Meet Laura, a very dear friend of mine. We met way back in 2006 when her foster son at the time was enrolled in my Infant classroom at a childcare center. I remember her as being charismatic, willing to talk to anyone, always offering and willing to help anyone and so much more. As she continued her foster parent journey she had started, we became closer and closer.
Aside from being a foster parent, Laura has been working with children and families in a wide variety of settings for the last 30 years. She has worked in early child care centers, substance abuse programs and poverty support programs. It is within these programs and within her church that she has provided support groups for parents that are planning to or have built their family through adoption, providing families education in their homes, and completing developmental needs assessments for children.
She comes to us highly educated, with an undergraduate degree in Social Work, a Master's Degree in Education and several certificates including Advanced Trauma-Competent Caregiving. She has also completed all training offered by he National Institute for Trauma & Loss in Children (STARR Commonwealth Programs) leading her to become a certified Trauma and Resilience Trainer.
Currently, Laura works as Assistant Director of the Restorative Intervention Services Program at Connections Day School and Connections Academy East. In this role she develops programs, provides education and training for teachers, program assistants and therapists as well as oversees 11 interventions specialists. In addition to this she leads 3 therapy groups, 2 for students are do not live with their biological parent(s) (due to being adopted, in foster care, or DCFS custody) and 1 for students who are struggling with grief after experiencing the loss of someone in their life. Laura is also one of the founders of Cultivate Lake County, whose mission is to transform the lives of children in need by empowering caregivers. To learn more check it out here- www.cultivatewithus.org
Without further ado- Laura's Story-
My Journey; My Voice
Our Beginning
I have been asked to share my story surrounding being a foster parent. This surprisingly doesn’t come easy for me. I feel that my words will not give my story true justice, but I will do my best. My name is Laura and I am a very passionate person who cares deeply for children and families. As I prepare to share our story with you and walk you through our journey, I reflect on a quote,
“Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
No words could better describe our journey.
WE DO!
These are such simple, yet important “rules to live by.” My husband and I both worked for many years with children and families from diverse cultures prior to choosing to build our life together in 2002. In fact, that is just how we met, at a nonprofit agency working with a variety of programs including child care, foster care and residential treatment, to name a few. As many young girls dream of getting married and having children, so did I. My dream was to have a house full of children both biological and caring for children in need with the man I loved. I can remember back in third grade when my class went on a field trip to Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in the United States created by Jane Addams and Ellen Starr. Its initial programs provided recreational facilities for disadvantaged children as they fought for child labor laws and helping immigrants become U.S citizens. I knew right then and there I wanted to care for at-risk children and families. This experience helped me care for my siblings at a young age as my dad worked long hours to provide for our family and navigate my mom, who later was found to have postpartum depression and schizophrenia. There was little known about both of these in the 70’s which was challenging. I saw my family pull together to help us as I lived with my cousin for a year and was separated from my siblings because my grandma was caring for them. Although many people feel sad for me, I wouldn’t change it for the world even though it was a heart wrenching experience at times. It really prepared me for not just my foster care journey, but my career path in life and being a parent. The cool thing is that it also led me to my wonderful and supportive husband of nearly 20 years.
Being with the man I loved, listening to his silly jokes that made me laugh, and seeing his love for his daughter was so captivating; he asked me to marry him in 2001.
All of our dreams would come true, but not in the way we planned. We were off to a romantic wedding and honeymoon in the Bahamas where we were married by the ocean since we both love the sandy beach and warm sun. Our dreams were coming true, just as we planned. I was marrying the man I was instantly attracted to and fell in love with, met his wonderful daughter and family, built a beautiful home and planned to have a child immediately. That is when a part of our dream went in a different direction. As we watched the progression of our house being built, we decided we would begin trying to have a baby.
Journey to Being Foster Parents
Although we started trying to have a baby, little did we know that it wouldn’t happen as quickly as we were hoping. Many of us feel alone as we struggle to get pregnant and try to make sense of why we are not able to conceive. I did this over and over for 6 months and then talked to my doctor who suggested we keep trying for the next 6 months, and come see her if I was still having difficulty conceiving. She stated if we were still struggling, we could see a specialist to get more answers. However, I decided to research specialists and see what our options were to help cope with the frustration and pain of not being able to conceive. Even though we had only been trying for 6 months, each month, as the end of my cycle approached, I waited with great anticipation and then deep sadness, as my period came. I tried everything I could to get pregnant like recording my menstrual cycle, monitored my ovulation (which was like clockwork), took prenatal vitamins, ate healthy, worked out and stopped drinking. It was important for me to make sure I was doing all I could to make our dreams come true, so my next step was to see a specialist.
Fertility Specialist: I went to two specialists, one male and one female. My husband came with me when I visited the male specialist and to be frank, he was an insensitive a**! In my husband’s own words, he did not have much empathy and the experience felt depersonalized. I left feeling ashamed, hurt and hopeless. However, my husband was my ROCK! What an amazing man that comforted me and had hope when I did not! This was 17 years ago and I tear up to this day reflecting on how my husband pulled me through this part of my life.
