19. Moving Forward

It has been 2 months since Mama A and I shared an update on our story. To be honest, we needed to heal. We needed to heal from the pain of losing our little guy. Heal from the pain of embarking on a journey that turned our lives upside down without the support we were promised. Connect as a couple and discuss our future and what that would look like. Would we be done fostering? Were we done as parents? Would we get pregnant ourselves? Would we take a few years off? What were we going to do.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNXkztzd6Ls%5D

The first thing we realized is that this process didn’t break us as a couple. In fact, it brought us closer together. The challenges we faced could have easily torn us apart. We realized that were at vastly different points in our readiness for taking in these children and we had to figure out everything on our own. For the first month we were single parents. I can’t give enough props to the single parents in the world. They are my hero. You are amazing and deserve to be recognized daily! Being a single parent in a relationship was hard. Things were better when we could co-parent, but things were still hard.

We had to learn how each of us handle different situations and routines. Luckily, we came together and talked things through and met in the middle. That was wonderful. Even frustrations with each other were not crippling. I admit that I got frustrated with various things. Instead of getting resentful, we talked it through. We talked through Mama A’s and my expectations and came to understandings and middle grounds. We listened to what each other were saying and really tried to see things from the other person’s perspective. It was great. We started to come up with our game plan for the next time children were in our home.

While we were discussing things that didn’t go well for us we moved forward with Patrick (the poodle) and his training. The new animal behavior lady that came out had great things to say about him. She thinks that he will be fine with children, that we just need to work with him and he can safely be around children with appropriate supervision. With that moving forward, we also reached out to different agencies. Treatment agencies…

We spoke with two agencies about becoming licensed level 3. We are looking to take in medically fragile infants. Ultimately, we will be looking to take in drug addicted infants. This will be hard. It will be exhausting. It will be emotionally draining. It is the choice we have made. We decided that the trade off of getting more information, more support, better communication (hopefully), and more training will be worth taking in a higher need child.

We decided on an agency out of Madison. The lady we spoke with was very straight forward. She is no nonsense and you know where she stands on things. She said that there was no reason to take our little V. That we had a safety plan in place and that she doubts that they would have removed our little guy. That being said, she understands Children’s decision as well. She sees it both ways but felt that they would have made a different decision.

What does that mean for us now? Well, we are working with Patrick to get him more comfortable with strangers, we are completing paperwork and home visits to get re-licensed with this new agency, we are completing classes that are needed before we can take placement, and we are talking about what all this means to our household. We learned a lot last time and are preparing ourselves for the shift that is going to happen in our home again.

We learned a lot about our support system. Who is supportive, who isn’t so much, who we can call up for last minute help, and who we can call for babysitting! We learned things that we need to ask prior to taking placement. We learned a few ways that worked out with the last bio mom we worked with and what worked well with her. We learned how quickly we could change our lives around and that we don’t mind destroying our lives so that little people can get the love and support they need in the way that meets them where they are, not in a way that forces them to acclimate into our routine. We are a little more prepared for this next leg in our journey and we can’t wait to share how everything shakes out with all of you.

It may be a few more months before we know anything else, but I assure you that you will know things quickly after we do!

Thank you for all the love and support you have shown us. We can’t communicate just how thankful we are for the love and support of our online and in person friends! We are blessed beyond words and hope that we show you the level of love you have shown us throughout this journey. Here’s to the next leg in the journey!