Wednesday

Wednesdays are rough in our house. We have come to accept that to the point where it's kind of a running joke…like oh man it's Wednesday. Good luck.

Wednesdays got their bad reputation because they are the days we have court. They are our visitation days. Wednesdays have pretty much become our day of foster care crap we don't really want to deal with. Now let me preface this with the fact that I know that this is what we signed up for. Court dates and visitations and home visits and all the other things that come with being a foster parent, but here's the thing guys when you are actually living it, it's not fun.

Court is stressful. You have expectations, it never plays out anywhere near how you imagine, visitation is stressful, sometimes she shows, sometimes she doesn't, sometimes she is nice sometimes she isn't. It's a lot, in the weirdest ways.

With all of that said, we signed up for it, so I can't really complain and while it's a lot logistically with a little one (try keeping a baby quiet in a courtroom for hours and packing up a baby for visitation and dropping them off only to have to pick them back up 15 minutes later when mom doesn't show) that's not what makes Wednesdays hard.

I hate Wednesdays because they are a reminder that we are not a normal family and he isn't ours forever. Wednesdays are a reminder that he could leave at any time. Wednesdays are a reminder that it's not just about us in our little bubble but all these other people involved in his life whether we want them to or not. Most days I forget. Foster care isn't something I think about every day. I'm surprised by that. I didn't think that would happen. I thought it would weigh on me every day but it doesn't. At almost 11 months in, I don't think about it very often. We love him as if he were our own. We are “mamma” and “dada”. We are his family, we are his home. He is ours. But he isn't. That isn't promised to us and Wednesdays remind me of that in the realist way. They remind me that while we are almost a year in, we are no closer to knowing whether he will be ours forever or if he will be leaving. That thought is so overwhelming as a parent. As a mother, it is heart-wrenching. I can't imagine him not being here. I can't imagine what our life would look like without him. I can't imagine his life without us. I wish I didn't have to. I wish it was clear cut, black and white. But foster care is so gray. Wednesdays are so gray. Within just an hour or two on a Wednesday our whole mood can shift. Our entire attitude towards our case changes.

The entire case can change.

Or nothing can happen. Some Wednesdays have shaken us to the core of our being and are filled with lots of tears and others are just another stressful day. They aren't all bad but they are a reminder. A reminder that we are foster parents. That he is a foster child, that he isn't ours forever. I’m here for what is best for him. I believe in the system when it works the way it suppose to. I support reunification when appropriate but those ideals get harder and harder to say out loud and still believe. The longer he is here the less I think about the other people connected to him. The other people connected by genetics. It's hard to imagine that genetics could win over love. That are system places importance on that. That one tiny gene could change everything for us, for him.

It's crippling to think about, I think that's why I try not to. Most days we are just us, our little family. I have my moments when he is falling sleep in my arms, big blue eyes locked with mine where the tears fall because I'm so in love and can't imagine losing him but I can't live in that space. The space of what if. I can't love him like that. He deserves all the love, uninhibited, every single second of every day and that's what he gets. And our lives are so much richer because of it. So Wednesdays are Wednesdays. They are usually kind of crappy. They are the night we order take out or eat pre-made dinner, have a few drinks, and just call it a day. We are powerless on Wednesdays. Uh. I feel pretty powerless most days as a foster parent as I imagine most foster parents do but these kiddos need us to be powerful for them because they are so much more powerful than we could ever be. So this Wednesday I'm going to change my narrative. Because this Wednesday we get one more day with him. One more day to love him unconditionally no matter what and there is nothing gray about that.