termination of parental rights

TPR happened today (in court).  I have not gotten a report so I assume all went as scheduled.  I hope.

And so...we wait.  30 days.  At the end of that period, we can petition to adopt Catie.  This little girl that has stolen our hearts.  The little one who now calls me "mommie".  The little one who seemed to find me and made her way to the center of my heart the moment I saw her.  Catie who became a part of our family before she was even placed in our home.  This precious little child that I truly believe was meant to be a part of our lives. 

You are the sister Rosie prayed for.  The one who made Augie a big brother.  The one who challenges us in so many ways and then reels us right back in with that smile.  We can't wait to make you officially ours. 

To the Mother of Only One Child

This article by Simcha Fisher is spreading across facebook like wildfire.  It is very clear women relate so well. 

There are so many ways you can go with reflections on this.  The world of infertility, secondary infertility, why some women feel they can't handle more than one child.  I will just file it under "reasons to consider becoming a foster parent."

The other morning my husband and I sat at the table and enjoyed coffee while we watched our children playing together in the kitchen.  Siblings are a tremendous gift.  Without foster care, our daughter would still be an only child.  Now she has a little brother (aka her groom and her prince) and a little sister (aka the other princess or her little baby). 

Being a mom is hard.  In so many ways, being a mom to one is harder. 

"Reclaim your Joy"

This is what the Lord spoke to me tonight in adoration.

I thought I was driving to bible study but since it study was cancelled on account of the holiday, it ended up being "date night with Jesus."  It was kind of like when you are dating and your boyfriend does something really cool to surprise you.  Monday night. I am sitting at the Church parking lot and Jesus was waiting for me inside.  "Surprise!"

I LOVED THAT!  When I walked in, the only other person in the chapel walked out.  I was alone before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.  I think He planned this.  :)

I prayed for you!!  By name I prayed for everyone who has requested prayers, newly had a baby, newly adopted, painfully waiting.  You were all on my heart.  I prayed three fervent Hail Marys for my brother in law.  I prayed for my in laws.  I prayed for my family.

Intercessory prayer led me deeper and the Lord started talking.  I had a couple of things I was looking for inspiration on:
1. Living Out Lent night for women I am running next month
2. Theology of the Body retreat that I am doing with teen girls
3. Personal life, prayer life, etc.

I believe I have a theme for #1 "Lead Me to the Cross" and I ended up reading the Crucifixion accounts in all four gospels to see the role of women at the cross. 

I hope God can rock the girl's socks off for #2.  I was contemplating how a teenage girl could live "Free, Total, Faithful and Fruitful."  Cool stuff!  I am also so psyched about this opportunity and totally bringing "Rosie" dressed up in princess garb to remind the girls of when we all truly believed we were princesses.   

#3.  God led me to a verse.  Psalm 13.  My bible practically fell open to it.  I actually had a pencil resting in the page.  Surprise surprise.  Ummm, so I totally forgot, but this is the SAME VERSE God sent me to the last time I was in adoration.  I think He was trying to make a point!  Underlined, circled and verse that is going on my kitchen window: "Grant my heart JOY in your help."

I LOVE the word Joy.  At an Unbound conference in the Spring I was blessed to receive the Father's blessing via Neal Lozano.  His prayer was about the blessing of my name, Elisabeth and how during Mary's visit to Elizabeth the infant lept in her womb (for joy).  The blessing was for joy within me.  During adoration tonight I felt the Lord urging me to "reclaim joy in (my) life."  Lately, as a wife and mother I am more tired and less enthusiastic.  So, I am holding on to this new blessing and will be seeking my JOY.

Finally, my marching orders for the Month (from this post).
S (spiritual) - offer up my little sufferings for my husband
P (physical) - morning exercises with the kids
I (intellectual) - read one book, any book, this month
C (creative/communicative) - to try to have post-bedtime (=kids in bed) dinner with my husband 1x week
E (emotional) - speak words of affirmation to fill hubby's love tank

adoption matchmaking

I am falling in love with adoption matchmaking.  :) 

Two years ago I was blessed to play a small role in a friend being matched with their daughter.

