The Way

I know I haven't posted much lately, life has been too overwhelming to even think about blogging.  However, I have to share this song.  It touches my heart every time I hear it lately.  I just love songs that sing Jesus's name out.  This song brings me to tears every time I listen to it... 

All creation cried out with longing
With groans only You could comprehend
And with wisdom, You always answer
And give the words of life so unfailing

And Your glory shines all around us
Your faithfulness shown for all to see
When we think of all of Your wonders
The beauty of Your plan that's been revealed
We walk in Your light, we walk in it

Shine, bright
Let Your glory fill this land
Lift high, the King of Kings and great I am
Jesus, You are the way

We can see the works of Your loving hands
With a hope and peace not made by man
When You poured out Your grace and Your mercy
And You held out Your arms so we could see
You bled for all mankind and set the captives free

Shine, bright
Let Your glory fill this land
Lift high, the King of Kings and great I am
Jesus, You are the way

Na na na na na na, Jesus

Broken Heart (RAD)

I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile, and let me first say to the title - the baby is doing just fine, growing great, strong heartbeat... all is wonderful on that front.


I wish I could say that everyone in our family was doing so great.  The last few weeks with our Fancy Pants have been very difficult.  Fancy Pants struggles with attachment, which leads to some extreme behavior.  We are pretty certain she has Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD for short, although we haven't had her diagnosed yet.


Reading up on RAD isn't fun or light reading.  I've been pouring over websites and blogs and also joined a message board for parents of children who have RAD.  We're also looking for a therapist who has experience with RAD.  I think the most simple way to explain what RAD is that Fancy Pants is suffering from a broken heart.  


As a mom, I'm sure you can understand how much this breaks my heart.  My emotions are all over the place, pregnancy doesn't help!  When I think about the struggles she faces all I want to do is sit and cry.  But if I'm not whole then how can I help my daughter be?  


We had to make the very difficult decision this week to stop fostering.  All I read on RAD suggests intense work between mother and child to help the child heal.  I can't do this work with Fancy Pants while I'm also pouring so much into the twins, as they have quite a few services each week of their own.  We foresee our home being closed for at least 2 years while we work with Fancy Pants and welcome our new little one and make sure our other two kids don't get lost in the process.


A lot of what I read is very discouraging.  We've been doing a few things right with Fancy Pants, but mostly wrong.  (So not encouraging to learn that).  It's hard to react in love and with complete patience when your child is screaming obscenities at you.  Our whole behavior is going to have to change, parenting a child with RAD has very little to do with how you would parent a child who grew up in a loving family from conception.  A lot of times the natural ways of parenting aren't appropriate for a child with RAD.  For example - Fancy Pants had 3 or 4 GREAT days a few weeks ago.  I was so excited for her that I showered her with praise one night, I told her how proud I was of her, that she was doing excellent!  The next day is when we started our current downward spiral.  It was terrible, the behaviors, the fits, aggression towards the other kids, etc.  I remembered reading a few weeks ago that a child with RAD can't take personal positive praise.  They don't see themselves as good, so telling them they are just confuses them.  Instead of saying "you did great drawing that painting" you should say "That is a great painting", leaving the personal words completely out of it.  I should have said "Wow, the last few days have been fantastic.  We've all had such a good time".  What mom doesn't want to shower her child with personal praise though?  It's very hard not to, especially a child that I see is in need of such praise.  Her body just can't take it though.


I'm sure the tone of the Blog may change a bit as we help Fancy Pants to heal and learn more about RAD.  I may have more crafts to post as we will need to be spending as much time together as we can.


I'd really appreciate all your prayers in this time, it is not going to be easy.  A child with RAD takes most of their hurt and anger out on the mother, as she's the one who is trying to nurture and as much as they crave nurture they don't know how to handle it.  If you have experience with RAD and have resources or tips to share, I'd love to hear them.

