Week One

What a week... I am completely exhausted. Lots of good moments and some not so good ones. 

Last Saturday Cris & I got up at 3 am and drove 19 hours round trip to bring Sweetie home. 

After 18 months the day was here! I was excited but anxious. Not knowing what we would be walking into. I knew that this was going to be difficult on Sweetie. I can not imagine how difficult it must have been on her to leave Ms. T, her Fostermom. To see Sweetie breakdown when we were leaving was heartbreaking. Overall the trip home was pretty good. Considering she had to spend so much time in the car, she did well. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to take any time off and that meant we had to jump right into a routine.

I am not sure if it is a good thing or not. I have been really blessed that my friend K has really been awesome and is watching Sweetie during the week while I am at work. Sweetie has really enjoyed going there during the day. She hangs out with K's daughter and has a lot of fun! I am glad because when she comes home she is absolutely miserable. She has so many big feelings and doesn't know how to deal with them, so they come out as anger. Anger directed at the person closest to het and that is usually mom. This is the stuff they don't tell you about in MAPP class. If it wasn't for my friendship with K, I would have never been prepared for this last week. 

I know I have a following of people who are behind us in the adoption process and I really want to stress to you to take this time to read and listen to cd's about trauma and loss, love and logic parenting and anything else you can get your hands on to prepare! A great resource is the Utah Adoption Exchange Lending Library. They lend out 3 books, cd's or videos of all kinds of adoption resources at a time for no charge. They survive solely on donations.  I prefer the cd's,I listen in my car to and from work. These resources have prepared me for what we would be facing and given me the tools I would need to handle everything calmly which is the most important thing. 

Children who come from trauma have many different issues, things you don't even think about like sensory issues. Temperature, Noises and just saying no can send them into a complete downward spiral. 

The closer they feel to you the more they push away. It is a hard road...but one that we are committed to. 

Wednesday we have our first post adoption visit with a social worker. I have been working to get Sweeties medical benefits switched to NC all week. Friday I was told 45 days. This is unacceptable. She needs weekly therapy and her medications are hundreds of dollars each. So, I will do what I do and work until I get this fixed too. It is so frustrating that everything in the system takes so long. We are going to get our adoption paperwork notarize this weekso we can get it in. I will try to continue to update my blog as much as I can, but free time is almost nonexistent. 

I can't end this on a bad note... so I will share what I did this am to lighten the mood some. While making breakfast this am, instead of cracking the egg of the side of the bowl, I used my head getting egg everywhere. Sweetie absolutely loved this. It was the firsttime all week she just laughed. That made me happy :)