I can hardly wrap my head around this little cutie pie turning 2!!! Does time seem to be going faster and faster or it is just me?

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we brought Rafael home from the hospital.

So how has this boy been doing??

Overall he’s been doing great though there has been some disappointing and upsetting developmental backtracking . Remember that video of him being so excited to learn to stand? He was standing all the time, and looking like walking was on the near horizon.

And then – the holidays ended and he was back to daycare. He was continually sick and always seemed tired and weak. He completely stopped standing, let alone move forward with anything else. His physical therapist told me a couple of days ago that it’s like he’s gone backwards several months developmentally, which is exactly what I see.

That’s the hardest part about fostering, that sometimes I have to do something I don’t believe to be in his best interests because that’s what the system demands. I can see it’s daycare isn’t good for him, and yet I still have to do it because they think a child does better in an outside educational framework. I pushed hard for an extra year for him to be at home with me and got it, and have to remind myself to feel grateful we were able to delay daycare as long as we were.

An issue that’s been challenging for us is that Rafael has shown very little inclination to eat from the time we started offering him solids at 10 months. From that time, he never ate more than two teaspoons a day total and only of few very foods. Nothing sweet. Nothing mushy. Nothing too chunky. Cucumbers and rice cakes were the only constants he would agree to.

Though he was medically approved for a specialty formula from the time he was a small infant, we didn’t often give it to him because we used donated mother’s milk. Only when we ran out would we use the formula, and it was very apparent that he never got sick except when he had formula for more than two or three days.

Recently he went through a month long period of one cold after another, nothing serious in and of itself;  the daycare staff told me it’s typical for a child in his first year of daycare. But he wasn’t eating much and he was even throwing up small amounts of formula – and my husband finally said, that’s it, we’re getting him off this formula.

I worried, how can we do that when he’s hardly eating anything? I mean, this child doesn’t eat. The formula was my security blanket, to know he was getting nourishment.  My husband said, the formula is making him sick, we’ve got to give him something else.

I had thought of replacing his formula with chicken broth several months before, but his speech therapist said she didn’t want me to do that. That night, we went cold turkey on the formula.

He was a very unhappy child for about a day and a half, during which time he very reluctantly would drink some small amounts of chicken soup from his bottle. But within two days, he was feeling much, much better. He suddenly was healthy again.

Not only that, suddenly he wanted to eat.  A lot. It was crazy and striking and amazing.

He began to intently watch everyone eating and literally overnight started to motion to have that food. And then he’d finish it, and have more. And then more of something else. After 14 months of trying and trying so many different foods and so many different ways to get him to eat, it was miraculous. I was afraid to believe it, afraid it was just a fluke.

But it wasn’t. And a couple of days after that, he stood up for the first time in six weeks.

So that’s all been very recent and very exciting!

The next thing that I’m working on is getting his sleep adjusted. Before he went to daycare, he would take a morning and afternoon nap, and sleep through the night. He was generally an extremely happy and good natured baby.

Then that all changed. He stopped sleeping through the night and the much shorter nap he had at daycare was much less than he was getting at home. He has been really grumpy and miserable when I pick him up, purely as a result of exhaustion. I estimated he was losing about 3 hours of sleep daily. That’s a LOT.

But by the time he gets home it’s mid afternoon and too late in the day for another nap.  So that’s the challenge right now which I feel very optimistic about resolving.

I don’t have a camera but my oldest daughter came by for dinner tonight and I asked her to snap some shots to share with you in honor of his birthday.

Rafael has a way of showing very clearly his feelings for someone. When he sees someone he loves, his face lights up and he reaches both hands out to him- my boys love being the one to pick him up from daycare because they are then the recipient of his beaming smile and outreached hands.

Oh, my gosh, how we love this boy!

Avivah

Before I met the birth parents of the baby whose file we had been recommended for, I had a clear idea of what we were looking for.

