Crying over Cupcakes.

Yesterday Makily's teacher asked if I was bringing anything to the school special like ice cream or cupcakes for Makily's birthday.

I hadn't thought about it really and immediately felt like a crappy parent.

I didn't occur to me though since Makily does not eat.

I told her that I would and she gave me suggestions.

I picked Jakob up from school today and we went to Walmart. I picked out some mini cupcakes and headed over to the health and beauty section to get a few things. All the while I was fighting back tears.....over cupcakes.....

I was buying cupcakes for Makily's birthday. I bought them for her to share with her classmates in celebration.

Makily can't and likely won't ever eat a cupcake.

Insert anxiety attack in the middle of the deodorant aisle.

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

I hate MARCH.

I got back to the car, called Allen and cried my eyes out all the way to the school to pick Makily up. I wish I could just let go of the past and what's been lost and move on. Most of the time I think I have but birthdays almost kill me every year. I think with Jakob's adoption I had so much going on and was distracted so I didn't have time to think about it much. Now it's here and I can't avoid it.

Too much pain, too many memories and the reminder of how much has been lost.

I hate that her birthday does not signify a happy joyous event for me.

It ALWAYS takes me back to that horrifying night when she was born.

The sound of her first cries will never leave me. I think I knew then before I had even really seen her that something was wrong. She sounded more like a kitten then a newborn. I can still see her eyes wide, huge and blue........she was struggling to get air into her tiny lungs. I remember holding her in my arms the first time, watching her trachea completely sink into the back of her neck, she was pulling so hard to try to breathe. She would attempt to cry in between breaths and it was again, like a kitten. Her limp body, the blue around her lips, the extra skin on her face, the monitors beeping that she wasn't getting enough air.

The look on Allen's face.

Seeing everyone else's faces filled with worry, not just my family members, but the doctors and nurses.

There was no mistaken....something was very wrong.

Where was the healthy 8 lb baby girl I was supposed to be having?

My head was spinning while I desperately tried to act like I was happy in front of everyone. I mean what kind of mother would I be if I showed them all how sad I was right now?

I recall the nausea hitting me hard when I realized that something was very wrong with this baby in my arms. Inside I wanted to put her down and run out of there. I wanted to run away from this awful reality.

These images will never leave me.

I will carry them always.

They have made me who I am.

They have strengthened me.

Remembering it all though.....every year.....sure is hard.

I love you Makily.

Makily Update.

I haven't updated on her in a bit so I figured I would.

She's had a runny nose since the New Year. We are on her third round of antibiotics and I *think* it may be clearing. We started out giving her Omnicef the first two rounds and she had RED poop for weeks, scared the school half to death. I admit the first time it happened on my watch it scared me too. I thought for sure she started her period (and just about shot myself in the face) but it's just a side effect of Omnicef turns your poop red. She had a double ear infection but luckily that cleared up on the first round of meds.

She's loving school as always. Kindergarten has been fun for her. She is walking with TONS OF HELP. I have to stand behind her, hold her arms bent at the waist and help her shift her weight. She takes steps, one foot after the other, she will not do this though until you stand her up and initiate it. She refuses to use a walker, does NOT want to hold onto it and when they try to get it to move with it, it's not very productive. I'm not sure why she is so against the walker other then she isn't thrilled with having to hold on, maybe a sensory thing still with her hands? She's lifting up her arms for the teacher to put her tray on the wheelchair now. She'll lay on her belly on a wedge for quite some time at school, for some reason she acts like I am killing her when I do it here at home though.

She had her first real eye doctor's appointment last week. It was a challenge but it went well. She kicked the nurse for putting drops in her eyes. I made sure to warn the doctor ahead of time that she's a kicker when she's mad and he should protect anything important to him! LOL. In the end he said her eyes/vision looks great. She's near sighted like me....in fact my and her vision is exactly the same. Crazy huh? No glasses are needed right now he said since she won't be driving any time soon (lol).

She's growing up fast and it's killing me. She's 35 lbs and getting taller by the minute. Her legs are so long and I'm not sure where she gets that from. We are all short in this family! I am sad to say that it's getting increasingly harder for me to carry her and lift her. She no longer fits in the double stroller. So I have been creative when I am out with the kids. Sometimes I will put her in the back of the cart and Jakob in the front. I just bought a larger jogging stroller so I hope that will last us for a while. We have the wheelchair but we leave that at the school. I miss the days of just being able to carry her indefinitely on my hip without a second thought. I don't want her to get bigger and grow up.

We are due for a follow up with Neuro, ENT and Cardiology. I am trying to get them all scheduled for the same day or maybe two days back to back so we won't have to drive back and forth and back and forth to Orlando.

