Our Little Princess

Could we do it again? Were we willing to wear our heart on our sleeve one more time? Sure. That’s why we decided to do it. We knew that we had to support of our family and friends to do this. Remember that lady that I spoke to at my school that had the precious little girl? Well, they had found out that the little girl was going to be in long term custody and they had another foster child with special needs that they were already committed to. She called me and asked if we wanted to meet the little girl and see how it went. So we agreed that Cheyenne would come to our house on Saturday, September 4, 2004 to spend the night and go to church with us. She never went back home. Lisa had told us the following information: she was 17 months old, she was not very friendly with men, she still took a bottle at night, and she would bang her head on her crib during the night. Well, when Lisa got her out of the car, she went straight to John and has had him wrapped around her little pinky ever since. She spent the night, did very well, and never went back to her previous foster home. We all agreed that she had adjusted so well that we not have a transition period of going back and forth between foster homes to adjust. So Lisa brought her clothes to her Sunday night and she was a part of us from then on. Everyone accepted her as part of the family. She was loved beyond belief. Lisa told us that out of the 6 months that she was in their home, she had only had a handful of visits with her biological parents. But very shortly after coming to our house, visits started back up with her biological parents. I could go on forever about that but I will save you the pain. It was horrible. She was terrified of her biological father and didn’t really acknowledge her biological mother. She was wake us up in the night crying, not able to go back to sleep. I have pages and pages and pages of notes just from visits and the behaviors she had as after affects. It was so sad to make her go to these each week, knowing what kind of effect it was going to have on her. We went through countless court dates, Citizen Panel Reviews, phone calls and emails concerning our little girl. Our local DFCS office was going through huge turnovers. We went through 6 case workers. DFCS forgot to file one piece of paper and it almost let Cheyenne go back to her biological parents. Thankfully, the Guardian ad-Litem was keen enough to get that situation under control. Long story short, we went through what seemed like hell on earth until we finally got down to the termination of parental rights hearing.

The First Call

When you are finally certified, you wait for the phone call. You are always told from the beginning that you can say no to any child at any time. You do not have to feel obligated to take every child they called you about. We received our first call in August of 2004. It was a baby boy who was 10 days old. He was in another foster home and the foster mother that had him couldn’t keep him anymore. We agreed to take him. He was a tiny, beautiful Hispanic child named Robert. His mother left him at the hospital and at the time, the father couldn’t pass a drug screen. I was at work when they called me about him. I told them I would call John, make sure he agreed and I would call them back. I called my mom and she came home from work to go with me to get him. The first time I saw him, he was still in his car seat. I remember thinking how tiny he was. I was scared to death I would hurt him. The case worker finally told me that it was OK to get him out of his car seat and hold him. I did and instantly I was in love. He was so sweet. We were told that we would have him for at least 6 months because of the dad’s drug screen. Let me give you a little background of our lives at this point. John’s mom had a massive heart attack in June of 2004. She literally died – John gave her CPR and she was life flighted to North East Georgia where they put in 2 stints. When the doctor came out to talk to the family, he was unsure of what kind of brain damage she would have due to the length of time that she went without oxygen. She was showing some signs of brain damage but until she became fully awake, it was unknown. She spent 12 days in the hospital, mostly in ICU. But she was OK. She was very weak and her life would change tremendously but she was OK. The only “brain damage” she had was short term memory loss. She would be saying something and then she would forget. She also lost a certain period of memory. She can’t remember anything approximately 2 months prior to the heart attack. In order for her to be closer to doctors, John’s parents moved in with us. They moved in with us the end of June. Everyone knew that we had made the commitment to foster parenting and we all agreed that we would deal with it as the time came. Talk about a stressful situation. We had so many ups and downs during the month of June. And we were awaiting our first call. So – back to the story.
We had John’s parents living with us and we were taking care of a newborn baby. I took off 1 week from work, my mom was going to take off 1 week, my cousin was going to take off 1 week, and my aunt was going to take off 1 week to keep Robert. He was too young to go to daycare at that point. The church gave us a baby shower for Robert and also gave him his first Bible. Everyone fell in love with him. His biological father was supposed to have a visit with him one afternoon. We took him to DFCS and waited for 15 minutes. He never showed up. We were called 10 days later and told that the drug screen on dad was a false reading and Robert would be released to him that day. We were devastated. This was our worst fear. It was like a funeral at our house. We had to decide what we wanted him to take home with him, how many outfits, bottles, pacifiers, stuffed animals, etc. People had been so generous but yet so understanding. We sat and cried all day before having to take him back. We met Robert’s biological dad at DFCS. We gave him all the information, signed the appropriate paper work, and said our goodbyes. John gave him the Bible and told him that he had highlighted some verses in it for Robert. Even though our hearts were broken, we felt OK with the situation. We got back home and within a few minutes our phone rung. It was the actual director of DFCS. Robert’s biological Dad had been pulled over by the police and his license showed that he was wanted in Texas. Would we take Robert back if he had to be taken back into DFCS custody? We waited and waited for another phone call. Finally the caseworker called back around 9:00 and said that it had all been a mistake. Robert’s biological father was cleared. We still wonder to this day about Robert; where he is now, what he looks like, has or will he ever be told that we took care of him for 10 days of his very young life, etc. In order to survive foster parenting, you have to let it go. You have to believe in your heart of hearts that you have done the very best for the child while they are in your home. You give them love and then let them go.