I decided to see a family specialist and she was everything I was hoping for the first time around. She showed me lots of empathy and even said, “I really want to help you have a baby.” She provided me HOPE! There were numerous basic attempts working with my OBGYN to get pregnant, such as Clomid. I was not convinced fertility treatment was the route I personally wanted to take to have a baby. During this time, I did a lot of reading, so much praying for direction and for God to wrap around me to help reduce my pain.
Finally, my direction was made clear to me after an experience at work where I was a Director at a child care center. I was working from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. due to being short staffed and one night when I was closing the center, a two-year-old girl had not been picked up by her parents. I called both mom and dad with no answer and left each a message. I tried calling the emergency contacts but no answer. At this point, I talked with my supervisor and we made the decision to contact the police. It was 8 p.m. and our center closed at 6:00 p.m. In the end, we finally were able to get her dad to pick her up and she went home safe and sound. This was the experience that connected all of my life experiences together and I knew I wanted to be a foster parent. I would have taken that little two-year-old girl home in a second. It took me back to Hull House and my dreams of caring for at-risk children and families. Now to convince my husband that this was our calling!
Convincing My Husband: That night I drove home at 10 p.m. thinking and praying about how I could share my experience with my husband and convince him this was the path I felt was my purpose. I knew no other way to share with my husband than to let God lead me and let my passion flow through. I shared the story with my husband and talked about how it was clear to me that we needed to be foster parents. Time went by and nothing from my husband. Periodically I would say, “It wouldn't hurt if we just got some information... It wouldn’t hurt to just go to an orientation... It wouldn't hurt to just fill out an application.” This not-so-subtle approach worked and on November 10, 2005, we started attending foster care PRIDE classes.
The Foster Care Process: We started our PRIDE classes in November, 2005 with 23 people and attended once a week for 3 hours and went for 9 weeks. PRIDE stands for Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education. It is a program used to prepare and educate families that are interested in being a foster parent. This model is based on the belief that families need special strengths, knowledge and skills, as well as a community of support, in order to be the most successful foster parents they can be. The curriculum is based on five competencies that promote the need to not only understand how to best help children that have been abused and neglected, but to also strengthen all families.
Help children feel safe and nurtured.
Know how to work to best meet a child’s needs & to help a child overcome delays.
Resources families need to know how to best help children build relationships with their biological parents.
How to help children build other connections that will sustain them through life.
To understand how to be part of a team that has the goal of helping children and families.
This was the beginning of my journey to become educated on trauma and using a trauma informed lens when working with at-risk children. I share this information with you as I feel there is often a lot of blaming and criticizing of DCFS. Although some of the concerns are valid, I can truly say I rarely hear people talk about the positive things that happen through DCFS. There were times I was very frustrated and definitely had to advocate and bring up concerns, but I would not be as trauma-informed as I am if I had not gone through this process and would not have reunited a family, which I am grateful for.
My husband and I completed our intensive classes on January 28, 2006. We also chose to take an extra course which was an Educational Advocacy class. This allowed us to be an advocate for a child in school. Once we finished all of our classes, we just had to wait for our licensing worker to complete a home visit in February 2006 and then waited for the license to be approved. When our licensing worker visited, she shared happy and heart-wrenching stories along with having us say aloud several times, “We are foster parents.” I remember being excited and nervous all at the same time. She wanted us to be clear that the goal is for the child to reunite with their family. My husband and I were excited to help support a family and baby.
Even after all the classes, there was still an extensive amount of work to be done through the home study process. We ultimately received our license in the beginning of 2006. We really wanted a young child age birth to 3 years old, but we were open to any race/ethnicity, babies exposed to drugs, any family circumstance. It is a lot to process and decide what you and your partner are both capable of handling.
The Wait: Now the wait! I needed to keep busy and that meant, so did my husband. We worked on painting the baby room and adding personal touches to the room . We made the room gender neutral with light yellow and green for the walls and hung a jungle animal border. We bought furniture for the room like a crib and a dresser. It helped me to keep busy.
The Call: It was a Thursday in mid-April of 2006 when my husband received the phone call from our foster care agency supervisor---- a 5 pound, two week old baby boy had been taken into custody by DCFS who was staying at The Cradle and was in need of a placement. My husband remembered receiving the call so clearly and after he talked with me, we had no doubt we would care for this baby boy for as long as we needed to. Before the caseworker and baby arrived, I remember running out to shop at Target to buy a bassinet, bottles, pacifiers, car seat etc. I arrived home and was showing my husband what I bought and the doorbell rang. I instantly fell in love! My husband was surprised that I just scooped him up in my arms, looked right into his eyes and talked with him as his eyes closed tightly. He was sleeping so soundly as my heart was beating out of my chest and tears began welling up in my eyes.
