I feel like I should back up a few years and put into words what has led us to here. After having Ridge and the complications I experienced, Jake and I have been extremely fearful and nervous about the thought of me being pregnant again. We both would love to have one more baby, and of course we would love a little girl, but we are so extremely happy and content with our boys as well. About a year after Ridge was born I was at swimming lessons with Dalton and Gunnar. I met a lady there and we started talking. She had two teenage girls with her. I asked if they were her daughters and she said that they were her foster daughters and she started telling me a little more about it. Another lady who was sitting near us piped in and said that she actually spent part of her childhood in foster care and she started telling us her life story. I started to feel a little seed being planted in my heart about the idea of possibly doing foster care in the future. I've always had a desire to do something like this. My Great Grandma and Grandpa Alford, my Grandma Dalton's parents, did foster care for quite a few years and ended up adopting my Aunt Jerry, my Grandma's only sister. So even as teenager it's something that I occasionally thought about.
Since that conversation with those two ladies at the swimming pool I have constantly been meeting people who do foster care and they immediately start telling me their stories. I didn't talk to Jake about the thoughts and feelings I was having. I kept pushing them aside. I was way too busy raising my three boys and being absorbed in my calling at the time as Ward Young Women's president. So then the same thing starts happening to Jake. People at work start talking to him and before he knows it almost everywhere he goes he runs into somebody who is doing, or has done foster care and they start telling him about it. So Jake and I start talking about it. I tell Jake that I can't even think about it until after I'm released from Young Women's and our upstairs is finished. Soooo, last August I get released from young women's and we start finishing our upstairs.... I'm still fighting these feelings I'm having. What are we crazy! Have you seen how my boys behave in public! There's no way we can handle another kid! Am I mentally and emotionally sane enough to handle the demands that foster care entails? I am an wreck of emotions! One night I was reading the Ensign and there's a poem about water. How some water comes directly from the clouds in the form of rain, and some comes from melting snow and is carried by rivers and streams. It doesn't matter the way the water gets here, it is still from God. As I read those words I felt the spirit touch my heart and reaffirm what I've always known that all children are God's children. It doesn't matter where they come from or where they've been. All children come from our Heavenly Father and he loves each and every one of them.
I have a tendency to sometimes battle the spirit when it is prompting me to do something that I know will be hard for me or take me out of my comfort zone. I did this same thing when I was called to be Young Women's President. I tell myself that there's no way I can do it and the spirit whispers yes you can and I shout no I can't! I tend to sometimes allow my fear to outweigh my faith. It turns me into an emotional wreck. That's where I was for a few months about foster care. Jake was very patient with me yet very persistent in following the promptings that we both had been given. He convinced me that we should at least make a phone call and sign up to do the classes. I finally agreed to do the classes and gather more information but told him I still wasn't convinced that we should really do this and I really wanted to pray about it. We started the classes and they turned me into an even more emotional wreck! They tell you every horror story imaginable of what these kids have been through and what your family might experience through foster care. I started praying about what we should do. One night I was reading my scriptures and the words came to my mind, "in as much as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me." Tears streamed down my cheeks and my mind and heart was filled with impressions of the spirit similar to what I had experienced as Young Women's President when I had allowed my faith to overcome my fear and really immersed myself in my calling and when I would get promptings about a specific girl or have my head and heart flooded with words that I would jot down about a specific lesson or talk I needed to give and what I should say. The promptings and words that filled my mind and heart that night were things I could say to help a girl who was struggling with issues from her past. I knew I could help a girl to know that she is daughter of our Heavenly Father and how much he truly loves her. If she could be armed with that knowledge and truly know that, even when she feels like no one else cares about her, she can turn to our Heavenly Father and know of his love for her and that He can help her get through anything. When we first started thinking about foster care of course we were hoping to be able to adopt. But after that experience and after going through the classes our attitude has changed a little. We just feel like this is something we are supposed to do and whatever is supposed to happen will. We are grateful that we can help be a safe place for a little girl who needs someplace to feel safe and loved and secure. We also can't think of a better way to really teach our boys to have empathy and compassion for others. Of course we have our fears and our worries and our number one priority is our boys and we will do our best to not let any of this adversely affect them, but we are trusting in the Lord and know that He has a plan and He will help us through whatever lies ahead...
Another tender mercy from the Lord I experienced while we were going through the classes happened at the elementary school one day. I always volunteered in the boys' classes on Tuesdays. Another young mom around my same age volunteered on the same day and we would always say hi. I knew her name was Jen, I knew she had three boys the same ages as mine, and I knew she was friends with some of my friends but didn't know her very well. One day as I passed her in the hall and we both said hi I got this strong prompting that I should go talk to her and invite her to come to our workout group that some ladies in my ward do twice a week at the church. I turned around and asked her if she would like to come. She said she would love to and got her phone out and checked her calendar to see if she could make it that Friday. She said, "oh dang, Friday we have an appointment with our foster baby's family." I immediately got chills and said, "you do foster care?" She started telling me about it and how this was their first placement. I instinctively knew that I could trust her and I told her that Jake and I were actually in the foster classes right then and I told her a little about what an emotional rollar coaster ride the classes were. She immediately empathized with me and we chatted a little more. She started coming to our work out classes and her and I have become great friends. We have so much in common and really think a lot alike. We started having the boys have play dates, especially our youngest two who have become great friends. At the end of the school year we found out that both pairs of our older boys got the same teachers at school! She has become such a wonderful friend and is someone I really admire. She has been through so much in her life even before she started foster care and has risen above such adversity and trials with such fortitude and faith that just amazes me. She has such a positive outlook on life and is such an inspiration to me. I've been able to talk with her a lot about my fears involving foster care and it has been so nice to have her insight and perspective. She has really helped me to not be as fearful as I was and her example has helped me immensely!
