A life in progress

So, last night, the call we'd been waiting for came.  Baby C's dad had gotten all of his ducks in a row and was ready to take custody of her.  So... we spent a little time saying goodbye and stopped to visit the ducks in the park on the way to drop her off. We knew this day was coming.  It was actually supposed to happen last weekend, but there was a little bit a a hiccup in the process.  Her had actually moved from California to comply with CPS.  We didn't completely understand the situation, but it came across as he'd never really been involved as a parent, but when given the opportunity, he really did what he needed to do to step up.  For the past few weeks, he'd been doing visitations with Baby C on Friday evenings.  At first he wasn't really sure of what he should be doing, but at the most recent visitation, when I went in at the end of the hour, they were playing together with the toys.  The simple fact that he was willing to move...

Today begins day 3 with Baby C.  So far, things have been going fairly well with her.  We are actually surprised at what an "easy" baby she is. Yesterday, Mike and I made a point of making sure we were with her all day - both of us as much as possible & at least one of us within eyesight at (virtually) all times while she was awake.  Friday night was a little rough for her.  She woke up a crying a couple of times during the night, and while we were able to put her back to sleep pretty easily, she wasn't quite able to do that for herself.  At 4am, she truly cried for the first time.  She'd fussed and whimpered a couple of times Friday evening and had woken up once at 2am, but at 4, she really cried.  I went in and picked her up and rocked her for a little while; I think that was the first time she was really scared or lonely.  We realized that as part of a large family group (she has 3 older siblings), it was probably the first time in her en...

After a great deal of thought, and an endless number of "should we or shouldn't we" conversations, Mike and I have changed course a bit in the world of foster care.  We have decided a couple of things - 1.  One child is enough.  I said this before, but going from zero children in our home to two children in our home is much too overwhelming, especially since I've never had children. 2.  We are not ready for long-term care yet.  Yet.  We realized we still like having options and the ability to say no.  We were actually presented with a potential adoptive child a few weeks ago.  We thought about it and talked about it, and in the end decided we weren't there yet.  Part of us wanted to be, but we realized it would be unfair to us as a couple and unfair to the child to make that step without being 100% certain it was the right choice.  After a few days of talking it over, we kindly thanked the case worker, but walked away without ever me...