2014! Cheers- to All Kinds of New Beginnings!

     She is 14 months old(almost 15months) and she is absolutely thriving now.  There is no better reward for a foster parent than to see the daily effort you put forth as a parent really working.  Her "asthma" is nearly non-existant, she gained 1.5 pounds, she has taken her first steps, and went from 1 to 10 words in just 2 months, but most important of all, she has bonded with us.  As every adoptive/foster parent understands, the child's ability to bond to you is the door to every other aspect of the child's well-being. If the child trusts you to be there for them night and day, you have won 90%(not an official number) of the challenges to parenting.  Our family pediatrician made it official when we visited last month.  She was crying and reaching for me while he checked her over and he said, "Well, it is clear that she has bonded with you."  That simple statement meant the world to me.  I know now that we can climb any other mountains that get in our way!  She has a solid foundation to set her in the right direction.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to be her parent even with the length of time unknown.  We consider every day with her in our home a blessing.

Blessings to you in 2014!
DMM

P.S.
Please visit www.invisblekids.org!

Invisible Kids Project

Learn More

The InVisible Kids Project

I want to introduce a project that I am working on with a dear friend of mine, Holly Schlaack.  She has worked on the front line of the Child Protection System as a case worker and GAL.  She is also the author of "Invisible Kids".  She has started a non-profit organization that is working to make the needed changes in the Child Protection System.  The way the project works is by collecting data and stories from the people who have been touched by the system in some way: system employees, foster parents, foster children, and community members.  The information will be used to assess where the system needs work and what are its strengths.  The web site will also offer tools of support to these people.
I am so honored to be a part of such a worthy project.  I hope you will check  out the site and pass it along to those you think could benefit from the site!

www.invisiblekids.org

Thanks-DMM   

Here we go again!

On November 7, 2013 a new little bundle of joy arrived at our home.  She is 13months old and she is absolutely adorable.  It took her a couple of weeks to settle in but now her little spirit is shining bright.  It was very apparent that she wasn't sure if we were a temporary home or somewhere she was going to be hanging out for a while.  She was definitely holding back.  Now she is a smiley and happy-go-lucky little baby.  What more could we hope for?  Each of us admitted that we were hesitant to let her into our hearts for fear of it breaking again but it didn't take long before the door to our hearts flung open wide and embraced this sweet little angel.  Love is a funny thing-it just keeps coming!

Peace!
DMM

Waiting!

     Clearly I am supposed to learn patience in my lifetime because over the last 3 and a half years I have certainly been put to the test.  I do feel that I am getting better at waiting but some days are still better than others.  Since we decided that we would open our door to fostering again we received several calls right away. Some referrals we couldn't accept and 2 that we accepted but didn't happen.  The first one we accepted was an infant girl.  They told us they would get back to us after they had worked out placing all of her siblings.  No one ever called.  Finally, I called and asked what happened.  The agency said they were still working things out.  Never heard what happened.  The second referral that we accepted was another infant girl.  I was really getting excited about this one!  I went into my nesting mode which included cleaning my house top to bottom and pulling out clothing that might fit her.  I waited, and waited, and waited.  No word until about 36 hours later that she would not be coming.  That was almost 3 weeks ago.  Not one call!  Weird huh!  I won't begin to try to figure it out because there is one thing you can count on with Foster Care...unpredictability.
     In the mean time I am practicing living day to day and moment to moment!

Have a great day!
DMM

Turning the negative to a positive!

  Our time with her was nothing short of a blessing.  Did we have to go through pain and hurt in this process?  Yes.  Did we learn from the pain and hurt?  Yes!  I have no doubt about that.  I learned that our family was given the task of planting the seed of love and joy in this little girl's life.  I will proudly say that I think we did a stellar job!  Please don't feel that it was all for naught because she left us.  The seed we planted will grow because love never dies.  Even though we can't see with our own eyes now what is happening in her life, I do know one thing for sure....love will grow in her precious little heart.

Love and Joy to you all,
DMM

(continuation)
     We had a nice respite from worry about her leaving us and difficulties with visits etc. for about three months.  In that time, we got into such a groove of life with the new member of our family that we almost forgot she wasn't ours.  Fostering became so natural and had fallen into place so beautifully until.... the other shoe dropped.  After seven months with her we find out that the potential for placement with her grandmother was becoming very possible.  Over the next three months we lived a roller coaster of emotions wondering if she would soon be leaving us.  I wouldn't let myself believe it because I didn't think I could keep living daily life with thoughts of her leaving.  The final word came in May and with no transition plan in place she left our home one morning to live in a home she had never seen and with a grandma she barely knew.  Our hearts were broken.  Our family mourned her loss together and separately in our own way.  The only relief we had was the fact that her mother decided to keep in contact with us through texting and pictures.  At least we had some way of knowing how she was doing.

(to be continued)

The Dash Movie

The Dash Movie

Invisible Kids: The Power of Memories Fifty Years Later

Invisible Kids: The Power of Memories Fifty Years Later: I stepped into a print shop yesterday and back in time. The smell of fresh ink was intoxicating, at least for me. I love paper and words and...

