Posted on

Enjoy the Time You Have: Being present with your kiddo in the uncertainty of foster care

When you become a foster parent and open your home to a kiddo in need, you are welcoming a child into your home out of love and necessity. The reason you open your home to a child is because at your core you want to love and care for kiddos. The only reason you are able to accept kids into your home is because, unfortunately, there is a need.

When you say yes to a “placement”, you are saying yes to expanding your family. It is an incredible feeling that is very hard to explain. There is so much joy and excitement, there is no doubt that there is a tremendous amount of love, but there is also an underlying fear and anxiety.  The fear and anxiety, initially, is not overwhelming or overbearing. It might give you butterflies or make you a bit nervous, and feels a bit like “falling in love”. But overtime, this can change, and the anxiety and fear, especially around the future, and potential loss, can grow and become overwhelming.

This post will hopefully provide some perspective that helps foster parents, and those who know, love, support, and are allies of foster parents, understand that the fear and anxiety surrounding the duration or ultimate outcome of a placement is “ok”, but it is more important to focus on the present, and enjoy the time you have.

Continue reading “Enjoy the Time You Have: Being present with your kiddo in the uncertainty of foster care”

Posted on

How Would You Rate Your Pain?

Emergency Mamas

We are very excited to share a guest post from Emergency Mamas. It is wonderful to find like minded Foster Parents who also share honest glimpses into their world and the hard work we do as foster parents. Although we are on the same journey, it is very interesting and informative for us read the experiences and perspectives of others, and see the similarities and differences. We hope you enjoy their post and blog as much as we do!

How Would You Rate Your Pain?

You know when you go to the doctor and they ask you to rate your pain, using some numbers and smiling/frowning faces on a little chart?

Typically, people rank much higher than they actually are feeling because the vast majority of us only know moderate pain. If you can sit up, talk to the doctor, and you drove yourself to the office…your pain is not an 8. It might  be a 5. Continue reading “How Would You Rate Your Pain?”

Posted on

We Have An(other) Emergency – Pt. 3

Foster Care

Carlton, 8

After Brit left, DHS quickly realized that our home was open to all children, not just infants and babies.  The older you are, the harder it is for DHS to find a placement for your, long term or short term.  So after Brit left, we very quickly received a call about an 8-year old boy who needed a home, after being removed from his parents and spending the weekend in a hotel.  We talked to Trevor, and he was more than eager to have a boy the same age as him over for a night or seven.

Carlton came to us confused. In his eyes, his parents were perfect. They loved him and he loved them. He missed them dearly. From what we gleaned from the the news, his story, and DHS, his parents fell into the grips of addiction and made some very poor choices. In his mind, his parent were being framed. In the eyes of the law, his dad may have been robbing banks and convenience stores, and the apartment they lived in might have had needles and drug paraphernalia laying around. Whatever the truth is, we know we had a child in our home who was scared, confused, and worried.

Continue reading “We Have An(other) Emergency – Pt. 3”

Posted on

Letter to Ariel*

The following is a letter I wrote to our 9-year old Foster Daughter Ariel*, upon her leaving our home after a nearly 16-month stay with us in our home. The note was handed to her with a bouquet of flowers as she walked out our front door. She was leaving us to move in with her potential adoptive family, who she had been spending weekends with over the past month-and-a-half.

Dear Ariel,

We first met you on November 4th, 2016, when you and Trevor* first came to our home.  Over the past 15+ months, we have had the joy and privilege of raising, helping, and caring for you and your brother, but most of all, we got to enjoy your company, personality and watch you grow into an amazing person.

We made so many memories together, and we are grateful for every one. We remember the first day we sent you off to school, and taking you to the beach for your first time.  There were trips to the zoo to see animals, the Children’s Museum to play with other kids in the vet room, and OMSI to see the LEGO exhibit.  You and Trevor were the first kids we have ever had at our house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, our birthdays, Easter, Halloween, and St. Patrick’s day.  That is something that is very special to us and that we will always remember.  You even helped us move to our new house!

You are such an amazing, strong, confident, and incredible person. You have experienced so much in life, and you continue to amaze us everyday with your positive attitude, determination, and incredible personality. You are a beautiful individual, and I can’t wait to see what you accomplish in life. You are amazing sister to your brother, and you have done a great job helping him, caring for him, and especially being patient with him.

Today is bittersweet. We love you so much. You have been an amazing daughter. We always knew that this day would come, the day where you transition from our home towards your forever family, but now it is here.  We are sad that we will not see your big smile around our house as often, or hear you sing in the living room, but we are happy that you are transitioning to a wonderful home with people who will love and care for you as much as we do.  We are happy that although you are not going to be at our house as much, Mark* and Rachel* are gaining a wonderful daughter, and Luke* a great sister.

Always remember, there are so many people in the world that love you deeply. Everybody you have met while living with us will miss you deeply, but are also very happy for you. These people love you and will always be here to support you, no matter what.

This isn’t “good bye”, it is “see you later”, and we will see you soon.

Love,

Aaron and Jewell

Thanks for reading, if you have questions or comments, feel free to post them in the comment section below, we would love to hear from you.  To receive updates when a new post is published, click the “Follow” button, we appreciate your interest in our journey. You can also “like” our page on Facebook.

Posted on

Dear Foster Curious

Interested in becoming a foster parent?

