My New Normal

Ok. Sorry I took such a long break. I know there are some faithful readers out there. I had things to do like taking Ivy to Disneyland, work, cleaning...and honestly there are so many parts to this story that it seems a little overwhelming as what to write.

UPDATE: For those of you joining the story late, even though this is Lucy's adoption story, I am starting WAY back to where we became foster parents and showing what we went through and what the Lord taught us. Sissy is the foster daughter that we had the longest. It is NOT Lucy ( I know, it can get confusing) The story left off when I had to start taking Sissy to visits with her birthmom.

At first Sissy's birthmom started to see her pretty consistantly. Also around the same time, the Judge ordered for Matt and I to start letting the grandparents have overnight visits with her every weekend. So that meant on my 2 days off a week, I would drive to Chatsworth (about a half hour away) to let her birthmom visit her, I was also babysitting a boy named Tate on those days so I would bring Tate, Ivy and Sissy to Chatsworth. Do something with Tate and Ivy for an hour and a half then drive home. Then we would drop Sissy off on Friday nights and pick her up on Sundays. The grandparents would come out here to pick her up and they were usually an hour late. All of thses visits ran our lives. We also had social workers come to the house and court appointments. I look back and don't know how we did it all but I was praying so hard that she would be ours. I was trying to do everything by the book so they could not accuse us of anything. They wanted her back so bad that I didn't trust what they would say about us to get her. They questioned me a couple of times about her health and I would try not to get upset. She did get sick alot but it had nothing to do with me. I WANTED to say to them that it was because their daughter had done things while pregnant that made it to where her immune system was shot but what I DID say was OK, I will keep an eye on it and take her to the Dr.

One day while taking Sissy to a visit with her birthmom, her mom brought a friend named Shooter to the visit. She said," this is Jimmy but we call him Shooter". I said," hi Shooter". I think they were high. He kept talking to Ivy and Ivy wasn't having it. I was like...get me outta here! All the time thinking that this was going to be Sissy's environment if she left our home. This was a world I never hung around as a kid. It actually made me thankful to the Lord in the sense that I saw what I was spared from as a kid, what Matt had been spared from, what Ivy had been spared from. I never hung around people like this as a kid and I couldn't imagine it happening.

Sissy's birthmom was not allowed to see her unsupervised but no one was checking during the weekends to make sure that she was staying away. One day while waiting for court she let it slip that she had seen her. What a contrast to go from our home during the week and then their house on weekends.

As the months went by it got harder and harder to give her up. I quit doing it. As Matt would hand her over to her grandpa, she would reach for Matt and try to jump back in his arms. No thank you. I couldn't see it anymore. She was starting to get who we were and it was going to get harder. The Lord started to use that so that we were both ready for something to happen. We thought we were going to lose her right before Christmas, I had all of her things packed but the Judge kept her here. It gave us a little hope. Something had to be done soon.

Something was done soon. Something I thought would never happen. The Lord really wouldn't do it would He? But before that would happen we would experience even more hardache.