The other "A" word

So forgive me!  I really didn't blog much when Greysen (Tbug) was in our home, since we were busy with a lot of medical stuff for both kids. 

We were placed with Greysen very shortly after Dalton's first birthday. Greysen was a 1 month old & yes I know... my kids are super close, yup i know.  We were told in broad strokes of what Greysen had medically wrong, but finite details were never covered.  We were only the foster parents & the interested relative was going to take him between 1-3 months from then...

G got really sick at about 3 months & even had a 2 night (ehm technically 3 if you count the fact we didn't get a room until 2am the next day after we came to the er.) hospital stay.  A crap load of tests were run. We were asked if he had brain abnormalities, we said yes, but we didn't know what, which is the worst things to say about your kid... but we really didn't know. Anyhow test after test came back normal, they did a sedation mri after tracking biomom down.  We got clearer info about his brain. Gotta say we were kinda scared for his future & we still are.  Bottom line, one area of his brain has more little ripples than it should. He has two other minor brain malformations that really shouldnt effect him. But he does have a higher than normal risk of seisures - so we are careful!

That same summer (last summer) we had questions about Dalton & our pediatrition was in disbelief of what I was thinking. But being the people who know our son best, we went and got him evaluated.  We had discussed a lot privately & even taken M-Chat test/evaul in our home before getting him evaluated.  Yep he came back with an autism dx. And a little higher on the spectrum than we thought.  We knew in our hearts he was autistic before we were told so.  While we "knew" it, it was pretty hard for someone to actually tell us as such. 

Many people think we are crazy. Many people do not see how he can have this diagnosis - he looks perfect after all!  Autism for some is a somewhat hidden disorder.  It effects the brain & if you don't know what you're looking for you don't see it. 

Some things that Dalton does is considered "stimming."  He flaps his arms while excited, lines things up, needs to kick/jump to wind himself down, and others.  He is a bolter, gets quiet & non verbal in somewhat loud environments (think a bday party), stripping clothes often because of the tag-is always irritated with tags. Refuses toothbrushing (unless it is on his terms ...doesnt work well)  Hates hair combing, prefers to avoid body contact w/ others & more.  With all that makes him unique, I wouldn't change him for the world, I love him dearly.

Our biggest challenge now with him is  getting him services.... We currently are waiting to wait....
So I will be trying some at home ideas to improve his speech & help him with sensory issues.  Our short term goal is to get his iep started in fall & hopefully get him enrolled in school in January.

Kinda jumping around.  After we got Dalton diagnosed we switched to a new (awesome) speech therapy program that we had finally gotten Greysen into.  The months kept ticking along. Birthmom was not involved in the case for Greysen at all, but she kept mentioning guardianship -that she is willing to give us gaurdianship.  That doesnt exactly work for her to do that for us as we didnt know her before his birh as i guess that is part of the rule of who can get gaurdianship.  Anyhow, we went to court in late 2013 with the hopes she would voluntarily give up her rights. It was highley thought she would.  She didn't.  We went back to court late january 2014 kind of unsure how the case was going to progress. Sure enough, she decided to put Greysen first & surrender her rights.  We were unsure if she would appeal, but she didn't. So we adopted our son Greysen in early april & life has continued ticking on!

Very shortly after we adopted Greysen we closed our home & license.  I have a different perspective going through this than I did when I started.  I personally think in 5-10 years from now, we will open our home again, but even if we don't I will volunteer or be involved somehow in the foster system.  It is one screwed up system, but I was blessed with two little boys.

Ok so were is this blog going? I started this about when we started the adoption journey & now I am done.  Well I hope to bring daily life to this blog. I hope to share some ideas we are using for the kids to help them learn. I hope to bring the ups & downs of life with 2 special needs kiddos!  Stay tuned :)

Were this blog is going

So I know I don't write here often. Heck I haven't since late November!

I want to get back into blogging. My family is settling down. We are adopting T/G soon. We will be closing our license then. 