I have a high value for win-win relationships and it was important to me that the parents are people whom we liked and respected, and who would like and respect us.  It’s also important to me that the child we bring into our family can be raised like all of our other kids, to have a true sense of belonging – not to be pulled between two families.  This was my biggest concern about fostering.

If I made a wish list of what I wanted the birth parents to be like, it would look like this couple.  Really.  I couldn’t have custom ordered a better set of parents to be in this relationship with.

By the time they met us, they had already met with two other families and interviewed a third on the phone.   (We were the only family recommended by our agency; the other families were through other agencies.) The wife told me they aren’t going to just take whoever is available, that they’ll wait two or three weeks longer if necessary to find a really good home for him. Since this is a placement for the next 21 years, they want him to be in a home where he will be truly loved and nurtured.

(This placement is in some ways more similar to an open adoption than what is typically referred to as ‘foster care’.  Foster care is intended as a temporary situation with the intent to rehabilitate the family so the child can return.  We certified to do foster care for children with special needs, and in these cases, the child is given up because of a disability that the parents aren’t able to deal with and there is no expectation that the child will return to live with his biological parents.  However, the biological parents are expected to maintain some kind of connection with the child – this can be as infrequent as two hours once a year – the child keeps their last name and they have the legal rights to make decisions for the child.)

We were the last option – the couple was told some inaccurate information about what kind of community RBS is and that’s why we weren’t initially contacted for a meeting. That was later corrected and then they were in touch with me.

They are kind, intelligent, caring, open minded, and very very much appreciate the kind of home environment we can provide.  Our expectations of one another and how we see the fostering relationship being handled is very compatible.  We genuinely like and respect them, and it seems the feeling is mutual.

We agreed that we’d all like to move forward with this placement and if it were up to us, we’d have all driven to the hospital together and taken care of it right then!  But it’s not up to us.

Though there are two motivated sets of parents and a six week old infant waiting in the hospital who is medically ready to be released, we have to wait for the social workers to be in touch with one another to set an official time for us all to meet in their presence.  Then there are technical details to sort out and then we have to meet with the doctors at the hospital and meet the baby himself.

None of that sounds to me like it should take that long and I expected that the parents having already met would have expedited this process significantly.  But there seems to be a protocol that needs to be followed regardless.

Almost two weeks ago I was told the placement could be done within two days, and then told it could even be pushed into one long day if necessary.  Today I asked for some kind of timeline so I can make plans for my week – I can’t leave every day completely open just in case they decide to call me in at the last minute.  She said that she really can’t tell me how long it could be, that all these factors aren’t in her control and it could take another week.  Or maybe more?  It’s very undefined, which leaves me wondering how long this could drag out for?

I called a friend who is an experienced foster parent and outlined the entire situation.  Is it likely, I asked, that in this situation – with both sets of parents in agreement along with us already being certified – that something can happen so that it won’t work out?  She didn’t think it was likely.  Possible, but not likely.

An Israeli friend who is a lawyer told me to be careful not to get emotionally involved, that until everything has been tied up, there’s no assurances of anything.

She’s right.  Anything can happen and there’s no guarantee that this will work out, as positive as it all seems right now.

So that’s where I am now.  Once more, waiting and wondering.

Avivah

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the social worker who is responsible for our foster care file.  She apologized for delay in processing our paperwork, and said that the supervisor was requesting more information about us after learning that Yirmi (age 4) is being homeschooled.

Homeschooling isn’t a common choice in Israel and hearing Yirmi isn’t in a school framework triggered the supervisor to look extra closely at our case.  She wanted to know: have we ever homeschooled another child, if so, who, why, and how long.  They made additional inquiries beyond the standard application – they wanted to know if he is being taken to the well baby clinic for checkups and to the child development center for therapies, and requested additional medical references to speak to (in addition to those references who are usually requested whom they had already spoken with).

After a long conversation in which I provided all the additional information that was requested as well as a conversation with our pediatrician (who when pressed for a response if there’s something suspicious since we don’t take Yirmi to the child development center for therapies said, ‘What don’t you understand?  She’s the best mother ever and I would want to be a child in her home!’) , our file has now been approved.