The Process

We went to the DFCS office each Thursday night from 6:00 – 9:00 for 10 weeks. (Thursday night was our El Rio’s night.) We had homework that we had to complete each week. We always discussed it while we were eating so that it would be fresh on our mind. We listened to some horrid stories: foster parents threatening to put a snake it the bed with a foster child because they were wetting their bed every night; biological children loving their parents no matter what they did to them – even burning them with cigarettes. We had no idea that kind of world was out there. We had both been raised in loving homes with siblings and both parents. We went to church; we had extended family that loved us. Needless to say, it really was an eye opener. After going through the 10 weeks of training, we had to fill out oodles of paper work. We had to answer questions about our childhood; who lived with us in our homes, how discipline was handled, our educational background, etc. We had to fill out paperwork as to how we would handle certain situations in our home; discipline, dealing with biological parents, what type of child we were willing to take (meaning age, gender, race, etc.) They had to inspect our house. We had to provide birth certificates and marriage license proving our identity. We had to provide financial statements. We had to be finger printed and agree to have a criminal background check. You name it; we had to prove it to them. All this time we are thinking good grief – we have to do all of this to try to help a child and the biological parents can just pop them out and keep going with their cruddy lives. But we did it. Was it fun – no. Was it time consuming – yes. Was it inconvenient – sometimes we would have to be home early from work to meet with Ms. Stewart. Was it worth it – yes. Definitely yes. We have never questioned our decision to do this. We started our classes in March of 2004 and were officially certified as foster parents in June of 2004.

The Decision

OK - back to the story. I'm ready to get this over with so I can start sharing our day to day lives with you guys. We came down to Destin Saturday and John and I worked on the blog on the way down. It's Monday morning and it's storming outside. While we are waiting on the storm to pass, I'll update what where we got to. So I got to talking to this lady about this precious little girl that she had with her. Now I had known this family all of my life. I knew that they were foster parents but I didn’t really know what it consisted of. John and I had just always had in our minds that you would love a child and it would be snatched from you. I told her that we had discussed fostering and she said that we should go ahead and do it because there was a class staring that week. So. . . . we did it. We went to the class and the first thing that Ms. Stewart (who became to be a great friend and mentor) said was that if you are here thinking that this is all about adoption, you might as well leave now. John just looked at me – he was waiting for me to get up and leave. I told him later that if we could make a difference in just one child’s life, it would be worth it. So we stuck with it.

Memorial Day

Let's take a break from the story and let you meet my kids. This year we spent Memorial Day at Stone Mountain Park. We left home around 10:00 and come back home around 7:00. Needless to say, the kids (and adults) were pooped puppies!

The first thing we rode when we got there was the train. All Izzy had talked about was riding the choo-choo. This is their picture in front of the engine. Cheyenne enjoyed the ride as well.

When we got off the train, we spotted the jail wagon.

We couldn't resist this! Look how cute my jailbirds are!

Now if you know Israel at all, you know how difficult it is to get a picture of him. This one is priceless. I was so excited to see it. My little man gazing over the top of Stone Mountain.

And last but not least, my little princess.

