Friday, April 2, 2010

nothing to worry about

so now that we've celebrated the wonderful news of monkey possibly being ours forever and ever amen, let's talk about the recent chaos.

for spring break, the hubs led a mission trip to mexico to work at an orphanage. while my hubbie was away, my mom came to help out. why? because she's awesome. and because she knew how hard it would be for me to take care of four children four and under by myself all week long. and i DO mean ALL...WEEK...LONG. she was amazing. a laundry wizard, and a dish-doin' fanatic. props, mama. mad props to yah.

well the hubs was supposed to return that saturday afternoon and relieve me of my "shift" (which really means i thought he'd feel horrible about leaving me all alone and offer to let me go get a pedicure while he watched the children) (i know. i'm delusional.)

-this is not what happened.

instead, the hubs came home only to badly hurt his back while i was in the ER with our sickly baby. there's nothing like getting a phone call from your husband while IN the hospital with a child, where he tells you he has help coming, but he's on the floor and can't move.
-um... i love you, babe, but what am i supposed to do with this information?

so he's in pretty bad shape and has been in bed for the two weeks since then. but you know what was a little funny? 3 grown adults hoisting a 6'5" man into bed by using belts strapped around him. kinda funny. come on, don't feel bad. you can laugh. the only good thing about him being stuck in bed is that he can easily feed the baby his bottle and do his breathing treatments while i care for the others. -which is not a small blessing at all.

but i don't think i have to tell the mamas out there what it's like to think help is coming, a break is in sight, and then the bottom falls out. you're stuck with no light at the end of the tunnel. that's what it was like. hubs comes home: yay! hubs gets hurt: suck a duck!

the following is to just let you know (in case you thought fostering is an easy task or that we are special, lovely people who love children and rainbows and ponies and everything is like fairy farts around here) that we are struggling: on monday i lost it. i mean lock-yourself-in-the-bathroom-and-cry-yourself-to-sleep kind of lost it. it was bad. no one was harmed in the making of this mental breakdown, but it wasn't pretty. we called the case manager to put in our 30 days notice to send the 2 new boys to another home. this was so hard for us, since i have a sincere issue with sending kids away when the going gets rough. you can't send away bio kids, so we shouldn't have the choice to send away foster children either. but we were past our breaking point.

we discussed the possibilities with our case manager: hiring a live-in nanny to help me, the hubs could drop a class to be home more, move the baby to a medically fragile home so he could get healthy and then move him back to us, move both boys to a new home where they can get more individual care.
--we decided to wait a few days and reassess/pray during this time.

well we are NOT putting in our 30 days notice. we had such a peace in saying yes to these children, surely God is going to see us through when it's at its worst. and at the end of it all, we will have an amazing testimony of how God did it even when we thought we couldn't. it's our job as parents not only to see children as they are, but also to see what they can be. God does that with us all the time. so instead of seeing the baby as a little sickly guy who needs constant care and concern and medical attention, we will choose to see a godly man in the making. a man who has overcome all odds because God has a plan for him. instead of a defiant, obstinate toddler, we will choose to see a man who will someday use his unique abilities to be a leader among men for God.

we took practical steps to ensure that we can improve the way we care for them so they can stay and we will not lose our minds (at least not as often). we have made an emergency list of people to call in case the baby has to go into the hospital again. we have hired a part time nanny who will help out with our day-to-day routine. (--which i am pretty much ecstatic about,) and the hubs only has 3 more weeks of school left, so that'll be yet another thing to check off the list.

God has provided for us yet again. it does not go unnoticed. He has blessed us beyond measure, so that we can bless these little men.

as i sat in our bed last night, all the kids asleep, the hubs snoring loudly, and the knowledge that a nanny starts monday, i realized.. i have nothing to worry about. ;)

3 comments:

  1. So glad that you are getting a little bit more help. I have those moments when everything is just horrible and wrong, and it seems like we will never get a baby, but I have to keep going. You will get through this!

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  2. Margaret, reading your posts makes me laugh and cry and feel so grateful that you are in the world, because it is a definitively better place for you being here.

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  3. Oh! i Pray that you can get by with a lil help from a nanny! I have had many o many of a mommy melt down...I remember one in particular that involved a door shut with a chair shoved against it a radio blaring and Lily and I both in tears on opposite sides of the door...all over math facts. Somedays are better...but I guess you need the bad ones to appreciate those. I like the way you think of them not as what they are but what they will become...Im gonna have to try this tactic myself!

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