The Journey to Being Brown:

Families do not truly have beginnings and endings; instead families flow like rivers, twisting and turning but always heading toward bigger waters.  Sometimes we can step our feet into the waters as they flow, but the dynamics of the family is always changing, thus it is with ours and how ours came to be.

Charley and I met and fell in love right after I had lost a fiance to cancer and had had a brain tumor removed.  He had just ended a long term relationship by leaving Washington State for a start fresh, but also leaving behind a five year old kinship daughter.  Neither one of us wanted to date anyone…so we became perfect friends, never even thinking of diving into a relationship or taking it to a physical relationship.  He admired my strength and I admired not only his, but also his love for a daughter he owed nothing to; it was a God ordained appointment and we were married a year later in July 1999.  By early 2003 we decided to move back to Charley’s little home town and try to start a family, we wanted to be near extended family and have that natural support system in place.  We had not gotten pregnant yet, but still had some hope.  So we sold our house and in August 2003 and put in notice at our jobs that we were going to move out of state; however, God had other plans…Charley had to make the call for me to have a total emergency hysterectomy and two weeks after, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  My doctors would not release me to move until November 2003, but Charley moved ahead of me in October.

Eventually we found a home church (the first in our married life together) and joined a bible study group.  The leaders were passionate about starting this summer camp for foster kids through our church.  So, in 2005 we both went as counselors to Royal Family Kids camp and it changed not only our lives, but our entire destinies.  It put in our hearts that we could be foster parents and we knew that we could parent any child God put in our home.  We started the license process threw the State.

Meanwhile, our children, the ones that God handpicked for us to raise, had not yet entered foster care.  Their family was on the CPS radar but it had not yet imploded and reached that horrible point where families are torn apart.  They were still being very neglected and abused; not feed, exposed to porn, molested, not cleaned or feed, not shown appropriate boundaries, not sent to school every day, allowed to be at adult parties and exposed to drugs and drinking.  They were beaten by men that should not have been allowed to touch them and touched sexually by males who should have loved them in safe ways.  All these things are embedded in their hearts and part of the battles we are fighting today.

I filled out the countless forms and horror of all horror, told the truth on them!  I admitted to having been molested.  And having been treated in therapy for it, and mercy sakes… I stated I believed that therapy had worked.  But because I did not get all weepy and break down when the licensor interviewed me about being molested, she thought I was way too controlled and assumed I still had issues to deal with.  She made all sorts of judgments about me that she should not have made; however, it was God’s plan because it was another four months before we were licensed with Catholic Family Child Services and our kids were put into their placement and into our home.  (I did pass a psychological evaluation for CFCS.) 

Zachary, David and Tamara were our first three foster kids and we adopted them.  We did not become foster parents to run kids through our house; we wanted to help kids have a stable home to either return home or to go to their adoptive home from our house, IF we did not adopt them ourselves. We have fostered nine children, adopted five of them, have family adopting one and her siblings on April 11, 2011, returned 2 to biological homes and the last one was reunited with a prior pre-adoptive home willing to adopt her again.   Every kid that has left our home has been returned home or to their adoptive home, with one exception and that one was sexually aggressive and putting all the kids at risk.  Little did we know… our kids were problematic sexual disorder too.

We have fought hard to get the right services for our kids; two have IEPs, one has a 504c.  I have worked with ARC and have accessed DDS.  This is the second time our children have entered therapy for the issues that are tearing them apart.  This time though it seems different; maybe because they are older and approaching puberty, maybe because there are some genetic issues that are surfacing and demanding attention and maybe because they each have multiple mental health disorders.   

All of it has come together like a perfect storm and manifested itself in ways that have left me utterly lost.  Our natural support system is frightened of our children.  Our children are frightened of themselves.  Zachary’s school does not feel like it can handle him anymore.  I know that I could not home-school them again like I did two years ago, although it would help David get back to grade level.  He is in third grade but performs at beginning first grade level; he admits that he does this on purpose.  My kids are all very RAD, one is SAY, one is Bipolar, DID, ODD and other letters I disagree with (residual DX that are old and no longer true.)  I suspect that two others are also Bipolar and have not yet made the appointment for them to see Dr. P, mainly because it is hard to make it through each day.  

We also adopted another sibling group, a three and two year old, both who were born positive to Meth and other drugs.  We recieved them both straight from the hospital but that does not negate the damage done in the womb.  They are very high maintenance, thrill seeking, smart and not your average toddlers. 

Where is here?  How’d we get here? 

We have two toddler beds in our bed room.

We have video cameras in our house.

My children require line of sight supervision if they are awake.

We are getting door and window alarms as soon as the tax refund comes.

We need a seven bedroom house and only one of us works.

We have NO TIME to attend to our marriage.

The last time we saw a movie together, in the theater, was 7-17-2010 and his mom called us twice to see if we were almost done.

As I am writing this on Wednesday, April 06, 2011, I cannot recall the last time I showered.  I know I washed my hair the other day.  The older kids were asleep, but the babies came in the bathroom with me.

If an appointment doesn’t make it to my iPhone, it doesn’t make it to my life.  Heaven help you if I lose my phone.

Now, I digress.

Families need to be sprinkled with lots of laughter and fun, good times and forgiveness.  People are messy.  People are just a little crazy, we all need a bit of room to just be free…I want, we want…our kids to be able to be free and happy.  Our journey here is because we are desperate to provide them with the very best chance of making a go at being happy.   

We love them.

They need to love themselves enough to be loved.