...Continued from last post

     It was apparent that she felt as at home with us as we did with her.  I believe I held her in my arms for nearly a straight week.  I only put her down when I went to bed at night.  In the first few days I would sit her on the floor to play and she would flop over.  She was eight months old so this behavior was concerning.  We took her to the doctor to be sure she was OK.  They told us that it was part of her recovery and she would get better.   That was an understatement!  She not only began to recover but she did it in warp speed.  It seemed like every day she was learning new tricks.  It was wonderful to watch how much determination she had to "catch up."  By the time we took her to her 12 month neurological assessment she had not only "caught up" but was exceeding her age in many areas.  It made me feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to have this child in my home.  We had a great big 1st birthday party for her.  My aunts, uncles, cousins, mom, sister.....all came to celebrate her precious life.  We all fell in love with this child.  She became a member of our family just as each of us had only she came to us in a different way.
     Every part about being her parent is delightful to me even though I had to turn back the clock 10 years to diapers, bottles, and waking in the night.  The only difficulty in being a foster parent is the foster part not the parent part.  I won't paint a rosy picture and tell you it is all a bowl of cherries.  It is tough sometimes.  Foster parents are the low man on the totem pole.  No one listens to your opinion about the welfare of the child.  You have to drop everything whenever the county says you have to take her for a visit or to the doctor.  You have to take criticism from case workers, bio family, and whoever else wants to hand it out about your parenting.  You may be accused of things you didn't do.  You hand over control of your life in many ways to the county.

So why would anyone want to be a foster parent?  
     I can only say that I would do any part of it again for her.  We have given and received so much love from her.   Who could pass that up?  She brought such joy and perspective into our home.  There have been so many life lessons for my husband and I and so many teachable moments for our kids.  She is a gift from God!  We only hope that we have been able to offer her as much as she has given us.

     I am ready to begin telling our foster care story!  It has been over a year since I even looked at this blog because I thought of it as a chapter of our life that came to an end.  Now I can see that it was just one small part of a very long journey.
     We received our first placement on August 22, 2012.  I can picture that day so clearly.  The call came and I wasn't sure that my husband would agree to take a child that was only 8months old.  We had agreed that 12 months would be the lowest we would go.  Well,  the best laid plans...!  He agreed and I called the agency back to let them know.  I was unusually calm and peaceful about the decision and just knew it was right.  They told me that they would be bringing her that very night.  YIKES!  The only thing we had for her was a bed.  No clothes, diapers, formula, or food.  We didn't even have a car seat because we didn't know what age she would be.  Needless to say my mother nesting went into hyper drive and I started cleaning and preparing any way that I could before I had to go and teach class.  That was the longest hour of my life.  I couldn't wait to get home to hear if they had called back to say what time they would be coming.  We crammed down some dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, and then waited by the front window for her to arrive.  We saw a strange car come down the street.  It was them!  I couldn't wait for them to knock on the door so I went out to meet them.  The case worker was leaning into the backseat to unbuckle her from her seat.  She pulled out the most beautiful little baby girl with eyes that could see into your soul.  She and I locked eyes and the tears rolled.  I had this overwhelming feeling of love flow over me and it has never left.  She and I were meant to be together.

to be continued..........

DMM
P.S. It is good to be back!

Foster Journey

Hello,
Just thought I would fill you in on our Foster Parent journey.  Things are moving pretty fast.  The agency is a little taken aback by my drive to get through the paperwork and training.  They have no idea what a year of waiting can do to somebody.  We are done with our paperwork and have CPR and 6 classes to go.  Hopefully will have the classes done by July 8th.  Although this path looks a lot different than the one to Ethiopia we are embracing it and finding out the things that scared us the most about it, aren't so bad after all.  The great thing that we are learning is that there is tons of support for the foster families.  There is a social worker on call 24/7 to help with anything that comes up.  That is huge!  Although we hope to adopt a child that we foster we are preparing ourselves for the possibility of a short term(1 year) stay in our home.  We have just come to realize that any time in a loving home will be the gift that we can offer.  Please keep us in your prayers as we navigate this bumpy road.

Love,
DMM

It's been a while!

I was surprised to look at the date of my last post 4/23.  We have had a lot of contemplating going on since then.  The April referrals never came and haven't yet in May either.  Things have slowed down so much that we needed concrete answers from our agency and then time to step back and figure out what to do.  After speaking with our agency they said that we could easily continue to wait another 12 to 24 months.  The realization hit us pretty hard but we finally felt like we knew the truth.  I definitely had been in denial.  I kept hoping somehow all of the changes in the Ethiopia Adoption program wouldn't apply to us.   As you may know from reading past posts we have felt some urgency with our wait time due to the fact that our twins are going to be Juniors in high school next year and because we aren't spring chickens anymore.  We weighed that concern in our decision about how to proceed.  We looked at all of our options: changing agencies, changing countries, or domestic foster/adoption.  Our final decision is to remain on the waiting list for a child from Ethiopia while we proceed to take training to become foster parents.  We are not closing any doors just opening a new one.  So we will see where this journey takes us.  I can't begin to explain how relieved and relaxed we feel about this decision.  It has definitely taken some pressure off and I am not sure why.   I think for the first time I truly feel I am letting our future child be in God's hands.  My obsession with checking in with emails and facebook is completely gone.  What a relief!  We begin our Foster Care training on June 9th and have already begun paperwork etc.

