Our 2020 family newsletter

 Didn’t realize it had been since April since I blogged, but that feels about right for this year. I took a month off of social media recently and now every time I try to to post, it either feels too thought out and wordy, or not important enough to share. 

Rather than make a too wordy caption on an adorable picture of B, here’s a few of our life updates via blog.

Lexi’s year-

-I’m grateful to be working in a job that has allowed me to work from home since March 17th. The week before we went to working from home, I was put into situations where clients were sick and didn’t tell us and I would sit there worrying how contagious they were and if I would be bringing something home. I am grateful all the time that my employer cares about our health and takes the pandemic seriously so there have been no more scary situations like that. Also, the employer I left for my current job would never have allowed me this same safe work setup.

-I continue to run for fun- I love being alone, being outside, listening to podcasts, and arguing with my brain that I’m strong and can do it no matter how much I want to quit. I have no set goals but want to run more in 2021 than I have before.

-I have basically been living the same life as I had pre-quarantine. I remember all the time that many years ago my two best friends were joking about how they could never live with me because I’d be so needy and always want someone to spend time with- well, jokes sure on them for that one because I’m the only one of them who has ever lived alone, and being a single mom I was already basically socially distancing before it was cool. I see my family sometimes, my best friends even more infrequently, but otherwise I have just resigned myself to ‘this is life now’ and am used to being ‘alone’ (you’re never alone with a child).

-I have watched a ton of Survivor, The Challenge, binged The Queen’s Gambit, and am now watching The Flight Attendant. These are my interests, along with baking and loving my friends from afar 😄

B’s year

-Her birthday party happened in the nick of time the weekend right before everything shutdown, which was a huge blessing so she still got to celebrate turning 3. We have gotten back in touch with her first family and have visited with them several times, and hope to do so even more as Covid-19 cases decline. 

-She watches movies and tells me ‘they should have masks on!’ when there’s scenes of people inside. My babe is a pro at wearing masks (except for always licking them). She basically only goes into the donut shop for our weekly trip, and yet has not complained once about her totally shifted lifestyle of rarely leaving the house. After a brief stint of feeling ‘safe’, we put our Y membership on hold and she wistfully talks about when we’ll get to go swimming again she can’t wait to bring her mermaid Barbie there. 

-After over a year with no answers to sleep issues, she had her sleep study done and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. She had 6 apnea episodes an hour on average during the study! The pulmonologist led us slightly astray and delayed it a lot, but seeing a great ENT led us even further to answers and B will have her tonsils and adenoids out in February, along with thinning her nasal passages. 

-She is musical and sings her favorite songs on key all day- The Greatest Showman, Hamilton and Tarzan are her current favorites. She would rather sit and watch Survivor with me and then try to imitate the challenges than play with her toys, something we’re working on 😆 She continues to be the light of my life and as much as she challenges me, she is so intelligent and caring and her life matters so much. 

but if you never try, you'll never know

everything in my life has had intricate, confusing but always perfect timing. during this time of staying at home, it's been made even more obvious to me. I figured now was as good a time as any to tell the story of our last foster placement.

when I had my first foster placement, I picked her up from the hospital. I had told my family I'd likely be getting her, but told no one while I went to the hospital, walked into the nursery, waited as they wheeled her bassinet into an empty room, got instructions on signs of withdrawal to watch for, and changed her into a snuggly sleeper I had brought with me. it was just me and Baby A for the beginning. I was in love immediately.

3 months later when Brooklyn joined me, it was different. there was a snowstorm that day and Brooklyn was born in Michigan which made the handover a little more complicated. she was brought by a worker to my home wearing a Valentine's Day sleeper (in March), and I had just over an hour to cuddle her and change her into another snuggly sleeper while snapping some pictures to send to loved ones, before heading back off to work. I was not in love instantly. I was unsure how long she would be with me. I compared everything to Baby A- how could I not? I had several people reach out to me and let me know it's okay to feel that way, it's going to take time to bond, you'll love her just as much as Baby A- they were all right. I hope to never hide the truth from Brooklyn and the truth is her first month with me was hard and trying and I was not 100% in love with her because I didn't let myself at first.

when our last placement, another Baby (Boy) A joined us, it had been almost 3 years since my last foster placement had started. I have never known overwhelmed like that short time I had with him. the emotional burden of not connecting instantly with a child, while having a child of my own already, is the most exhausting thing I think I've experienced outside of a break-up. watching my child love on a baby she'd just met while I tried to summon those feelings myself broke me. I instantly missed having time for just me and Brooklyn, my forever child. everything in our day was made more difficult- tiny things like baby gates being put back up everywhere and constantly taking things out of a baby's mouth, and bigger things like preparing meals for 2 kiddos and 0 for myself. waking throughout the night checking on a baby again wreaked havoc on my rest, and having a baby instantly spread illnesses from his daycare that kept Brooklyn up for hours at night coughing made it much worse. I felt physically ill myself every waking hour he was with us.

