There is a great post on this topic over at Deirdre’s blog.

Hubby is stressed and I don’t know how to help him.  He has been unemployed for three months.  Financially we are doing OK and will be OK even if he is unemployed for the next six to twelve months.  But mentally, this is really getting to him.  I keep reminding him that God is in control and that him being able to be home is a blessing because he is able to take care of LSS.  Seriously, if he were not able to be at home with her, I have no idea what we would do!  This is a huge blessing and I think that God planned it to be just like this!  In fact, I KNOW that God planned it to be just like this.

He is also feeling those “Oh-My-Gosh-I-am-stuck-all-day-in-the-house-with-a-five-year-old” feelings that every stay-at-home parent feels at one time or another.  But since we are limited in how we can raise her (since she is still not technically ours), he is at a loss for how to correct and mold her behavior.  There are things that we would do a bit differently if she was officially ours.  He is also at a loss because there aren’t very many resources for people in a situation like ours.  Since LSS is not a ward of the state and is not a “foster child” in the legal sense of the word, we are very limited.  We can’t get her the counselling that she desperately needs.  We can’t reassure her that she won’t have to move around from place to place again.  (She has been talking about that a lot lately.)  So we are stuck in a sort of limbo and Hubby bears most of the weight of it because he is with her most of the time.

He is a wonderful and amazing man.  His unemployement at this point is something that I am actually taking comfort in because I know that LSS is safe with him and that he can see to her needs.  But I know that he is stressed and I don’t know how to make it better.  And that really SUCKS!  I am a “fixer”.  I want to fix this for him, but I can’t.

But I know Someone who can.  So I will intercede with God on Hubby’s behalf and pray that God helps him through this time of uncertainty.  And I will do my best to let him know that he is the best Hubby in the whole wide world!

If I had a little girl, she would look like LSS.

If I had a little girl, she would act like LSS.

If had a a little girl, she would sound like LSS.

If I had a little girl, I would treat her like LSS.

For as long as I can remember, I have always taken care of other people’s kids.  When I was eight, there was a little girl in our church who came from an abusive home.  She was missing all of her teeth because her mother had knocked them out of her mouth with a shovel.  She was dirty and smelly.  Her clothes were tattered rags.  But I loved her and sheltered her and defended her.  Even though she was only a year younger than me, she was my girl.

When I was 11, there was a set of 2-year-old twins that I “adopted”.  Their mommy was pregnant.  Their daddy was an abusive jerk.  So I became their second mommy and spent all my free time at their house helping their mommy take care of them.  I spent two straight weeks with them when the baby was born and helped to take care of her as well.

When I was 15, there was a three-year-old from a rough home.  I took care of her for a year and then when her brother was born, I convinced my mom to let them both move in with us for the summer so that I could take care of them while their mom did her own thing.

I have always taken care of other people’s kids.  I have always lavished attention upon kids from broken homes.  I have never regretted it.  I know that this will forever be my call in life.

But I feel gypped.  And worse yet I feel like I was gypped by God.  Sure, I know in my head that I haven’t been.  But that makes me feel even worse.  Because I still feel gypped AND I feel like I am being a bad and ungrateful Christian.

I long to have tiny arms wrapped about my neck while a tiny voice whispers, “I love you, Mommy.”  I long to know that someday I will see the emotional, spiritual and physical investment that I am pouring into a little soul come into maturity.  I long to wrap a tiny body into my arms and say, “Nothing will ever separate you from my love, ” and know that no one  will ever legally be able to take that child away from me.

Many people have told me that I am doing a “great thing,” something that not many other people would ever do.  But that doesn’t make me feel any better.  All that I know is that I love these little children who aren’t mine and that loving them will inevitably break my heart.

The knowledge of that heartbreak will NEVER make me stop loving other people’s kids.

But loving other people’s kids will NEVER make me stop longing to have one that belongs to me.

In May, we started getting LSS on weekends again after not having her for a couple of months.  In June, her mom asked us to keep her while she was on bedrest.  The baby was born the end of June.  Ten days after the baby was born, LSS went to stay with her mom for two nights.  Her mom couldn’t handle her any longer and gave her back to us.  The next week, she took her again for two more nights.  Well actually, she only kept her for one night before pawning her off on someone else and then calling us to get her.

When we picked LSS up, there was an overpowering smell of air freshener in the air and LSS’s mother did not invite me into the apartment like she had the past couple times.  I peaked around her and into the apartment.  It was 9:30 am, but was very very dark in the apartment.  All the shades were tightly drawn.  LSS’s mother seemed groggy.  I chalked it up to her not being much of a morning person.

Two days ago, I called LSS’s mother so that LSS could talk to her.  The first thing that she said was, “You aren’t wanting to send her back, are you?”  I reassured her that we did not want to send her back and would gladly keep her indefinitely.  I told her that she was being a very good girl for us and we loved having her.  She was very relieved.  She talked with LSS for all of three minutes and then they hung up.  LSS didn’t ask to see her.