The Dream

So, what do we do with our lives now? We've had our dreams but they are not coming as we expected. Do we give up? Or do we lay our lives in God's hands and see what happens? Well, for those of you who know my side of the family - you know that we are VERY superstitious. My brother is getting married in July. His fiance' was talking the other day about him marking an "X" on the windshield when he saw a black cat sitting beside the road. Not crossing the road, but just sitting beside the road. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her you could never be too cautious. And he didn't mark just one "X", he marked 2. One for himself and one for his fiance'. You always mark as many as you have in the car with you. We are one supersitious bunch. No washing clothes on New Years Day, you don't borrow someone's clothes if they are new and they haven't worn them, etc., etc., etc. But we also believe in signs from God. John was in an automobile accident in March of 1997. He should have been killed. He was hit head on, driver to driver. He lost a tooth, had stitches in his lip, and was bruised and beat up pretty good but he was alive and well. He had someone riding with him that was also fine. Amamzing intervention. But why? John questioned this for quite some time. He could not figure out why God spared his life. He didn't have kids to live for or to provide for, he was no one special to no one in particular. Except to God. John told his preacher calling not long after that. For those of you who do not know what that means - John was called by God to tell others in this life about God, his son Jesus, and what he can do for your life. John is particularly led to youth childr
en. We worked with the youth in our church for many years. After John told people about his calling, he got VERY involved with the youth. There were several that were like our own kids. We supported them just as much as they supported us.
I don't know about you, but we believe that God can speak to us in ways that leave you thinking - did I really dream that, what is that supposed to mean. John and I both had the same dream. Now this may seem silly to some of you. But wait until you hear our whole story. (It may take a while folks.) We both dreamed that we had 1 more toothbrush on the bathroom counter. On the same night. We didn't tell each other about it for several days. But when John mentioned it to me, I just sat and listened. When he got finished, I basically had chill bumps because I had dreamed the exact same thing. All of this is happening while we are looking online at the adoption process. We were trying to decide what we wanted to do about bringing a child into our home. Did we have the money? How would our family react? What kind of support would we get from church family and friends? And most importantly, where would the money come from? (This is the latter part of 2003 by this time.) We received a phone call from some friends of my mom's about some children that were about to be taken into foster care. There were 2 kids. A baby and a toddler. We couldn't believe it. It was too good to be true. We called our lawyer, asked some questions, and was told to be very leery - we were reminded that people don't just give their kids away unless it is under extreme circumstances. Call and talk to someone for ourselves. We got the name of a lady to speak with and I called her 2 days later. The children were already in foster care. There had apparently been a DFCS case against the family previously. We had to be certified foster parents before they would even talk to us about the children. Of course we were not. We were heartbroken. We had been given a picture of the kids, told about the situation and we were sure that we could make a difference in these kid's lives. We had discussed fostering and thought there was absolutely no way that we could do it. How could we take a child into our home, fall in love with it, knowing that there would be a great chance that they would go back to their biological parents or family. Then one day, I met and spoke with a lady that was at my school one afternoon. I had afternoon car duty and she had come in to pick up her children. She had a foster child with her that was absolutely adorable. Then came more questions.

Wishes and Dreams

After we had been married for about 3 years, we decided to try to start our family. We did all the necessary steps, tried and tried and nothing happened. We were very suprised. By this time, John's 2 sisters had children and neither of them had troubles starting their families. We, like everyone else, always assumed that it would happen. After many dissapointing months, finally going to the doctor, (John and I both), we learned that without intervention, we would not have children of our own. Don't ask me why - but we both agreed that if we couldn't have kids the way God intended for it to happen (without intervention from doctor's I guess you could say) that we would deal with it. And deal we did. John had a more difficult time with it than me but we dealt with it and we got through it. We had fun doing the things that we wanted to do. John races go karts and at that time, he was very serious into racing. We traveled to Tennessee many time for him to race in some big races. We took off on the weekend and went to Gatlinburg when we got the urge to. We went to the beach when we wanted. We didn't have to do anything but relax. We didn't have to change diapers, worry about where the kids were, worry about nap times, travel times, daycare expenses. Many would have thought that we had it made. But we still didn't feel complete. Our wishes and dreams were still many to come.

The Ultimate Blind Date

Yes, you read it right. A blind date. John and I met on a blind date set up by my cousin. We had our first date on February 3, 1989. We went to the movies to see Coccoon Part 2 and went to Muldoon's to eat. (For those of you who don't rembmer, Muldoon's was the restaurant where the Juvenile Court Building is now located.) We talked very little that night. When John asked me for my phone number, I teased him and told him we were too poor to have a phone. He was shocked and didn't know what to say. When I realized that he thought I was serious, I blurted it out so fast that he says he didn't know how he remembered it. But he did. When he called, we talked until the wee hours of the morning. We had so much in common that we couldn't believe. Our Grandmothers even had the same birthdays. We had the same number of siblings with almost the same number of years between them. Our parents were the same age. The same religious beliefs. We realized very soon that we were a match. John proposed Christmas of 1989 and we were married in June of 1991. So our story began.