The Beauty and Brokenness of the Foster Parent Experience-
This experience was simultaneously the most difficult and best adventure I have ever experienced, as this became another step in our journey to one day build our family through adoption. I can go on and on as I am not sure what would be helpful for soon-to-be or current foster parents since each experience is unique and so are the people involved in the process. I am the type of person that believes that each experience in our lives shapes who we are in one way or another. We can take these experiences to learn/grow or they can harden our hearts. I can share all the hard and heartbreaking experiences and how it has shaped and helped me grow to be a better person, professional and parent.
What a joy it was to have this little baby placed in our home for us to create a safe, secure place and provide an opportunity for him to be loved while his parents were receiving the support they needed so they could care for him when they were able. With this also comes brokenness and loss with the baby separated from their family. A generational cycle of brokenness within families sometimes is perpetuated into the next generation- abuse, neglect, and abandonment become a part of the child’s story. Nobody asks for this...not the parents, and not the child.
I was excited about being a foster parent. To be a voice for the voiceless. I was driven to care for a little baby, so we could assist in reuniting a child with his parents. We wanted to help a family break the cycle of brokenness and do whatever we needed to assist in the process of helping heal a family. I looked forward to that challenge. As we went through this process, so did our family and friends supporting us all the way through and till this day.
Some days, though, felt unbearable. It was such a roller coaster ride! It felt like I couldn't get off and the ride kept going faster and faster. The struggles of the disruptions our baby boy went through were the toughest for me. I feared and worried about him having a secure attachment. These concerns increased when the parents were inconsistent about showing up for visits, and then later when overnight visits began. I worried deeply about how this was impacting him as he didn’t have a voice in any of this, and I was scared because he was attached to my husband and I. I constantly wondered if he would be ok. I have vivid memories of meeting his parents in the parking lot to drop him off for overnight visits. When I would hand him to one of his parents, he would cry a heart-wrenching cry and my heart ached. We also attended court proceedings, which were difficult, and knew that the parents didn’t want us involved once he was returned home. Oftentimes, I prayed, asking God for direction and I have to honestly say, I hoped to be his mom when times were tough and fear took over me. This is where asking God for direction led me to take a step back and listen to Him as He made it clear this is my purpose here on Earth. It gave me clarity on why I was doing this! I knew I needed to pray for God's will and be led by faith over fear! I had some dark moments where I would cry on my knees praying. I rarely think about those days now, as I try to focus on the joy and beauty of what I learned and how I grew from this experience.
Reunification and Farewell: It was decided that the toddler we took care of for 366 days was returning home. Foster parents receive a formal 14-day notice when it is decided that a child will be reunited with their parents. My husband and I had a mixture of emotions and really wanted to plan how we could have closure knowing it was likely we wouldn’t see him again. This I had to leave to God and His will. My husband and I planned to have a celebration at our home for him, with all the people he met and impacted through his year with us. It was a beautiful celebration and we didn’t even know the extent of the impact our journey had on people till the day of the celebration.
What helped me through this was God, my husband, family, and friends. In addition, I let myself grieve and really go through the process. This experience really could have rocked our marriage, but instead it strengthened it. We were in it together. One of my favorite memories was sitting with my husband together on our couch reading through the cards and letters people brought to the celebration. We cried many tears together, which may seem sad, but it wasn’t. It is okay to allow yourself to be sad and go through the grieving process with others instead of isolating yourself and feeling alone. We talked about all the great memories we shared and how this little boy brought so much joy to us and others. Some of my favorite memories were journaling this experience every day which was so therapeutic; waking up in the middle of the night to feed the little peanut; building a relationship with his family, and learning about the foster care process, where I learned how to advocate for children that are unable to voice it for themselves.
The night before he was to be returned to his parents, my husband and I wrote a letter to his family. All the little moments that have brought us so much happiness are forever etched in our hearts. In the letter we shared that “We feel privileged to have cared for your child and he has enriched our lives beyond belief. We hope that our paths cross again and that we want to be here as a resource for your family.” When the caseworker came to pick him up, I remember it was a sunny day and we were all playing outside before he left. We sent this letter and a suitcase full of clothes (because many youth in care come to foster homes with a garbage bag just like he did). In addition, the money we received from having him in our home, we put into a savings bond for him when he is older.
Ultimately, his family reflected & decided 6 weeks later to try and build a relationship with us. I am proud to share that all these years later, both families consider each other family. We go on vacations together & do things throughout the year as families do. I talk with his mom almost every day and couldn't imagine my life without her. It was so hard, but so worth it and I would do it all over again...but even better! Stay tuned to see how our family was built through adoption.
Until next time on adoptive adventures,
- Laura, M.Ed., CTP-E, Certified Trauma & Resilience Trainer, former foster parent, parent, Co-Founder of Cultivate of Lake County (Chapter) and Director of Compassion for Kids Ministry through the Chapel.
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