But I have been having a hard time finding hope lately.  I am tired of fighting our battle our selves. At least it is what it feels like.  My eldest son is autistic and I am having a hard time coping with all the options out there. I cant deal with the disbelief's.  We are currently on the wait to be put on the waiver wait list.  It feels like it has taken forever.  He is in speech. We just switched providers a few weeks back.  I love our therapist!  I am sad at how behind he is verbally.  Just for reference his expressive language (what he says) is worse than a 12m old... 

What I hope this blog becomes... is a safe haven for me to rant. A place to review products we are using with/for our son.  I also hope this to be a general home to journal my feelings & day to day goings on.  So join me on this journey! 

So much has happened!

Ok, so apparently I stink at keeping up with the blog! Well my excuse is I have a 8.5 month (yes I can't believe he is that old as well!!) to chase after!  He is crawling and pulling up all over the place, it truly is ridiculous how big he is getting. I want the baby back!!!  I miss cuddling with him, he may let me cuddle with him if he is SUPER tired, but that is about it, sigh...

So back on track to update.... He is ours now....we are so very happy, but at the same time not so sure it has really sunk in yet that he really truly is ours.  We haven't had a social worker visit in almost a month. I keep looking at my calender and thinking I need to call Ryan (our CW) and schedule a home visit, then I remember, Oh yeah we adopted him! It has been nice to be alone and bond more as a family, no cw intervening and telling us what we can/cant do.

A few days after we adopted D, my parents had a big party to celebrate his adoption. It was a really sweet day. A day that I look back on with happy tears! So many people came out to congratulate us on the adoption finalization.

We also just recently came back from a first airplane trip with the little man! we went to Cape Cod for a week. It was interesting, somewhat swore off of traveling with extended family, but D seemed to enjoy his extra time with Gma & Gpa, so that was good!  Some pictures in another post soon! I just wanted to quick pop on & update!!

So Fast

The journey that hubby and I have been on for the last six months is about to end. The train is about to stop and let us off to breath and just be. Be what you may ask? Be a family.

SB has been our family since day one, but it will be official in 61 days.

Everyone has said this is moving quick, everyone except us and our friends/family.  But sitting in court yesterday we were reminded yet again on how fast our case has gone. We had also received a round of congrats yesterday.

Yesterday we sat through a heart renching vol tpr hearing.  I silently cried or teared up through the whole thing.  So many questions just to make sure they are for sure on their decision.  The saddest part was when bio dad said he didn't have any family....I just wanted to get up and hug him right then and there.  Parents got released from court room, our cw got interviewed. Adoption date set.

So apparently people are super surprised that our case has moved so fast through the system, we think it is God! He placed us with a little guy he know we would fall in love with so deeply as if he was our own and knew how this was all going to work out even before SB was born.  God is good!!

Future

Future is not something you talk about when you foster. It is a touchy and hard area to bring up to someone who fosters.  I am of course talking from experience here.  I probably didn't go into fostering with the best intentions, I wanted a family, period.  Foster care was our best bet for creating a family, and it looks like we will soon be an official family.

Future is hard because before we got the paper work we lived in the here and now, maybe next month as well. Not a whole season ahead or a first birthday or an adoption party, or even our hopes and dreams for our little Prince.  That is what we are living in now, maybe preemptively, but hopefully.  We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, we know his future could be rocky, we are excited to just have a future with him in it.

So Thankful

I am not even sure that would be appropriate to title this. Thank you is not enough.  Thank you for giving my soon to be son life, a life that yes, did start out rocky, but a life.  Thank you for thinking beyond yourself. Even though there are so many things that cause you to not be a parent in social services mind, that one glimmer of hope I can see.  You chose for your son- our son, to have a better life. One that you knew you couldn't make happen. We are forever grateful.  We hope that we can maintain the right amount of openess.  We hope to be open and let you in, but at the same time guard this little boys heart, he has been through so much already. We can't wait for the day that we get to officially call String Bean our son.   We hope that the paperwork will be completed shortly so we can hopefully finalize the adoption by early fall.