and surrounded myself with children. We saw Dr's, had tests done, took fertility drugs but all to no avail-I guess pregnancy just wasn't meant to be for us. But I needed children-I couldn't imagine life without children. While working in a Day Care in Northern Ontario we had an adorable little boy in the toddler room who was living in foster care and was being transitioned to adoption. Both Hubby and I fell in love with him-but of course there was already a waiting list of people that were being considered for this little boy. It got us talking-what about adoption? Were we good enough? Were we ready to quit infertility treatment? We really didn't know much about adoption but this got the ball rolling. We met with a social worker who informed us that the adoption waiting lists are quite long-esp for infants-but fostering with the intent to adopt may speed things up a bit. And so it began. We decided to become foster parents with the hopes of creating a family. A few months later we had a completed homestudy and we had our first foster child placed with us. We also decided to keep going with infertility treatment. Later that year Hubby got a new job in a different Northern Ontario city, so we moved and had to re-do our foster care homestudy. We had some very difficult placements, children with significant behaviour problems. At this point through my work I had gained a great deal of experience working with children with special needs. The behaviours of this child was more than I felt I could handle-don't get me wrong-my heart went out to him-what horrible things he must have experienced to be so violent at such a young age. I couldn't do it. I said to my worker you can bring me a baby that screams 24 hours a day and i can handle that. So in comes A our oldest! He arrived as a 3 month old that was living in another foster home-but the other foster home needed a break because he was such a difficult baby-he was supposed to stay 3 weeks. I will never forget his social worker bringing him in the door. He was such a tiny little thing in a big car seat and he was crying. He never stopped crying. He cried for most of his first year. The first month was the toughest. I couldn't do anything to console him. I held him 24hrs a day. I cooked and cleaned with him in a snuggly. I sat in a rocking chair and didn't move so he could nap for 1/2hour. I slept sitting up on the bed with him on top of me. If someone called I bounced him and held his soother in his mouth to try to keep him quiet-I didn't want anyone to think I wasn't managing-after all isn't this what i was waiting for-a baby-the diapers, the bottles, the cribs and toys and blankets. I could do this-I knew how-I just had to get him settled. Greg did what he could-after all this was his dream too-and by the time the 3 weeks were up the plan for him had changed and he wasn't going to be returning to the other foster home-and the CAS was looking at making him a Crown Ward-which would mean we could possibly adopt him. When Hubby came home from work each day-I was ready for a break and he wanted to play with this beautiful baby-but by the time a month had gone by I had found some tricks to settle A some of the time-but when Hubby would take him he would just scream. Hubby would look at me so sad and say " I don't know what to do-I don't know your nursery songs" I told him that you have to tough it out-I can come in there and save you but if I do you will never bond with him-you have to find your own way to settle him. Then I would walk into another room and cry-knowing that I had to stay away and let him work through it. And work through it he did. He sang his own modern pop songs-like Monkey House-, he found the right way to hold him and bounce him. They bonded as father and son. Many people ask us, even now, if we have any children of our own-My answer is yes-5 of them. Each and everyone of my children are my own-I missed them growing inside me. I missed them fighting and pushing for life to come into this world. But I have been there ever since. They are apart of me as much as I know we are a part of them. When we began the whole adoption process Hubby agreed to it, but said he wanted to keep trying to have a baby "of our own." At one point as we stood in awe over As' crib Hubby looked with tears in his eyes and said-"thank you for pushing me to do this-he is "Our Own." We've had a lot of ups and downs with A over the years, some mild behaviour problems, a learning disability, severe migraine headaches and a severe flat foot that required surgery. He played travel hockey and travel baseball-he has a real athletic gift. He turns 18yrs this month, he is in his final year of high school. He has been working for the local tennis club for the last 3 years and he has won the Southwestern Ontario Doubles tennis at school and goes onto all Ontario in the spring. He makes me proud-I think about that little baby that was so badly hurting, that we gave our heart and soul to around the clock for those first years and, man, was it worth it.
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