We got our first call a week and a half ago, asking us if we would be able to take in a 6 year old boy and 2 year old girl. I immediately burst into tears as soon as I got off the phone and felt so much anxiety. I called Jake and we both agreed to pray and think about it for a few hours. Our RFC (resource family consultant- AKA the lady who makes the phone calls about placing kids) told us she didn't need an answer for a few hours. We prayed and thought about it for several hours. We both just kept going back and forth- wanting to help, but feeling like it would be more than we could handle at the moment. I eventually called her back and told her we just felt like it wouldn't work out taking two those ages with our boys the ages they are. We had told DCFS from the beginning that we only wanted to take girls younger than Ridge. We felt like that would be the best for our family. I slipped into a bit of a funk after that for the next day or so, feeling guilty for not taking those kids, worrying about where they were and what they were going through. I eventually started to feel better about it and knew that we had made the right decision. This past Monday night about 5:30 I got another phone call. This time they had an 18 month little girl. I felt very peaceful about taking her. I called Jake and asked him what he thought and he immediately said, "go get her." I went and talked to the boys and asked what they thought and they were so excited and told me to go get her! So I drove to the DCFS office where they were holding onto her until I could get there. They told me they had very little information about her other than her parents had been arrested, they didn't even know her name. I kept praying the whole drive there that Heavenly Father would guide us and that we were doing the right thing for our family and that I would be able to keep it together and not fall apart as soon as I saw her. I'm an emotional person and I didn't want the DCFS workers thinking I was emotionally unstable or something! When I got there she was running around the office in nothing but a diaper. The workers said that she was really dirty and they tried to clean her up the best they could in the office sink. I thanked them and said I would give her a bath as soon as I got her home. They said they would call or text me more information as they got it. Then the lady who was the removing officer and who Kara had become attached to carried her to my car and got her strapped in the car seat. Kara started to cry as we drove away so I started singing primary songs. As soon as I started singing she stopped crying and fell asleep within five minutes. I was just about to our exit when they called to give me more information on her. They told me her name and told me I needed to stop at clinic or insta care because the mom thought she had scabies. I said, "what is that?" They said they were googling it as they were talking to me and it was skin mites similar to lice but on the skin. It causes little bumps and is extremely itchy. My skin immediately started to crawl. They said it was transmitted through skin to skin contact and she should be seen by a doctor before taken to my house. I took her to the clinic that we go to and pulled right in front and left her sleeping in the car for a minute while I ran in and explained the situation to the front desk ladies, luckily one of them was a friend of mine who was in my ward growing up. They said to bring her in and they would get us right back to a room so as to not infect the whole lobby with scabies. The doctor who was working that night happened to be our family doctor and the one who signed our form giving us the physical and mental go ahead to do foster so it was nice to not have to explain who Kara was. We woke her up so he could give her a quick once over and confirm that she did have scabies. He prescribed the best cream available to rub all over her skin to kill the mites. He said I just needed to put all her clothes, bedding, anything that came in contact with her skin in a hot wash and that would kill it. After being on the cream for 24 hours she wouldn't be contagious anymore. I took her home and gave her a bath and told Jake and the boys that I was the only one who could touch her for the first day or so until she was better. That was so hard for the boys! They were so excited to finally meet her! Dalton kept saying, "she's so cute! I just wanna squeeze her!" That first night was the roughest. I don't think she was on any type of sleeping schedule and with her adjusting to us and the combination of her skin being so itchy she was up all night. I was finally able to get her to fall asleep rocking her in my arms, but if I tried to lay her down she would immediately wake up. The next day I was pretty tired, but I just pushed through it and got Dalton, Gunnar, and Ridge all off to school. Then Kara and I started getting more used to eachother. I washed Kara's bedding and deep cleaned and sanitized the house the best I could in-between taking care of Kara. Despite not getting a lot of sleep she was so pleasant and easygoing. She is such a good baby! She is so loving and affectionate towards me, always giving me sporadic hugs and kisses. She is so smart! She talks and jabbers a ton! She says quite a few words and is learning new ones every day. She loves shoes and has to try on every pair she sees. We have shoes scattered all over the house now! She also loves clothes! Jake grabbed a bag of clothes from Candace that McKenna had outgrown to get us by the first day or so. Then Laura sent me with a box that Blakely won't be needing for a while. Aunt Ashley has been bringing over bags of clothes that her girls no longer need. She also brought over a whole box of "pretties," as Kara and I like to call them (hair bows). Each bag of clothes I've gone through Kara has been right there trying to try on everything she sees! It's adorable! The state gave me $163 to use at Shopko to get clothes and diapers for her so Kara and I went on a shopping spree on Thursday. My friend Dana met us there and we had such a fun time picking out adorable little girl outfits! A sweet neighbor brought over her girls' bedding that she no longer needs so now Kara has pretty much all she needs! I have had so many sweet and thoughtful friends and family bringing her things and asking if there's anything she needs. Alyson even gave her one of Hannah's baby dolls to keep! I love living in Plain City! We really have the best community ever! She warmed up pretty fast to Jake, it took her a little longer with the boys, but now after almost a week she has finally warmed up to them. We all just absolutely adore her! She really just fits into our family so well. I try not to think to much about what the future holds. I know that reunification is the primary goal in our state. I am just trying to enjoy the time we are getting with her and loving every second of it. I just have to trust that the Lord has a plan for her and I hope and pray that she will get to live a healthy and happy life. It has been such a joy watching the boys interact with her and be so sweet with her. She really brings such a sweet, calming presence into our hope and really mellows out my wild boys. Ridge and Kara have especially become great friends. Yesterday the boys were all playing at friends houses. I was laying down watching her play and thinking how even though I am so physically exhausted and sleep deprived my heart is so full!