RAD Kids

I'm sure having RAD kids sounds fun if you don't know what RAD stands for.  RAD is Reactive Attachment Disorder and is common in children who never learned to attach at birth.  Maybe their needs weren't met, they cried for long periods of time with no mother or father picking them up.  They went hungry, they were neglected and may have been abused.  We know enough about our daughter Fancy Pants background that we're not surprised by her many signs of RAD.  The last few weeks in our home have been especially difficult with her and today I came across this video.  If you know of a family struggling with RAD or know my family personally please take the time to watch this to get a better understanding of what parents of RAD kids go through on a daily basis.

Wordless Wednesday - Coordinating Popsicles

Overcoming Infertility: Part 1

I don’t even know where to begin in this story of our secondary infertility and overcoming it.  I want to say first though that if you are reading this and you are experiencing infertility to remember – this is my story.  My journey with God through this.  It’s not going to look the same for everyone.  I’m not writing this to say “this is what you need to do”, believe me I remember how horrible it is to hear someone say “oh, just stop trying” or “just pray more” or “you need to have more faith”. 

I’m sharing my story because I truly believe that by sharing our testimony we’re spreading faith and hope to others.  I want our story to bring hope to you.  

I really thought about sharing 11 1/2 years worth of our struggle with you and how we got to this point.  But as I sat and typed it out, it just is depressing.  If you've been struggling with infertility I'm sure you understand that.  Plenty of wonderful things happened in those 11 years, but as far as infertility is concerned, nothing good happened in that time.  Well, I take that back.  One good thing happened, followed by one bad.  We did get pregnant in 2004 but lost the baby 11 weeks into the pregnancy.  I truly believe I will meet our child in Heaven and that for those 11 weeks, and even now, that child was and is very loved.  It was devastating losing our baby after trying for so long.  It was devastating hearing my son pray to God every night for a brother or sister.  The paper that came home in the 2nd grade asking what his biggest dream was and for him to write "to have a brother" was heartbreaking.  And to feel like it was my fault he didn't have his biggest dream.  Those years just weren't pretty, so I'm going to skip ahead to 2007 and start from there.


In 2007 we moved to our current base.  I started contacting foster agencies even before we moved here.  I was ready for more kids and did not want to wait any longer.  I'd researched foster care while we lived in England and fell in love with it.  I knew it was something I wanted to do.  Even before we realized having more children wouldn't be easy for us we talked about adoption.  So it wasn't as if we were making any sort of sacrifice.  If you've adopted you know how incredibly special it is.  If you've given birth to a baby you know how incredibly special that is.  Both are amazing and wonderful and I'm so glad our family is made by both.  


We also looked into infertility treatments when we moved back to the US.  None were available to us unless we wanted to pay British Pounds in England, which would make them double the price of what you would pay in America.  Just not realistic on our paycheck.  However, we also learned that if we went through fertility treatments before we became foster parents that it could cause a delay... if you've recently been through fertility treatments many agencies won't allow you to foster for up to 2 years after.  So we had to choose.  We chose adoption, a choice I am so thankful for!


In 2008 we became licensed and both of our daughters were placed with us.  It was an AMAZING time.  I can't begin to describe it.  I was telling our worker just today that up until that point, 8 years after we started trying for baby #2, I hadn't really been to any baby showers.  Within a few weeks of getting Baby Cakes I co-hosted a baby shower!  My heart was on the mend :)  We adopted both of our girls in 2009, it was truly an amazing year.


In the meantime we never did do anything to not get pregnant... we didn't take measures to try or seek fertility treatments, however we did hope that one month I'd just be pregnant.  We hoped for a large family and quite honestly, how easily we got both our girls is almost unheard of in foster care.  So we were realistic in that it probably wouldn't happen so easily again.  But we still wanted more children.  


At the end of the summer in 2010 we decided we were ready for another baby. This time we decided we'd continue to foster and we'd seek fertility treatments, hoping for a baby one way or another.  It was made pretty clear to us that a baby through foster care was probably not going to happen.  I was devastated because honestly, getting pregnant didn't seem like it was going to happen either.  God gave me this mother's heart for a large family though and tried to have faith that He would see us through, one way or another.


Stay tuned for part 2....  
(Sorry, it's late and my poor hubby doesn't like to go to bed alone, plus this is already pretty long!!)