It's hard to believe she will be six years old in just three days. So much has happened and I look back and think WOW what a whirlwind. I am so happy to know that we can just relax now. Medically speaking Makily is in a great place. While I know I can never TOTALLY let my guard down with her it's nice to be where we are with her. She's happy and healthy right now, has been for a while and I am so grateful.

We did some Spring cleaning over the weekend and I went through "the drawers". I had two of Makily's dresser drawers filled with mementos from her birth, hospitalizations, illnesses, clothes, pictures etc. I have avoided going through it and getting rid of some of the things I didn't need that were not important. I had tried in the past to go through it and my tears always stopped me. I got rid of a lot of things (a bag of pink jelly beans from six years ago, old envelopes, hospital bills and paper work).

I did happen upon the outfit I had purchased to bring her home from the hospital in. I saw it, held it and just cried. I remember buying it at Sears when I was about eight months pregnant. I was sad she couldn't wear it to come home in. In fact she didn't wear it until she was nearly nine months old. That's how small she was for so long. I guess that outfit represented the hopes, dreams and life I had before we knew anything was wrong. It brought back memories that I knew it would. This is a tough time of year for me. Her birthday is always hard. I can't help but remember how awful that first year was....especially the first six months.

Jakob's adoption has healed many hurts I have had over the years but there will ALWAYS be wounds that I carry.

I will always want more for Makily.

That will never go away.

I will always wonder what might have been for her.

I love you Makily, my angel, my teacher, my hero.....forever.

The LONG road to Jakob's adoption.

I knew going into fostering it was going to be emotionally trying. More so because we were going into it DESPERATELY wanting to adopt.



I prepared myself.....I thought.



I had no idea how quickly I would fall in love with Jakob. It was literally the second I saw him. He smiled at me, they placed him in my arms and I was hooked.



In my heart he was already mine.



Does this make me a bad foster parent?



Probably.



Our license expires next month.



We are not re licensing.



While our family is complete and I BY NO MEANS want another child part of me is sad that we will not be welcoming any more children into our home for respite.



There are several reasons why.



First and foremost is that emotionally it is TOO HARD.

The emotional aspect is made worse by the fact that those paid to ensure that the child's best interests are met DO NOT CARE.

Unfortunately one of his social workers was HORRENDOUS. We were DRUG through hell and back at one point because of her. She lied often, even in court, straight to the judges face. There are many dirty people in the system. A few in particular nearly brought me to my knees. Having to sit in a court room the and listen to the person who is supposed to be looking out for the best interest of Jakob LIE through her teeth was infuriating.



When things were at their worst I wrote a letter. The letter was addressed to the head of the foster agency, the head of the agency the social worker worked for and everyone else involved in the case AND their higher ups. I detailed every mistake being made, lie that was told with dates and times. Explained why I was so afraid for Jakob. That if his parents TRULY and honestly had gotten it together I would have been able to support reunification. I explained that things were being covered up to the judge so they could reunify. The "counselor" (and I use that term very loosely) assigned to provide parenting, substance abuse and anger management to Jakob's father was a total and complete moron. At one staffing she stuttered through the entire thing and it was obvious she had no idea exactly WHAT she had been doing and what treatment she actually had provided. Finally she admitted she had not really done much substance abuse counseling with him because she felt he didn't need it. This was interesting to hear because SHE did his initial evaluation AND RECOMMENDED substance abuse treatment. She also eventually admitted that she had done MAYBE 6-8 sessions with him in a year......he kept missing or no showing. The lies were apparent and no one seemed to care. It was being brushed under the rug. Jakob's biological mother and father had pretty severe substance abuse problems. His father had no where to live half the time, his mother had left the state six months prior, the father was ordered drug testing and to AA and to stop drinking. He skirted every random drug test, said he went to AA but could never prove it and when he did take a drug test the social worker warned him THREE days ahead of time. When he DID go in for the test on a MONDAY MORNING all he was given was a breathalyzer. The social worker told the judge he had taken a RANDOM drug screen and passed. LIE. He admitted openly in court he was still drinking, and they STILL gave him an additional three months on his case plan....he had already had a year at that point.



My letter detailing everything was not well received. Jakob's social worker who I'll call DUMB ASS came to my house a week later. She told me her supervisor who I'll call THE BITCH DID NOT like my letter. She was angry. She had instructed DUMB ASS to do yet another search for relatives when she had already done three. She also advised her to have another relative appeal her home study denial (denial because she had an ex con living in her house AND prior child neglect charges). She told DUMB ASS she was angry and wanted Jakob taken from our home and did NOT want us to adopt him. I find it incredibly sad THE BITCH was going to try to move mountains to take Jakob from us and would rather him live with someone with prior child neglect charges. Did she not see that she was not only punishing me but that this would have SCARRED Jakob for life? She obviously could have cared less. This woman NEVER ONCE called me. Never once did she call to find out why I was so upset, to try and explain things or to ask for further documentation. She was angry because not only did I point out DUMB ASSES mistakes, I had pointed out the fact that she knew nothing about any of it to all of her colleagues that I had copied the email to. To this day I have never seen or spoken to her.