Later that day, we took LSS out for an ice cream.  As we were driving LSS said, “Mommy is doing bad things again.”  I pressed a little for more details.  She hesitated and said that she didn’t want to get into trouble.  I told her that she could tell us anything and would never get in trouble for what she told us.  The next thing out of her mouth was, “Mommy is smoking weed again.”

I asked her how she knew and she told me that she smelled it and that she saw them “putting it into paper straws to smoke”.  She also said that they hide it under the cushions whenever she comes into the room.

My heart is broken for that sweet girl!  Five years old and she not only knows what week is, but she also knows what it looks like, how it smells and that her mother is smoking it.

I don’t know what to do.  We are meeting with a nun from the local Catholic children’s home soon.  Hopefully she will be able to give us some advice.  I just don’t know what to do.

We have LSS with us again.  We have had her for two weeks.  Her mother is having complications with her pregnancy.  She was on bed rest and they began inducing her last night.  LSS was supposed to go out west to be with her grandparents for a few weeks when her mother has the baby.  But that might not be happening now.  She may just stay with us while her mother gets used to the new baby.

I am glad that her mother is trying to turn her life around.  I am glad that she chose to bring this new baby into the world instead of abort it.  I hope that indeed she has changed and will be able to give LSS and the new baby the life that they deserve.  But if she can’t, then I hope that she will realize that LSS (and possibly the new baby) are better off with us.

I am glad that we can help her out, but oh how I wish that LSS was ours!

We got LSS for the weekend!  We had so much fun.  On Saturday, we had lunch with my dad and step-mom.  On the way back, we stopped at a stream beside the road and took pictures.

LSS was disappointed because she couldn’t put her feet in the stream.  So we stopped at the lake too.

Yesterday, we went to my mom and step-dad’s house for a cook-out.  My nephew came by to play with LSS.  He is two years older than she is, but they play very nicely together.  They brought out the bikes.  Hers with training wheels and his without.  She decided that it was time to lose the training wheels.  Would you believe that she didn’t fall even once?  I was so amazed and proud of her!  What balance!

It was a great weekend.  She had her typical “I don’t want to leave you” meltdown yesterday.  But when we brought her home, her mom asked us if we wanted to take her again this weekend.  Of course we do!  What a silly question.

She may never officially be ours, but somehow I think that in our hearts she will always be “ours”.

Hubby wrote a great blog post on “Starting a Family“.  He says:

“Perhaps I’m being too sensitive here, but I find this snobbish and offensive at worst, or simply ignorant at best. Why are a man and his wife not considered a family?

In the situation where being a family = generating offspring, then the man and woman who saved themselves for marriage, only to find that they can’t have children, are not as much of a family as a single woman who has 3 different kids from 3 different guys is with her seed donors. It says that people who have more children than they can afford and more children than they have time to give attention to are more of a family than the responsible couple who is waiting until they are financially stable so they can raise their child in the way they see fit.”

Why is it that so many people, especially in Christian circles, look down on childless couples?  Couples like the Duggars have 18 kids (none of which are adopted) and get their own reality show, while couples like Hubby and I get asked over and over when we are going to “start a family” and pushed out of certain circles because we are childless.  Hold your horses!  When I married Hubby, it was the first time in my life that I felt like I had a family!  How dare someone try to say that we are any less of a family because we do not have children!

Ugh!  Anyway, please read his post.  He sums up what both of us are feeling on this subject.

Over the last two years, almost all of our married friend have either had babies or are currently pregnant.  And it seems that most of the babies have been born in the spring.  That means that right now we are being inundated by 1 and 2 year olds’ birthday parties.  Even though we can’t go to most of them (because they are 14 hours away in my hubby’s home town), we still try to be a part of them.  This includes the thousands of pictures that they email or that they put on facebook.  These are some pretty cute kids!  I love the fact that we get to watch them grow up even though we are so far away.

But I have to admit that secretly…I think that Hubby and My kids would (will?) be even cuter!  I just know it!  I see them in my dreams each night!

Today I am having lunch with a friend from my “single” days.  We were both single at the same time.  We watched each other fall in love and get married.  Me first and then her.  I actually helped the two of them get together!

She is twenty weeks pregnant!  This is the first time that I am seeing her since she announced that she was pregnant.  I saw her at the beginning of her pregnancy and just knew that she was pregnant.  I looked at her and was about to ask, but she knew what I was going to say and immediately said “Don’t ask!”  She and her husband were so afraid of having a miscarriage that they decided not to tell anyone until they were three months along.  But she can’t keep these things from me!  I can read her like a book!

I am truly happy for her.  She and her husband will be wonderful parents.  They both love Jesus and will set great examples for their child.

But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a little sad for myself too.  I always thought that I would be the one to get pregnant first.  And I do so wish that I was the pregnant one with the pregnant belly and the “reason” to eat that extra slice of pizza at lunch today.  (Yep.  She’s craving pizza, so that is what we are having!)

I am not the pregnant one.  But my good friend is, so today is all about her!  Lunch talk will be about the baby.  And I will enjoy dropping hints about the presents that I have already bought for her and the baby!  And I will have fun because even though I am not a mom yet, I am a friend and she deserves to have a good one.