Foster Further

When I look at the whole journey I can see that things are getting better. Our family is settling into the new normal of five kids, including three toddlers. I'm settling into managing the household demands of groceries, meals, laundry, baths, bedtimes, etc. Theo and I have figured out that I need way more support than ever before and how to provide that. The big boys have carved out their zones and we are intentional about preserving their interests and identities. The girls are truly becoming less anxious and more at home here every day. So many behaviors have come and gone. The negative behaviors that remain are less severe. Progress has been slow but it has also been steady. Kate has completely attached. At our family visit two days ago she cried when I walked away to buckle James into his carseat first and didn't want to stay with Grandma, as I'd intended. She calls me mama and acts towards me exactly as my bio children did when they were her age. I feel like she...

We're still in the process of having testing done to figure out what is going on, neurologically, with Jane. Meanwhile, there was another seizure-like incident that I got on video. I've shown it to a few friends and family members in the medical field and the suspicion is that she may actually be having catatonic episodes. When most people hear "catatonic" they think frozen or in a coma but those are just some of the manifestations. It can also include body contortions and facial grimacing that look like a seizure. The key difference is that speaking to or touching someone in a seizure will not bring them out of it whereas it's possible to bring someone out of these kinds of catatonic episodes. While catatonic episodes are associated with schizophrenia they can also be caused by past trauma. Given that the girls' mother has a history of mental health disorders and that we know they witnessed and experienced trauma, both causes are within the realm of pos...

We were at a family reunion last weekend. There was a pool out back and a road out front and I couldn't see both places at the same time. So, my husband and I took turns essentially gluing the girls to our sides. (Even with this level of precaution Kate smeared poop all over the relative's pristine bathroom in an attempt to go potty "by SELF!" as she adamantly insists now. And, Jane fell about five feet from one tree branch to another and got wedged in the tree and needed to be rescued by several big boy cousins and is full of cuts and scrapes today. This was all under Theo's watch, of course, while I chatted with the ladies. No poop or scrapes while I was on duty! Just sayin') Anyway, so my mom notices that we've got eagle eyes on the girls while James wanders around totally unsupervised or only under the care of his 12 yr old brother when he's in the pool. Why the double standard? Here was my explanation: Jane is like a 1 yr old child in both...

I need to just write this out here so I can revisit it and see if things change. 1. Her therapist and I both believe we see signs of a mental illness, or a significant neurological disruption characterized by seizures and personality changes, at age 3 yrs, 7 months. 2. We cannot "out-parent" a mental/neurological disorder. Even the best parents with the best strategies cannot undo brain chemistry. 3. I cannot dishonor the stories of parents who have gone before us, suffered greatly but then been brave enough to share their stories, by turning a blind eye and wishing it all away. 4. At the pace set by our adoption social worker we'd be finalizing the adoption 11 months after first meeting the girls. That's really, really fast. Given how young they are and how rapidly kids this age can change, we cannot say that we fully know them and know their needs at this point. 5. I don't know if we'll ever really know Jane. There's something missing. Some asp...

It's been awhile since I last posted. After I wrote the previous post where I grouped Jane's behaviors into weeks/months where we saw A and then weeks/months were we observed B, I went downstairs and started talking to Theo about this idea of A/B behaviors. The words, "it's like she's switching personalities..." were coming out of my mouth when I just stopped...horrified, frozen, tearful. Dear God. Her mother is bi-polar. Is it possible for a child to show traits of a mental illness this young? I know the medical community won't diagnose this young. What does this mean if it's already here? That moment pretty much sunk me. I went into a depression stronger than anything I've ever experienced before. So much fear. So much grief. Then...all the irrational responses: anger, distancing myself from her, resenting her for all the dark and nasty impulses this fear awakened in me. There were several days of doing nothing--frozen in the nonstop ...