It's hard to believe I haven't written any new posts on here since our James officially legally became our James. So much has happened I don't even know where to start. I don't know what to tell you about or not tell you about or... There has been so very many things that have happened.
Reading over just my last couple of posts, I'll tell you now I experienced my dream of counting heads. But that dream? It lasted less than a hundred days. Just barely under a hundred days. I counted, it lasted for 98.
Shortly after our James officially legally became our James, shortly after his adoption, we got "the call". The call that said more siblings to our boys were in foster care and they wanted to know if we would take placement. Yes! Yes of course! I'd been asking God for the last year plus if any more of them would ever come our way, and now here was the answer. Two more siblings came our way that day; I had another son and a daughter this time too.
I had 4 kids, 3 boys and 1 girl, but my counting heads dream? I don't think 4 kids ever felt like enough, why? Because when they came to us birth mama was 8 months pregnant with another sibling. I think the entire time I had 4 kids my brain kept saying "one more, just one more and I'll be good". That one more, another boy, ended up coming into foster care, but he ended up in foster care in another state, so he wasn't able to come straight to us.
As I fought and fought for him to come to us from the other state, I wondered over and over again if he'd ever make it our way. Two days before his first birthday, he made it here. And then 98 days after his arrival, we lost the son and daughter that came to us more than a year before him.
I had 5 kids for 98 days. I experienced my dream come true, while at the same time I watched that dream be shattered. Right before the arrival of our fifth child, things changed on the case for the other two. We'd had a goal of just adoption for 6 months, but now dad was out of jail earlier than anyone thought he'd be, and now he had a chance at getting those two back. And that's what happened, he got them back. It was more complicated with the youngest because his case was in another state, so even though he was also birth dad's son, he didn't leave us when his brother and sister did.
3 kids. I had 2, then 4, 5, and now 3. That's not generally how things go. It has now been more than a year of us having 3 kids. Out of a sibling group of 5 children, we have the oldest 2 kids and then the youngest 1, the other 2 children in the middle dad got full custody returned to him and still has them to this day.
It seems so strange to me that we have an age gap in our kids. We had such beautiful stair steppers, and now two steps are missing. My family felt complete with the arrival of the youngest, our fifth child, and I thought that was "it". But 98 days later that dream come true officially ended. It's been more than a year since they left us, and many days I still feel our family is broken because they are no longer here.
Remember my why poem? "Why? Why? Why God, WHY?!?". I got to taste my dream come true, and I loved it! Before their arrival I thought maybe I could be satisfied with just two boys, and then they came! And then a year later the fifth arrived and I thought, "this is it!", and then two left? That doesn't make sense!!!! Why let me experience it at all if I wasn't going to get to keep it?
Know what else? Before those two came I thought I could be satisfied with just two BOYS. When those other two came I got to experience having a girl. My sons had a sister!!! And now...
We're nearing another adoption day (I think). We haven't gotten a date yet, but a date should be coming soon for the youngest who is still with us and has been with us for a year and a half now. For the last 6 months the goal has just been for us to adopt this precious little boy, and both birth parents (who have the other two siblings) have been MIA during these last 6 months of his case.
I still think of those other two siblings as "my" kids. It's been more than a year since they left us, and I still struggle feeling like they're supposed to be "mine". I miss them dearly. I miss them so very much; we all do. And I have no idea how they are doing. They are MIA with their birth parents right now and I have no idea if they are doing well or not, I just have to hope that they are. And if they are not? That we get "the call" for their return.
As we near another adoption, the adoption of our third son, I often wonder if after this adoption if we'll be done. Will this be it? Will our doors close? Will we have no need to renew our foster and adoptive licenses when it comes time again for them to renew? Or... or will more siblings come our way? Will they come our way before our license expires? Will....
All these questions feel so familiar. In fact these questions were being asked specifically about those two siblings once upon a time ago. And once upon a time ago they came, will they come again? Only time will tell.
In other news, I feel God wants me to write a book. I honestly don't know if I'll ever finish it, or even if I do, if it'll be something that's just for me, or if it'll be something that gets published, or... I don't know. But I feel like God wants me to write a book about my kids and the journey we've been through with them and their birth parents and so on and so forth... And that's why I'm here. I'm here back on my blog to gather up some things I wrote long ago to add to what I'm putting in the book I'm working on. Obviously this morning I got distracted and wrote this blog entry instead of another chapter.
So anyway... there's that. =)