In the fall, I blogged about fostering and how I wished I could just start bringing waiting kids to the doorsteps of waiting couples.

Recently, I became involved with an adoption opportunity and am so grateful to play witness to hearts opening up for such a special little girl.  It was no accident I blogged about feeding tubes.  Please keep praying for this precious little girl to find her forever family.   

Now..I have NO desire to be a social worker.  But it is wonderful to be an adoption advocate.

a lesson in feeding tubes

Tomorrow 'Catie' will be having surgery at 7.30am to close her feeding tube opening.  Surgery is rarely necessary...but she needs it.  Pray for her!


On the occasion of officially being done with the tubes (wahoo!) I thought I would take a moment to educate others on what exactly we dealt with (she dealt with) in the tube department.

Catie was in NICU for the first four months of her life.  I am not certain when exactly the feeding tube was placed, but I believe it was closer to the end of her stay.  Due to her drug addiction she was not feeding well and subsequently classified as failure to thrive. 

When I first met Catie, she had a GJ Tube.  It was a long tube, dangling from her body that had three ports.  One for the balloon (which is blown up inside her stomach to keep the tube in place), one for her G (gastric or stomach) port and one for the J (Jejunum) port.  No one is quite sure why the doctors felt Catie needed the additional J port, rather than just a stomach port, but the assumption is that babies are less likely to deal with reflux from medications when they are sent down the J port.  Catie and her WONDERFUL first foster mom worked hard together to wean from tube feeding to where she was taking in enough calories by mouth. 

What her GJ Tube looked like from the outside

It was surgically inserted into her Stomach and Jejunum

We did pretty well with the JG tube.  We normally dressed her in a onesie so she or our other kids could not pull it.  By the time she entered our care, she was eating exclusively by mouth and no longer receiving any meds.  Our responsibilities included daily care of the tube (flushing it with tap water) and care of her stoma (cleaning her opening as it was quite leaky and irritated).  So, despite the non use of the tube, doctors wanted to keep it in until fears of her weight gain issues had passed.  The JG tube remained in...until the wonderful day when she was not wearing a onesie and I picked her up out of the exersaucer.  Suddenly I was soaked.  I thought she had a messy diaper and I looked down and 'aaaagggghhhhh'.  I had pulled out her tube.  A trip to our local ER and they placed a temporary catheter to hold the stoma open.  A week later and a trip to the children's hospital further away, and Catie was downgraded to MicKey G tube.  If she needed to have the J portion reinserted, it would have had to be done surgically by scope.  Fortunately, the Mic Key tube insertion was a quick process in the doctors office.  I learned how to insert it, in the event it was pulled out. 

The Mic Key tube was SO much nicer.  So, as before, responsibilities were flushing the tube, cleaning the stoma. checking the balloon fluid level and on occasion, removing the tube to check for leaks or replacing it. 

Catie had the Mic Key tube up until December, when I begged her doctor to get rid of it altogether.  There is no way in haities I was going to mess up her progress and put food in that thing.  No set backs here buddy!  Her weight gain was still slow, but consistent with her growth, so he agreed.  Removal was simple.  I got home that night and took it out.  I put a gauze on top and put her to bed.  Instructions were if it had not closed in 48 hours I may have to come back and get a stitch. 

Well...something got lost in doctor lingo.  After three days I discovered a small leak.  For the last several weeks I have lovingly referred to her site as her blow hole.  I have had to keep it covered and tomorrow it will finally be surgically closed.  Not quite 'just a stitch' but a simple procedure supposedly.

So...hopefully you have enjoyed your brief lesson on feeding tubes.  As I have never fed through a feeding tube, I can't be of too much help.  We have some fancy equipment in our garage and I have learned words such as bolus, that never really applied to us.  BUT, if you ever encounter a child with a tube, Be Not Afraid! 