We will keep you posted!
Love,
DMM

Referrals-come out wherever you are!

Come out come out wherever you are!  The referrals are definitely in hiding.  Our agency had 0 in March and only 2 so far this year.  April has got to be the month!  Last year it was one of the biggest referral months of the year.  Does that mean anything?   I have no idea, but it sounds good.  We have been told that there are children of all ages waiting for paperwork to be collected for referral.

Patience!  Prayers!  Perseverance!
Love,
Deena

She is my Ordinary Hero!

I feel so blessed to be able to tell this story of how the wonderful founder of Ordinary Hero absolutely walks the walk of her company every day....
 The families that are also using our agency communicate with one another on a daily basis about all things related to adoption from the time you begin the process to the time you bring your child home.  There was a family that was having an extremely difficult time with the adjustment of bringing their child home.  I won't go into detail to protect the family and child.  I was devastated with them through their struggles, but felt helpless being so far away from them.  When I learned that they lived in the neighborhood of Ordinary Hero's headquarters I thought I might give them a call and see if any of their Ethiopian travels, outreach, and advocacy could be of help to this family.  I sent an email to the founder of Ordinary Hero- Kelly Putty asking her for urgent help for this family.  She responded right away and said that she had an idea.  She contacted an Ethiopian family that was willing to travel to them to help them out.  The connection made was of great service to the family.

When I thought about what I was asking Kelly to do I thought it would be easy for her to find an excuse to walk away from the problem.  Instead she and the wonderful Ethiopian family decided to help out total strangers in their time of great need.  I am honored to get to be an affiliate of this company through our Ethiopian Adoption.  The company sells items to serve the Ethiopian community and at the same time helps adopting families raise the funds for their adoption expenses.  There are few people you meet in this world who actually live by their principles every moment of their lives but she certainly seems to be one of them.

Thank you Kelly for all you do!  You inspire me!
Peace!
DMM

9 Months waiting!

It is funny to think about how it also took this amount of time for us to have the twins.  It took a year to get pregnant (1 year of paperwork and decision making) then 9 months of pregnancy (nine months on the waiting list).  I only wish we had reached the end of this road but no end in sight!
I remember dreaming about the twins all of the time and feeling like the time was going so slowly.  This time I pray all of the time and daydream about her but feel like time is going so fast.  I want so badly to stop the clock so that my children aren't any older when she comes.  I don't know why this is so important to me but it is.  We are feeling stronger about the wait knowing that only good has come from the time we have had so far.  We are bound and determined to see it through to bringing our daughter home!

Have a great Day!
DMM 

Throwing away the doubts!

I realize now that I have been lost in doubt.  I let the road blocks and obstacles on this journey cloud what I know to be true in my heart.  There are so many challenges to international adoption that you begin to think, "How will this ever happen?"  The doubts started to take over my thoughts and make me fear the worst (never bringing our daughter home).  I started looking for alternative paths, but none of them felt right.  I looked into fostering/adoption in the U.S., other international adoption programs, and other international adoption agencies.  I assumed that there is a problem with our agency or the Ethiopia Adoption program that was causing the road blocks.  What I realize now is that my doubts are the biggest road block and I need to get my head on straight and trust that what I know in my heart is inevitable!  Since I have come to this realization, my heart is light again and I feel at peace.  For that I am so grateful!

I am happy to be writing some of the great parts of this adoption journey as well as the struggles.  It stretches you in ways that you never imagined.  Thank you for reading and sharing in our journey as well as your continued prayers.  Many of you have told me about your prayers for our family and I can't begin to put in words how much that means to my family and I.

Thank you!
Peace,
DMM

Renew!

Sometimes we just have to have those bad days  so that we can renew ourselves to continue on the journey!Better days ahead!

Timing

I have written before about the difficulty of waiting for God's timing, but today it is hitting me hard.  At the grocery store this morning I see a white woman with two small African American children.  I hope she didn't notice me staring at her because all I could think of is that will be me soon.  Then I got in the car and proceeded to cry because I want to know when soon is.  I headed for home and cried and prayed as I drove  and asked God to please help us get THE phone call today.  And.... just then the phone rang.  No, it was not my adoption agency it was Verizon wireless offering me a new phone.  Isn't that nice!  I wanted to hang up on her but instead I cried my answers to her and she got off the phone quickly.  How is that for timing?

I am so very frustrated today.  I want to reconcile in my mind why it is that there are millions of children needing homes in Ethiopia today and we have a home to give so what's the hold up?  We have prepared in every way we know how and left our hearts open for this child and we want to bring her home.

Please pray that we are united with our daughter soon!
Love,
DMM

P.S.  We are no longer #41 we moved back to #42 and I just haven't been able to change it.  

Kony 2012

Watch this video!