I had support throughout it all- amazing foster friends checking in on me and offering so much help, reminding me it's okay to not be attached right away, reminding me it would feel different now that I had my own child, telling me once I got in the groove of our "new normal" it would feel better. my family stopping by to visit (although letting me know I wasn't being as "nice" to Baby Boy A as I was to Brooklyn, was not helpful). my best friends met him and did their best to make me feel supported and cared for. but as much as they all gave support, it's still just me. I couldn't rely on anyone else to help pick up the expanded workload, I had no one else to manage multiple daycare pickups and drop-offs, and I had no one to process the huge range of emotions with. I have had several people tell me throughout my struggles as a single mom that "you chose this", and that phrase flashed it my mind almost nonstop as I tried to get used to parenting two kids. because the thing is, I did choose it. but as much as I feel like a failure for it, I can also choose to not have this be our life.

so I did. again, without going too deeply into his case details, I knew I couldn't keep going on with Baby Boy A, and I let my case worker know. she was amazing and so helpful through the process which has not always (read: ever) been my experience with case workers, and through a quick and unpredictable set of circumstances Baby Boy A went back to his previous foster home. I'm so relieved knowing he's home with the faces he's known and loved for most of his life. I'm so grateful for the wake-up call of how much I value my life with just me and Brooklyn. I quickly gained back all the weight I lost from not eating while he was here 😆 it's a huge reminder that everything in my life comes back to the timing. we went through a renovation project last month that required me to move a lot of stuff into the nursery for storage, which wouldn't have been possible with a baby in there. B and I have been able to do tons of stuff together in February/March that we wouldn't have been able to do with a babe in tow. I cannot imagine going through this quarantine, working from home, isolated pandemic time with TWO kids on my own, and thankfully- I don't have to.

our brief stint as a family of 3

8 years and a lifetime ago

I went to a movie in Bowling Green after a day of classes and work. My college (and now thankfully once again) best friend Jac and I had planned to see this movie for weeks. For the life of me now, I can’t remember which one it was- I know it was the Hunger Games but I’d have to google to know which one premiered then. Driving back home on country roads that night, I got a text from my boyfriend- are you home yet? No, why, what’s up? Just tell me when you’re home. I called him immediately- something was off.

Hours and tears and screams laying under the computer desk in my family room to charge my phone and sobs and cursing and taking down every picture of him in my room later, it was over. I fell asleep by 3AM or so. I went to work the next day, my first shift as a server at Max & Erma’s. I spent the next few weeks numb- studying for finals, writing final papers, preparing to begin my final summer semester in my internship before graduating.

I was drained from it all. I had spent months fighting for a relationship that wasn’t good for me or to me. I look at pictures of this time and feel sadness because that relationship was all I had- my life had been based around this guy for 3 years. I had only a couple of friendships and only one close girlfriend. My family didn’t like him and didn’t hide their feelings. I was 21 and so alone. It would be years before I even started to realize the emotional trauma that had changed me forever.

The current Coronavirus pandemic is its’ own type of trauma. I’m a natural extrovert to begin with, and someone who works with families and colleagues all day long, and also a single parent. The first few days of staying at home were exhausting and sad for me. But, I am not alone. The past 8 years have been full of people, relationships, and experiences- I know beyond a doubt that everything happens for a reason, and I wouldn’t have my friendships, my home, my job, my faith, my pride and joy of a daughter- if I hadn’t had the worst day of my life 8 years ago.

I’m writing this because I woke up this morning from another dream about my ex- years later, even though I spend none of my waking hours thinking about him, my dreams often include the ghosts of my past. I woke up feeling so sad, and realized today’s date. But it’s a fleeting feeling and my life is so much more than sadness. This pandemic is real and awful and I’m so sad for people who are suffering from sickness and also just suffering in general, missing their ‘normal’. When we come out of this period of time, I have best friends waiting to be hugged (some more willingly than others), restaurants I can’t wait to go out to for breakfast dates with my girl, an office I’m happy to go back to, nephews I can’t wait to chase around and tickle and snuggle. Life is more than the sum of bad experiences- this I know and this I want my daughter to learn from me. March 29th, 2020 looks a whole lot different than I ever imagined it would 8 years ago and I’m grateful. 

crying in the car

I opened my home to foster placements again in November, and went almost 2 full months without a single call. I finally got a call the Monday after coming back to work from a long Christmas break, the Monday after hearing my dad potentially has some serious medical stuff going on. Without going into too much of the details or story that’s not all mine to tell, this call for placement was not a typical one. For one thing, I had a couple weeks notice before it happened. For another, it wasn’t for a newborn baby like my first two placements were. And finally, it’s very up in the air just how long he’ll be with us.

He came for a visit before he was placed with us and it was an odd feeling- he felt like someone I was babysitting. My overwhelming feeling that day was sadness that Brooklyn wouldn’t be my only baby anymore, the only one to get all my attention- but I also still felt pretty strongly that I still wanted to provide care for him, that babies deserve a home with love and attachment, and that I could do it. He’d met one of my best friends that day and most of my family had come over to meet him.

I picked him up later that next week. It was surreal to be on the other side of things- to be the foster parent picking up a baby from another foster parent who sobbed as they handed him over. He’s been a great sleeper through the night, has a cute smile that takes over his face, and eats almost everything I’ve given him. But- it feels SO different. My foster friends and friends in general have been saving my life reassuring me it takes time to get connected, it’s going to feel so different because I have my own daughter now, it’s okay if he doesn’t feel like ‘mine’ right away. I still feel like a failure nonetheless for not bonding with him immediately. For being frustrated at the changes in our life and schedule. I miss my time with just Brooklyn. But- his case will likely be short term, he deserves our love, and this is teaching me a lot- including what I want for our family’s future. So for now- I will be crying in the car, because it’s the only place where kids aren’t watching me constantly. I will be tearing up when people ask excitedly ‘how’s it going?!’ and I want to be honest but I also don’t want them to see how hard it is. I will be breathing a deep sigh of relief when I go to work and can focus on other people’s kids for a few hours instead of worrying about my own. And I will try to love more.