Schooling & Perspective

Perspective.

I remember when Rosie was two, I started feeling the internal pressure for pre-school.  We have so much pressure to school.  Shortly after that, I started getting the questions.  "Is 'Rosie' starting school in the fall?"  (as she was about to turn 3).  Since that time the pressure to school has not just been internal.  In books I had begun to read, it seemed there was more information about dangers of schooling too early.

This past school year Rosie was JUST eligible for our parish pre-school.  In discerning what to do, specifically if we wanted her to be oldest in the class or youngest, a very wise teacher friend said "always give your child the gift of time."  She also asked "would you rather your daughter be driving her friends around or riding in the back of their car?"  That was an easy answer.  In quick interview with others, it seemed that being older in the class was usually preferred/easier. 

Perspective.

Before, I was dealing with pressure to school.  Now, perspective allows me to see that giving her an extra year allows us to have her in our home an extra year.  Rather than rushing our 17 year old off to college, we will have almost a full year with our 18 year old.  I am obviously not parenting a teenager right now.  But, reason tells me in parenthood, every moment counts.

This year we have been working on "handwriting without tears".  It has been a very loose pre-school program, but we so enjoy our time together.  That said, I am still struggling heavily with the idea of being solely responsible for her education.  Mainly related to the responsibility of having all children in my charge at all times...this in itself is a big lifestyle change, it is not so easy just to run to the store.  Also, teaching requires quite a bit of patience...and so far we are only sitting down for an hour a couple of times a week.  For Christmas, I received another wishlist book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.   I am looking forward to starting that this year. 

I am not sure yet if we will enroll in pre school in the fall or continue to school at home.  We love the precious moments with our beautiful children.  We love teaching our values and faith, seeing our two year old sing Alleluia or bow his head to pray and say Amen.   We love seeing Rosie grow into a God-loving little girl.  Those moments of witnessing the fruits of our parenting are priceless. 

For 2012, "God, please continue to shower me with BUCKETS of grace necessary to be a good mom.  A loving mom.  An encouraging mom.  A mom who teaches by her actions.  Help ME be a better ME.  For this I pray. Amen."

organizational gold mine

one word...COZI

and the story goes, I facebooked my husband a link for Best Apps for Catholic Moms because he received a tablet for Christmas and was looking for great apps.  Some how, when he looked at it on his tablet, he did not see what I see...but somehow found out about cozi.com. 

He started to tell me about this cool app that he thought I would like.  I thought to myself, not another online calendar (we have tried google calendars, my planner, fridge calendars, paul's outlook, etc etc) and I shrugged it off and forgot he even mentioned it.

Well, part of my new years resolution involves keeping my sink shiny.  As I was looking through flylady.net this morning, she referred me to cozi.com.  It looked interesting so I started to create a new account..and discovered my husband already created one for us.

SINCE we now have oh....4 internet connected devices around our home (one pc, two laptops and a tablet)...cozi.com will be my new home page.

I have spent the past two hours updating our family calendar, checking the shopping list that my husband added (both calendar and shopping list can be sent via text to our phones) and finally....adding our favorite recipes to the recipe box.  This is one area that I have never found a home for on the internet.  I frequently print recipes, and file them in our paper recipe box.  But I am always loosing pages (not to mention the ink and paper).  Check out what Cozi can do for storing favorite recipes and meal planning!  I have been moving some pinterest ideas over to cozi.

It has a great feature for logging favorite family moments that can be shared on a monthly basis (or whenever) with family.  Great as not everyone checks my blog or facebook and you can just email for whomever might be interested.  

In a nutshell...well just watch this

 

adoption opportunity

I was just asked if I know anyone that wants to adopt a little girl.

She is special needs and uber adorable.

One year old, down syndrome, maternal drug addiction, feeding tube; Hispanic.    Doing well, LOVES to interact and talk.  Paternal rights terminated.  In need of a good, loving, permanent home.  Please email me for more information.