Rodney and I took the weekend off to just spend time with each other and do things that make us happy. Life is so hard right now. We're extremely blessed...we've recently sold and purchased two new vehicles, sold our home, we have each other, we have our health, and we still have our sweet Theron. But after almost 6 months of fostering Barrett, who we brought home from the hospital as a newborn, he's gone. He's been going on weekend visits with his dad, and his dad showed up early on Friday to come pick him up for his visit, said, "See you guys on Sunday!" and then a couple of hours later, one of Barrett's workers called us to bluntly say, "Well dad has custody, you won't be seeing him anymore." Nevermind that we had no forewarning. Nevermind that we just raised him from birth for almost six month. Nevermind that dad still has our carseat and some of the other items we've purchased for him. Nevermind that we didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. Not to mention that fact that dad has clearly shown that he can't parent a baby at all (he's almost 60!! He has 3 grown children in their 30s and works a full-time job with long hours and no spouse, so who knows who's actually going to raise Barrett). Also he thinks the only reason he cries is when he's hungry, so he gives Barrett (not even quite 6 months old yet!!) 8 oz bottles every single time he cries, can only get him to sleep a few hours during the night (he sleeps 10+ at our house), never bathed him when he'd have him for the weekend, etc.

Ugh it's just so incredibly terrible. For those who never knew, I sent out a couple of unlisted vids on FS almost 2 years ago telling everyone that Rodney and I found out it's 100% impossible for us to have biological children. We've always planned on adopting, and my whole life I've actually had a stronger desire to adopt than to have bio children. But it's so much more complex than that. For instance, my somewhat close friend just announced to me that she and her husband are expecting. This was after a day of us hanging out where my period cramps were so painful that I could barely walk around the mall (I have severe period pains that make no sense, and people don't seem to realize if you're never pregnant, you never get a break from periods), and also explaining to her that there was a chance Barrett could leave us at the end of the week. This friend and her husband can literally BARELY afford the trailer they're renting from friends, were totally unprepared in all aspects for a baby, she works full-time with a full teaching degree but makes less than I did when I was a teacher's aide last year, and her husband works part time at Target making minimum wage and goes to school full-time (he won't be done with school for a few more years!!). And in the context of all of that I'm supposed to be okay with her being pregnant.

When you can't have bio children, it's not simply just jealousy of someone being pregnant. Anyone can feel that at anytime. It's a constant reminder of what will never happen for you, and how much harder life is. "Just go adopt" isn't a reality. Someone can just go become pregnant and have their child and raise them. Yes, it's more complicated than that. But adopting is SO much more insanely complex. First of all, if I'm going to adopt, I have to somehow come up with the $15,000-$40,000, then go through every background check possible, probably have to do travelling, then worry for months if the birth parents will change their mind, or if it's international, worry about problems trying to get them back, and THEN after all of that (not to mention the heartbreak of another family having to lose their child in order for us to have ours), we can start raising the child. "Just foster, it's free" isn't a reality either. I think I've proven that by Barrett, but you have to put in ALL of your time, all of your heart, and yes, money, since you are raising them while they're in your home, for a child that you know every minute of the day for months on end may end up leaving you, and in Iowa if you don't foster first, you basically flat out can't adopt from the system.

And the sad part is very few people understand. I can't tell you how many people in my personal life have said, "Well, I just hope things work out how they're supposed to". Really? It's perfectly fine to tell me that you hope I can raise forever the child I've raised as my own for 6 months. And also people can't understand that it isn't just Barrett going back to his bio father. He's my son. I don't care what the law says, and I don't care what society says. When a child is raised by parents since birth for several months with no other consistent parent figures, he views us as parents, and we view him as our child.

My own dad told me (with my 39 week pregnant sister in the room, after he and my mom went on and on forever about pregnancy stuff with her), "Well Alena, I've decided that since you're so great with children and you have the ability to love all children as your own, that this is just what you're meant to do. You'll just bring lots and lots of children into your home and love them. Some of them you'll lose yes, and we'll all be very sad about them, but some of them you'll keep, and eventually you'll find that you'll have built a family."

I just wanted to scream. I said back to him (sarcastically), "Yeah, makes sense. We've already been through the unbearable loss of fertility, and already lost the girls (I'll have to tell that story another time, we fostered two girls last June), so instead of having people who haven't been through loss and can just have their own biological children go through the pain of loss, might as well have us just keep doing it forever." (I put it better than that at the time.)

Anyway, long story short, we've dealt for months now with people's insensitivity (you wouldn't believe the stories I could share...), dealt with immense emotional problems and huge losses, and we're just hurting a lot right now. In the next couple months, while fostering Theron, we're going to be focusing more on domestic adoption (infant adoption), and we'll be starting to try to raise money to do so. We've only saved up around $3000 on our own, and the average cost is usually close to $30,000

Sorry for the novel, and I want to mention quickly that this is not for even a second posted here to try to make anyone who's expecting feel bad, I just wanted to share with everyone what's going on somewhat.