I Want To Be A Mom
If you had any kind of conversation with me in the last hand full of years about life and relationships I would have told you I wanted to be a mom more than I wanted to be a wife. That basically became what I told people because that's how I felt. Dating seemed like a waste of time when I really just wanted to be a mom. It wasn't that I didn't want to get married, I of course did and for sure didn’t' want to spend the rest of my life alone, I just wanted to be a mom more so I started looking at what that would look like potentially on my own.
Part of what I want to share here at Peas & Pixels is my journey into becoming a foster mom and what life looks like as a foster parent now. But before I dive into that I want to share how and why I choose to become a foster parent.
The clock started to really tick after I turned 30, on the whole, starting a family thing and I could definitely feel a shift in the way I viewed "settling down". I knew what I wanted, I just needed to figure out a way to get it. At the time I was in a long term committed relationship with someone who went back and forth about having kids and I realized I was never going to get the family I had always hoped for if I waited for him to be ready. I was watching all my friends have kids, my parents get older…life was just passing me by. I bought my home 3 years ago and that was really I think what sealed the deal. I wasn't lonely really (though I had times of loneliness), the house just felt wasteful. The space felt so empty. I bought a house I could grow into but once I was actually in it, it felt wasteful not to fill it as soon as I could.
I briefly googled things like the cost of freezing my eggs ( you know just in case I met Mr. Right eventually), listened to podcasts about sperm banks, searched through online galleries of photos of kids up for adoption in my area….it all just felt so cold and honestly came with dollar signs I couldn't possibly wrap my head or my bank account around. Enter one of my best friends and her family. They are now a family of 10, yup you heard that right, 10. Her and her husband, 5 children that they have adopted out of foster care and 3 that they are currently fostering with the hopes to adopt. 8 kids you guys! So freaking unbelievable. They had been foster parents for years when I hit this turning point in my life and I can't say I ever really considered it for myself. Mostly because I didn't know you could be a single foster parent, I just assumed they only let "families" become foster parents and secondly because I didn't know if I had the emotional capacity to actually do it. And then there was also the idea of coming to terms with not having my own biological children ( a topic I promise to discuss on another day). But the more I learned about foster care the more my heart was opened to the idea. Most foster parents come from a religious background and will tell you that God just called them to be a foster parent. I didn't have some great revelation, I just had a home and heart I wanted to fill and then once you know about foster care, the amount of kids in the system, the need that exists, you can't unknown. It becomes kind of all-consuming in that way. You think about it a lot. The magnitude of a broken system filled with broken kids and you just want to give the whole idea a big hug and never let go.
About 2 years ago, I went on my annual trip to see Alyse and her family and I knew I really wanted to talk to her about it. Not just on a surface level but a real like "can I do this?" kind of conversation. We sat down to lunch one day and told her I wanted to talk about it and before I could even get my questions out she was all "YES". The biggest concern for me is that I didn't know if I could do it alone, not physically and emotionally but if even legally they would allow me as a single women to be a foster parent, turns out totally a thing and sometimes they even need a single-parent household for a child. I wondered as a small business owner that makes just enough money to pay my bills if I would even qualify to be a foster parent. Turns out I do, just barely. That day at lunch she gave me probably the best advice and it's the advice I give everyone I talk to. If your thinking about it, start the process NOW! Don’t wait, make the phone call now. It takes longer than you think so start the process and if you decide you don't want to become a foster parent that's ok but start anyways. Best advice ever you guys because from that date to actually becoming a foster parent was over a year. A lot of things factored into that but it's not a quick process no matter which way you slice it.
The 5 amazing kids that showed me how truly beautiful foster care is <3
Pretty much from that day forward I decided I was going to become a foster parent. Moments of doubt crept in at different parts of the process but not about things I expected and nothing big enough to derail me. This was it, this was how I was going to become a mom. Now, I do have to preface this with that fact that I knew a lot about foster care prior to this. Watching Alyse and her husband from the moment she told me they were going to be foster parents to 5 kiddos later, I got to see it all, the good the bad and the ugly. I knew what foster care entailed (as much as someone could) without actually living it.
It was pretty much that simple. I wanted to be a mom more than I wanted to be a wife and once you know about foster care you can't unknown. So here I am a foster mom. And for those of you wondering, turns out the universe works in amazing ways because I got Mr. Right too. (Another great story for another day).
Now, this all sounds super positive but my journey into foster care wasn't really all that positive. I wrote about it a lot and I will be sharing those journal entries with you over time as you follow along. It was tough, really though. Emotionally tough for me. Lots of things to work out in my head and my heart, way more soul searching than I thought. But I want to share it because when I was becoming a foster parent there were so many resources out there that talked about parenting children of trauma, how to deal with food issues in foster kids, how to form healthy attachments, ways to talk about foster care with your kids, how to prepare your home…so many resources but not one talked about emotionally preparing to become a foster parent and you guys I needed that so bad. I needed just one blog post, one podcast, one voice telling me that everything I was feeling was totally normal. Thankfully, I had Alyse but I couldn't help wondering how many people maybe didn't become foster parents because they didn't have support starting out. So I'm going to share it all. The tears, and self revelations and then follow it up with the awesomeness that is me becoming a mom and then continue it with the real life, day to day this is what foster care really looks and feels like, the real stuff not the fluffy stuff that foster care resources talk about.
So whether you are maybe interested in becoming a foster parent, a foster parent already, curious about foster care, or maybe just a regular parent…their will be something to connect with in these entries I promise.
Lastly, my awesome BFF Alyse that I mentioned above, she is not only raising this amazing beautiful family but she is so passionate about foster care that her and her husband run an amazing group/blog that is all things foster care. She writes too about all the hard icky parts and all the amazing parts and provides great facts and information as well as some great foster parent merch so please go check them out at Foster Love Adopt Repeat and follow them on facebook and instagram.
And lastly, if you have questions about foster care… ANY questions, big or small please reach out!