When this happened I nearly lost my mind. I finally just threw up my hands. I remember telling my mother, they want me to just roll over and take it so I guess at this point I have no other choice. So instead of fighting, I got quiet. I cried a lot. I put up with MORE and I wondered why. I wondered how I was going to live if they took him from me. What was I going to do if they DID reunify him with his father that WAS STILL drinking. God forbid he drive with Jakob in the back seat. The thought of it made me physically sick. What would happen if they lifted the denial on the relative. What if they sent him hundreds of miles away to live with a relative that saw him as nothing but a paycheck

The only person besides Allen and I that seemed to care and THAT SAW through the lies was the Guardian ad Litem and I am so grateful to her. I am not sure what would have happened had she not been involved and speaking up for Jakob. No one cared what we thought or how we felt. We were just the "foster parents".

Fate stepped in.

His father was arrested, released and left the state.

We have never seen him again.

Both his parents rights were terminated in July of 2009. I had to testify at the hearing. Neither of his parents attended but his father did participate via phone. I was incredibly nervous. I had not spoken to Jakob's father in six months. I had never testified in court and had no idea what I was going to be asked. Both my sisters came with me and while I was waiting to testify, my face went numb and so did my fingers. I looked at my sister and said I think I am having a stroke. I imagine my blood pressure was just incredibly high. I was asked simple questions about Jakob and so that was a relief. There were quite a few VERY sad moments during the hearing. One in particular was when the attorney asked the social worker if Jakob would know who either of his parents were if they walked into the room. While everyone in the court room knew he wouldn't, it was a sad thing to admit, especially knowing his biological father was on the phone.

Jakobs case was transferred to adoptions at the end of July 2009. His case worker came to the house once, then was fired a month or so later. We went without a case worker for a month or so and then the supervisor started coming to see Jakob. NOTHING was done to move towards finalizing his adoption UNTIL DECEMBER. The original agency's contract expired and was not renewed, it was transferred to a new agency and so I guess the old agency didn't feel the need to work on the adoption as they felt the new agency could deal with it. I went into the new office the DAY the new agency took over with Jakob in tow. I introduced myself to his case worker, explained we wanted things done and asked what else I could do to expedite the process. It took three and a half more months to finalize things....and that was ONLY because I faithfully called EVERY SINGLE MONDAY and said "how are things going, are we closer yet, have you turned in everything"? I was not impressed with this social worker either. Not once did she ever come through on dates she promised. She promised A LOT and delivered little. I finally told her to please STOP giving me dates because she has never followed through since I had known her. Harsh I know but we had been waiting for a long time and I wanted things DONE. She and I had some pretty tense words on more then one occasion.

Last Wednesday we went to the adoption attorney's house to sign some papers. We were originally told once the papers were filed we would get a court date in two weeks. We signed the papers and the attorney asked if we could do this "tomorrow". I said "do what"? He explained that he had two adoptions the next day at around 3 and would like to squeeze us in with them if the court would allow it. We said we would do whatever we needed to arrange our schedule. He called the court house in front of us and they agreed. WE WERE ELATED.

I am so grateful that it is all over with. I look at my kids and I melt. We didn't realize when we started trying to build our family EIGHT years ago that the road would be this long. We had no idea the toll it would take on us. We have fought for both of our kids for so long that it is nice to be able to just relax and just be a family.

We are so blessed.

More to come.

Ours Forever.

It is with GREAT PRIDE that I introduce to you our our son

JAKOB ALLEN

We officially adopted him Wednesday March 17, 2010.

I cried through the entire adoption.

I will post the entire story this week about how it all happened and give more details, but I just wanted to let ALL my readers know, he is ours forever.

The fight is over and we are so relieved.

He is about two months old here, I don't know for sure because this was taken before he came to us.


The day he came to us, Four and a half months old






Day three with us.


Adoption Day














More pictures, video and details on EVERYTHING to come.

Stay with me my friends.

Soon my friends.....

....the adoption *should* be final.

There is so much I want to say but I fear who may be reading this....just when I let my guard down, I'm shocked to hear of people that live here that read my blog. Just know Ocala is a SMALL town.

I LONG for the day I can come here and post AWESOME pictures OF MY SON and tell his entire story. I have kept so much from my blog and I hate that. I need to let it all out.

Be patient, my hope is that within the next two weeks, you will see my son's adorable face. You will get to hear his story and you will be amazed at how much he has already overcome.

Until then.........