We didn’t come out as potential foster parents until we took in our first kiddo. We didn’t tell anyone we were taking classes to become certified as foster parents, because we wanted to give ourselves the ability to back out. Becoming a foster parent is a very big and very personal decision, that for better or worse, tends to define a part of you. For us, we went into the first foster parent orientation class as a curious couple, not sure if foster care was for us or not. We left, feeling like it was something we were interested in pursuing… but we didn’t tell anyone.  As we got farther into the process, and closer and closer to being certified, we told a few family members, a few coworkers so we could adjust our work schedules, and some of our closest friends. Most of our family and friends had no idea that becoming a foster parent was something we were interested in doing until we posted on Facebook the night Ava (4-hours) was sleeping soundly in her crib the first night she was placed in our home.

Continue reading “Dear Foster Curious”

Posted on

One Year

Anniversary

We are writing this post after tucking Trevor and Ariel into bed for the night, 365 days after the first time we ever tucked them in. Today is the 1-year anniversary of them entering our lives and it is bitter sweet. When we opened our home to these kiddos (Possible Placements), we agreed to care for them for the weekend. If we said no, they would have spent the weekend in a hotel with a staff member from DHS.  After one weekend, and with nowhere else for them to go, we decided we would continue to care for them as long as we could, or as long as they needed us.  So, that is how we got from one weekend, to one year.

This anniversary is strange. We have been fostering for about 18-months now (Our First Year in Review), and have cared for 6 very special kiddos, but Trevor and Ariel have been in our lives longer than the other 4 combined.  On one hand, this anniversary is quite an achievement and a milestone representing a lot of love and hard work, as well as growth and progress. It is something we can be proud of. It represents our family and the bond and love we have grown and worked so hard for. However, the anniversary also symbolizes failure, loss, struggle, and uncertainty. So much has happened in the last year, but not much has actually happened.

So here we are, one-year in to fostering these awesome kids, and although we have done so much for them, and experienced so much with them, on paper, we are in the exact same place as we were a year ago. 

Continue reading “One Year”

Posted on

Foster Care Wishlist Pt. Deux

Items for foster Care

Now that we have been Fostering school aged children for over 7 months, and have been foster parents for over a year, we felt it was time to add provide an update to our list of necessary and/or helpful items for foster parents. Our first Foster Care Wishlist was one of our most popular posts to date, and we have heard from many of our readers, including perspective, new, and veteran parents and foster parents, that it has been very helpful for them.  When we first wrote Foster Care Wishlist, it was based on our experience as new foster parents, and geared more towards babies and toddlers, since for the most part those were the kiddos in our home. This list is an update, and is influenced by our experience with school age children, developmentally disabled kiddos, and behaviorally challenging kiddos.

For those fostering, or expecting a placement, we highly recommend setting up an Amazon Wishlist / Baby Registry. This is an easy way to keep tabs on what you need to help care for your kiddos, and also is an opportunity for those who want to help and support you on your journey to easily help you in a meaningful way.

Continue reading “Foster Care Wishlist Pt. Deux”

Posted on

It Takes A Village

Village

“It takes a village to raise a child”.  This saying is such a cliche, but as foster parents, we have an ever expanding village helping us raise our kiddos. We are so thankful for the village we have, and we know that without them, this journey would be impossible for us.  This post is about our village, how they help us, and how thankful and fortunate we are to have them in our life. It is important to recognize though, that the reason why many of these children are in care, is because their parents are not fortunate enough to have a village supporting them when times get tough, money is tight, or they make a mistake. But that is a more depressing topic, and will be discussed in another post. This post is about some of the people in our village who make our journey possible. The people in this post are proof that “not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child”. Continue reading “It Takes A Village”

Posted on

Do You Get Paid to be a Foster Parent?

How much do foster parents get paid

You get paid for this, Right !?!?! Do foster parents get paid? When you are a foster parent, you get asked a lot of questions by people who are curious.  Some of the questions are awkward or personal, but we like to think of ourselves as an open book for people to learn about the foster care journey. One question that seems to come up repeatedly is about compensation for being a foster parent. Depending on the company, this question usually comes up one of two ways.  The first scenario is as follows:

“So forgive me for asking, and please, don’t feel like you need to tell me, and definitely let me know if this is too personal…but, you get paid to do this, right?”

The second scenario that often occurs is:

“Wow, that sounds crazy and like a lot of work, how much do they pay you to do this?”

Continue reading “Do You Get Paid to be a Foster Parent?”

Posted on

Why I Do This – Aaron

“Why do you do Foster Care?”

This question comes up repeatedly, but it always seems to catch me off guard.  I think the first time I heard a variation of this question, it was asked by our Certifier on the first day we met her. When she asked me, I froze. I felt like I didn’t have a good answer. To this day, I don’t know if I have a good answer. It feels like a question that can’t have a good answer, let alone a “right” answer. There are so many reasons why I am a foster parent, but at the same time there is also no one real reason why I am a foster parent. The answer I have settled on, at least for now, is “because I can”.

Kids Need to be Loved

If I am being honest, I never really thought about being a foster parent until we began the process of being certified. Jewell was the one who had been personally thinking about it, and ultimately proposed the idea to me. She had thought about it for years, waiting for the time to be perfect (as with almost anything, the timing is never perfect), and by the time she asked me if it was something I would be interested in, she was already mentally prepared. I was the one who was cautious and apprehensive.  I agreed to go to the initial orientation to try and understand what we would be getting into, but I put A LOT of “out clauses” in my agreement to go to the orientation, to make it clear that I was not making a commitment. However, after the orientation class, and to this day, I am completely on-board.  These kids need someone to love them and care for them. Continue reading “Why I Do This – Aaron”