LSS’s mother got out of jail last Friday afternoon.  LSS spent the weekend with her and asked to spend this week with her as well.  Today her mother called us and asked us to come get her immediately.  It looks like she might end up back in jail.  She was out on bail, pending a hearing and it seems that she did not pass her weekly urine test.

Last year, we had told LSS’s mother that if she would let us have LSS, we would put her in a private school near my work and give her a great education.  Last Saturday, LSS’s mother told us that we could have her if we put her in that school.  That would be great except for the fact that my husband has been out of work for seven months and we cannot afford to pay for her private education at this point.  GRRRR!!

Getting stability for LSS is still frustratingly out of reach.

I am part of a very unblended blended family.  When I was 15 my parents divorced and then three months later they both married new people.  These new people both came with kids of their own.  My step-father brought his four and my step-mother brought her three.  Up until this point, I was an only child.

My step-mother is great.  She and I are very close.  In fact, there are times that I call her for advice before calling my own mom.  She views me as her daughter and her kids view me as their sibling.  If anything were to ever happen to either of my step-sisters, Hubby and I would get custody of their children.  We are THAT close.  We take family vacations together each year…even if it is only for a weekend.  I have been a part of their weddings and they have been a part in mine.  With in the next few months, Hubby and I will travel with one of my step-sisters and her husband to help them when they go out of state for the birth of their soon-to-be adopted child.

My step-father’s side is a totally different story.  I am close to only one out of four of my step-father’s children.  I consider her my sister.  I have been very active in her child’s life.  Both she and her son were in my wedding.  The others didn’t even have the decency to return the RSVP.  They have done so much to hurt me that Hubby told me a few years ago that I was to have only minimal contact with them.  We no longer do any “family” functions.  It is too harmful.  One of the main reasons that it is so harmful is that they treat my mother horribly and my step-father does nothing about it.

Over the past few years, my mother has had cancer, a hernia, two knee surgeries, and in a few weeks will be having a double knee replacement.  Each surgery has been met with complications and I am sure that this one will be no different.  I have taken care of my mother through each of her illness and watched how she was not only neglected by my step-siblings, but was also verbally abused.  This has caused a bit of a rift between my mother and me because I couldn’t understand why she tolerated this from them.  But something happened yesterday that made me realize that my mother is not capable of defending herself against these monsters.  My step-father is unwilling to defend her; therefore I will.

Yesterday, my mother came to me sobbing.  My step-brother’s wife had spent thirty minutes yelling at my mother and telling her that she was never going to see her family again.  And this was not the first time that this had happened.  Now, one might think, “There must have been something horrible that happened to cause such an outburst.”  One would be wrong.

The one good step-sibling that I have on my mother’s side is going through a very hard time right now.  She is pregnant with her second child and has been extremely sick.  She is unable to work.  Her husband works third shift and does his best to provide for the family; however they were unable to make ends meet.  So my mom and step-father asked them to move in with them.  My nephew doesn’t get to do the things that his cousins get to do, like trips to Florida, music lessons, etc.  So I decided to anonymously pay for him to go to swimming lessons with his cousins.

My step-brother’s wife called my mother and asked when she was going to receive the check to pay for her children’s lessons as well.  When mom told her that she didn’t pay for the lessons, my step-brother’s wife proceeded to yell and scream and call my mom all sorts of names.  My mom just stood there, frozen, with tears streaming down her face.

When my mother told me about this, I decided that the time had finally come for me to step in.  Firstly, because I was the one who bought the lessons and secondly, because no one has the right to treat my mother (who has done nothing by love her step-children and step-grandchildren like they were her own) so poorly and some one should do something about it.

So I wrote everyone an email and told them that I bought the lessons and to lay off of my mother.  I am now blacklisted (so what?).  Mom is not allowing them to talk to her until they apologize and promise to be civil (finally!).  And Mom has told me that she finally feels safe because she knows that they won’t be allowed to hurt her anymore.

In a perfect world, my mom would be able to take care of this herself or her husband would step it up and take care of it for her.  But this is not a perfect world and my step-siblings are not even close to a perfect family.  Therefore I will do what I can for my mother whenever I can.  And if that means fighting her battles so that she can live in peace for the rest of her life, so be it!  Stop making my mommy cry and just leave her alone!

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 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!

On Saturday, LSS, hubby and I were eating dinner together.  LLS reminded me that we chew with our mouths closed and don’t talk with food in our mouths.  I praised her for remembering our rules and asked her if her Grammy had the same rules.

“No,” she replied, “It is different here because we have Jesus.”

WOW!  Now I am not saying that as Christians we have cornered the market on manners, but how cool is it that she sees a difference in our home and recognizes that it is because of Jesus?

What can be sweeter than LSS climbing into my hubby’s lap for a goodnight snuggle and him giving her butterfly kisses?

NOTHING!

Infertility is a really common thing.  One in seven couples experience it.  The blogs about it are numerous.  Many of them are a seemingly unending list of failed treatment attempts.  Many of them have an unhealthy obsession with getting pregnant.  But I can understand that.  When you want a baby more than anything else, that is all that you can focus on.  Thoughts of your infertility invade every aspect of your life.

I have wanted a baby for as long as I can remember.  I have been married for five years.  During these five years we have never used contraception.  But we have no baby.

I have PCOS and Endometriosis.  I have scar tissue on my organs from a botched appendectomy.  I have had numerous surgeries to help with the endo and the scar tissue.  Two years ago, I started taking metformin for the PCOS.  For the six months that I was on it, I never had a normal period and never ovulated.  What I did do was throw up 4-6 times a day.  My body did not like the metformin.  When I realized the havoc that the metformin was having in me, I stopped taking it.  I still don’t feel “back to normal”.  Since stopping the metformin, I have not been back to the OBGYN…not even for my annual you-know-whats.  I know. I know…that is a bad thing and I should go.  But I am broken and I don’t think that the doctor can fix me.  And I don’t want to jump through all the hoops (and expenses) of infertility treatments just to have them fail.  I have had other infertile women tell me that I just don’t want a baby as much as they do or I would do all the things that they are doing.

HOW DARE THEY?

How dare they say that because I am choosing to do what is right for me and my husband that I don’t want a baby bad enough?  How dare they say that because I refuse to blog about my mucus that I don’t truly understand what they are going through?  How dare they imply that because I refuse to spend $100,000 on FAILED fertility treatments that I am not as worthy as them to have a baby?

Maybe I am the responsible one here!  Maybe they are the ones who have chosen to let infertility defeat them.  Maybe I am the one who is choosing to not let infertility ruin my life.

Yes…I want a baby.  When I see a baby, all I can do is think about how wonderful it would be to hold my own baby in my arms.  My sleep is filled with dreams of babies.

I am not a mother right now.  But I am a wife.  A daughter.  A friend.  An employee.  Who I am doesn’t stop just because I’m not a mother.

My friends have babies and I rejoice for them.  I allow myself a moment to grieve for myself, but I don’t punish my friends for my infertility by avoiding them and their babies.  Nor do I punish myself by avoiding places like church or even shopping just because I will see babies and be reminded that I don’t have one.

Yes.  I want a baby.  But more than that I want to be a great wife to my husband and a woman who will make God proud.  Why should my husband and my relationship with God suffer because of something that I cannot even control?

I am not trying to seem harsh or calloused about this.  I really do understand the ache.  I have asked myself “Why not us?” more times than I can count.  But I refuse to put my life on hold for something that may not ever happen.  I will let myself mourn and I may have days when the pain is worse than others  But my infertility is not going to rule me.