It's Monday, the second full week of summer vacation. My kids seem to think I'm part den mother, part referee, part camp counselor, part cruise director and part bank. Oh, toss in chauffeur and short order cook along with that. I keep explaining to my kids that my job description for 'mom' does not cover those things. They insist it does. Right now, it's 7 against 1. My sweet husband is in hiding at his job, and is not even taking my calls for help. He's much smarter than he looks.
It all stared 12 years ago. I married a good and wonderful man. It was the second marriage for both. My first marriage did not 'produce' any offspring (and I'm grateful!), my husband first marriage produced 4 kids. But they were teens and young adults when we married, so they were not in our home very much at all. Their choice, not ours. But they are still good people, and their mother did well in raising them. I can't change the past, but I can direct the future.
After we married, we moved into small apartment in Southern California. We worked hard, but it was never really enough to make it. For almost two years, we struggled to make ends meet until one day, while sharing a hamburger as that's all we could afford, my husband announced we were moving to Utah to try our luck there. Since I had family here, I agreed to go. But not without a fight! My life was in Calfiornia. I had lived both in the North and South of the state. After serving my country in the Navy, California is where I returned to. Not Utah. California held all my hopes and dreams and desires. I loved the beach. I loved the mountains. I loved the cities and small towns. All that was going to change, and I was not happy with that notion. I traversed Highway 1 late at night in my mustang with the top down far
too many times to throw those memories away to move to Utah.But, my husband gently reminded me we were a team now, and the team lead was moving to Utah, and his Co-lead needed to follow. Ahhh. I hate it when he pulls rank!
So, we loaded up the truck and headed to Salt Lake City.
Our arrival here was pretty uneventful. We had made arrangements through a family member, to rent the upstairs of a split level home. We paid our rent, our deposits, got the lights and gas turned on. We settled the bill for the rented truck and counted what was left. Between us, we had less than 50 dollars, and little food in the cupboards. With moving boxes all around us, we decided that opening up those boxes would have to wait. We need to find jobs first. We were smart in marking not only what room the boxes went in, but what was actually IN the boxes. So finding the basics we would need was pretty easy. We arrived in Salt Lake on a Tuesday. By Thursday we had both secured jobs with temp agency's and by that friday, we actually had two small paychecks. Things were looking up!
We worked temp jobs until we were able to both secure permanent employment. We found that we could easily live on one income, and saved the other income once we got things caught up again. A few months into our new life in Utah, we decided it was time to find our family. In the 2 years of our marriage, I had miscarried a few times, and we had even gone to see a fertility doctor to find out what the problem was. We had considered doing foster adopt, but when I found out we were yet again expecting, we put that process off to see what would happen. Over Fathers day weekend I miscarried again. This time, I said it was the last time. We finished the foster care classes and process. Christmas of that year, we had 3 siblings placed in our home for adoption, and the birth mother was expecting in Feb. From one day to the next, I went from being a working wife, to a stay home mom of a 6, 20 month and 10 month old, with a new baby due in the new year. By our one year anniversary in Utah, we had 4 children. Yes, I survived, and yes, I was often overwhelmed! But I kept telling myself "how hard can it really be?"
The process of becoming a adoptive parent of a foster child is a long process, and is not 100 percent sure. In our case, the parental rights were going to termination, but it would take a lot of time. The oldest, was born outside the US, and was brought her illegally by her birth parents, so her adoption would take several years longer. We were willing to take the risk, and the potential heart break if this did not turn out in our favor. It did, and after waiting about 2 years, we were able to become a permanent and forever family.
We kept our foster care license, and subsequently fostered several more children that eventually returned to their birth homes. But 3 who came to live with us, were not able to return, and we added them to our family. After we adopted our last 3, we let our license go, as 7 kids was more than we had anticipated. But what could we do? These 3 who could not go home - we had come to love them as our own. A friend who did foster care and adopted her children said 'there are those children you claim as yours, and those who you know are not yours'. We claimed Gabby, Lizzy and Jason as 'ours' and made them a part of our family. Now our family looks like the United Nations. I'm white of German/Welsh ancestry. My husband is from Argentina, of Basque/Spanish ancestor. I have 4 Hispanic kids, 1 African American kid, and 2 kids of mixed race. It's all good, and it all works. These are the children Heavenly Father gave us to raise. We 'claim' them as ours as if they were born to us.
There's there beginning of our story. And that ends my first posting on My New Normal.
Enjoy the day!
Chris
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