april's first blog.

Well, today is Valentine's Day. I have caught a bug from school and I called in sick today. I see every student in the school once a week...which means I teach 600 students a week so I usually pick up whatever is going around. It was nice having Jason home with me today. We have not done much, I have laid around on the couch watching tv and caught a couple of naps. I feel very fluish with a fever, congestion, achey, tired, coughing etc. Jason is currently cooking a Valentine's feast so I am banned from the kitchen. I did not feel much like going out to fight the crowds and we usually try to eat at home on Valentine's Day. Some years I have cooked, some years Jason.
Last Valentine's Day we were sitting in our 3 hour long Mapp class..one of 10 that it took to earn our foster care license. What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time we were excited about all of the possibilities and this year we are heart broken by the loss of a child. I still struggle with losing my Madison. Most people don't understand this. They say "she was just a foster child" or "you only had her 5 months". But she was ours. The day they called us to come pick her up, they told us we would be able to adopt her and even up until about 2 weeks before she went back they (DSS) told us she would be ours. To those of you who have kids, imagine bringing your baby home from the hospital, and then five months later someone picking it up and you will never see or hear from your child again. Except it is worse because instead of being a newborn who only cries, Madison was 2 and she could talk and understand and carry on conversation with us. I don't regret one minute for taking in our precious child, but I hurt everyday without her. Our house is so quiet, so seemingly empty. Yes, I am satisfied with just Jason, but in the same sense Madison filled holes that he cannot fill. Jason has been great through all of this because who knows when I might burst into tears because we drive by the park where we used to take Madison, or when I lay down at night and cannot get her out of my head and I cry myself to sleep. I had all summer off with her, so I spent the most time with her. It is amazing the maternal instinct God gave me suddenly as well as the instant bond that formed between us. I still have a scar on my ankle....one day I was carrying Madison from the house to my car and I tripped over the garden hose that was across our sidewalk. I turned my ankle and fell onto the concrete...I turned myself so that Madison landed on my opposite hip...everything else I was holding...my pocketbook, keys, etc fell out of my hands, and my ankle was bleeding severely as I had cut it on the sidewalk, however Madison was uninjured and did not hit the ground, she fell on me instead. Just one of the many examples of motherly instinct. I still look at that scar and remember that day. How do you go from being a mother to suddenly not being a mother? I am like a fish out of water....in the afternoon, I feel as though I should be getting her a snack and picking her up from daycare and at night I am lost not having to give her a bath and get her to bed. I know that everything happens for a reason and that I will heal and that all we can do is trust God with our little angel, since we can not be there to protect her.
I know that with our big move, God has big plans for us, so big we cannot even imagine. I am not too happy about leaving my parents...but we are still working on getting them to come with us!! God may have us a child waiting for us in Florida or maybe the work God is calling us to do needs to be established before kids so that we can put our full effort into it. We cannot possible know the plans He has in store for us. So sit back and fasten your seat belts!!
love.
-april