Due Date: How 9 Months of Parenthood Gave Birth to a Family

I don't know which one is me nor what
we are doing but I know I am the mommy!

It’s not as often nowadays that I look at them like little aliens. It still happens, but on the whole they are much less scary and way more lovable than the day last August that the three little strangers turned up on our front porch. That’s a good thing, since we’re about to adopt them.

Adoption. I still remember the day that I first really considered it, sitting in a cubicle at work, realizing I’d rather raise someone else’s biological child than be sad for the rest of my life every time I saw a baby. Realizing that it was possible. I remember hoping that my family could accept an adopted child. I also remember the day shortly thereafter when I told my husband that my sister and I were going to a movie, and we really went to an information session on adopting. That was in September of 2009. I wanted to be sure I thought I could do it before I asked him to be a part of it with me for real. We’d been considering it all along, really – I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), the leading cause of infertility, and am not a fan of doctors, shots nor pills – but we had yet to take a first step on what would become a nearly 5-year journey to real, really really real, parenthood.

Oh, the things we have learned and survived, the joys and the fears, the highs and lows since they came. Now, 6, 5 and nearly 3, they’ve lived with us long enough to outgrow shoes. Keeping kids in shoes that fit is one tiny facet of my new world. Together with my husband and family I have survived with three children: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, two birthdays, half a dozen birthday parties, two lost teeth, doctors, dentists, therapists, stomach viruses, teachers, homework, the loss of a pet, car problems, house problems, boo-boos, potty training, Chuck E. Cheese and more laundry than I could have ever imagined. These are all normal occurrences, I realize. However, when you add three kids to anything, life becomes much more interesting.

This past December, less than five months after the kids’ arrival and right before Christmas, one of my seventh grade students hanged herself and died. Any way you look at it, it was a harrowing, disturbing and disheartening experience to have, and to try to overcome. But I was looking at it with three kids and all the pressure of a new foster mom. In the months that followed, I hid my grief the best I could from our children. Mommy was “sick” or needed to “rest” a lot. I felt horrible, depressed, and robbed of the joys of enjoying my children. As a human I knew what I had to do to grieve, but as a mother I was lost. As the school year went on, six more of my very own students would attempt to take their lives, one of them twice. The school protocol and lack of resources failed the students time and again, and their suffering went on unabated; we teachers found ourselves in a toxic and dangerous epidemic with very little support and no end in sight. Regardless, I would get up every day and go back to that school to try to love and protect and heal those kids, and I would come home every night and hide the tears from mine.

I tell this part of the story to say that it’s really an incredible feat, parenting, because just as the world does not stop turning after a young girl takes her life, the world does not stop turning for parents. Not if you’re sick, not if your car breaks down, not if you’re depressed or broke, fighting or scared. The kids are still there, they still need you, and I’ve achieved new feats of strength trying to rise to the occasion no matter what. On this Mother’s Day eve, I would like to thank my mother, along with my father, for fighting the good fight with their three kids not just when times were good, but when they were really, really hard. We never knew. Thank you.

On a lighter note, it came to me as I shopped for cards a week or so ago that I am a mother this Mother’s Day! So unusual and so instant was my role as a parent that I didn’t realize it until I stood in the greeting card aisle. It got even more real a few days later, when the adoption papers arrived in the mail. In mid-April, our case was finally moved from a foster to an adoptive caseworker with the state. Our children were granted full termination of parental rights (TPR) in December, and we waited and waited as the state moved through their processes. Some days it was easy to be patient – it had already been years – and others, like when your son randomly starts calling himself by your last name…not so much. As of today, we have the adoptive caseworker, an adoption lawyer, the actual certificates of adoption and the papers that go to the judge. We are mere weeks from a court date that will seal the deal for good. We’ll be a brand new family of five! I am so thankful for this gift and for everyone who has helped and supported us. Turns out we really need you.

My amazing parents have rented a house on the Texas coast for all of us to go on vacation this summer. In less than a month, this nightmare of a school year will be over, and they will still be here, our kids, headed to the beach as part of our forever family. For better or worse, we’ll be official; we belong to each other now, and it is exhilarating. Because in the end, after you’ve wiped away the tears, the blood or the vomit, this is what remains. And it is worth it.