Thoughts.......

Everywhere I go I hear the same thing and I know that people mean well. I know they are trying to encourage me. I know that. They say, "I don't know how you do it." "I just couldn't"......"isn't it hard to give them back???"

Friends, Yes, Yes, and Yes. and Yes again. It is SO hard. SOOOOOO hard. Anyone who read my post after M left knows I was a hot mess. That baby was loved by us and I mean LOVED by our whole big extended family. We grieved. We cried. I obsessed. I am sorry to my friends who walked that with me, but forever grateful for the grace they extended me.

You know what is harder..........

~ being born addicted
~ going through withdrawal in a nicu sometimes alone
~ somehow getting to go home and then being left in a crib or a bouncy seat so long the back of your    head is flat while your parents are strung out on drugs
~ being taken from the only people you know and dropped at the door of a stranger with a trashbag of
   hand me down clothes from CPS that probably are ugly and don't fit
~ not being fed
~ not being bathed
~ not being held
~ not being told "I LOVE YOU....." over and over and over again
~ not being rocked
~not being sung to
~ being physically abused
~ being in a home with scary people who do scary things
~ being separated from your siblings

I could go on and on. That is worse. That is worse than any pain we may ever feel when a child leaves our house.

I know you mean well when you say these things to me, but if you know a foster family, how about instead of saying that say something like.....

~ Do you need anything?
~ I will pray for you. Friends, can I just say that we need it. This is a stressful undertaking and the impact can be brutal on our family at times. On our marriages. Pray for us.

Maybe drop a box of diapers at the door. Bring a little gift that they can take with them so they know they were thought of. Someone cared. When Braxton got gifts I would write on the gift who it was from and he still gets them out and says, "do you remember who gave this to me?" Let me tell you...he does.

We love what we do.  I don't think about her going home today because she isn't going home today. I just do today.

We have had so many friends bless us. Friends who have given us countless items and friends who have taken time to go get fingerprinted so they can babysit. We are so thankful!!! And, I am not mad or upset when people ask me those things. I really am not. I just feel like we need to think about the alternative. Their alternative.

I might be the old lady with a baby on my hip, but we are okay with that :).