So what happens now?  Is it imminent in the near future that we’ll be welcoming a new child into our family?  It doesn’t seem like that, since we were told we’ll need to attend a two day foster care workshop before they will let us bring a child home – and the next workshop we can attend won’t be earlier than the end of April.  So unless the agency decides there’s a baby who needs a home and is willing to let us defer attendance of this workshop until after we foster a baby, we’ll be waiting for a while.

(Not all foster care agencies have this requirement – a friend who does foster care in a different part of the country was surprised by this requirement, since neither she nor her friends who do foster care had to do this for their agency. )

I feel very at peace with this situation as it is.  We’ve done our part and if and when there’s a need for our help, it will happen at that time and only at that time.  I’m not trying to second guess G-d’s plans and timing!  When something changes, I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

Avivah

Today I received a voice text from a friend who commented on how it seems that something is leading us in the direction of helping newborn infants with Trisomy 21 whose families don’t want to keep them.

She was referring to my involvement with Baby M in addition to my posting several days ago on Facebook about another baby girl with T21 who was waiting in the hospital for a foster family.  In that case, I was contacted by four different people within a short period and was in contact with a social worker who verified that baby happily has found a home.

I’ve heard it said that you don’t choose your mission but that your mission chooses you.  I can’t say that this is my mission.  I certainly haven’t sought it out.  But it’s interesting that these situations came to me without me soliciting them in any way.  For whatever reason, different people thought that we could be of help, though I never indicated any specific interest or desire to do this.

My lack of expressed interest about it wasn’t due to a concern or willingness.  In fact, it was two days before someone called us about Baby M, after weeks of discussion with my husband and children, that I spoke with a foster care agency representative and told them we wanted to apply as a foster family for an infant with T21.  No one who contacted me knew anything about that, though!

I don’t like to talk about things until there’s something to talk about and hence haven’t shared about this.  However, the application process has have been humming along in the background, and I decided today to share this with you.

The application process to become a foster parent takes about 3 – 4 months.  At the end of last week we completed our foster care application for children with special needs.   (This is a different track than fostering children who don’t have special needs.)  In Israel, fostering a child with special needs is a long term commitment – until the age of 21.

The application process included medical checks, bloodwork, extensive paperwork, criminal checks on everyone in our family over the age of 18, and several visits by a social worker to our home (including meeting with our youngest six children and discussing fostering with them) and a tour of our home.

The meetings with the social worker were pleasant and she told us at the end of our final visit that it had been very inspiring for her to  meet us.  Which was of course nice to hear but trying to impress her wasn’t something we set out to do.  I think she got an accurate idea of who we are and how we parent, and I’m glad of that.  (She also told me she can’t understand how I don’t have a clothes dryer and every time she does laundry for her two children she now thinks of me! :))

She asked each child their thoughts on fostering.  Ds7 told her it would be nice to have another person in our family.  “But you have so many people in your family already,” she protested.  Ds7: “It’s not so many – it feels like we’re a pretty small family!” 🙂  It really does feel like that to us sometimes!

At this point we’re waiting for the final approval of our application, which we were told to expect will take 2 – 4 weeks.  My younger kids have asked several times, “When are we getting a baby???” and I’ve explained to them it’s not like a store that has babies stocked and you pick one off the shelf!  If a baby is born who matches our profile, we’ll be contacted.  This could take a very short or very long time.

I don’t feel any urgency about this.  We’ve done what we can to be positioned to help if there’s an opportunity to help, in a way that is aligned with our values.  If our help in this way is called upon or not  isn’t up to us!  My preference is that every child with T21 will be born to a family who will love and cherish him – that would clearly be the best scenario.  I’d really rather not be needed!

If it does happen that there’s a situation in which there’s an infant who needs a home and we’re able to offer that, then of course you’ll hear about it.  But don’t wait with bated breath – as I said, it could be a long time!

Avivah