February

A turn for the better

The beginning of February was rough. Not something I want to relive. The highlights:

• After a month of being bedridden, I went to stay with my parents for a while and give Fritz a break.
• I tried a few different medications to try to hold back the nausea and uncontrollable vomiting. We finally found one that worked.
• Though the medication calmed my nausea and stopped the pukefest, I was still incredibly weakened from being without any real nourishment for nearly 2 months. It would take a while to get my stamina back up.
  
• I tried going back home, only to have panic attacks about being back in the "sick place."
• 3 days after finding my miracle medication, the foster office called us about an 8-year old boy and 5-year old girl and asked us to come to our final licensure meeting to petition for them.
• Directly after being eviscerated at the adoption committee meeting, Fritz went off to work and I headed back to Vegas, certain the foster people hated us and would never place any children in our home.
• The next day, we got a call saying that the two kids were placed elsewhere, but that they had a brand new infant they wanted to place with us. "Sure, when?" "Um, like in 20 minutes."

Baby C comes into our lives

As I was in Vegas (and still in my jammies) when I received the call, I told them I'd need a little bit longer than 20 minutes to get there. "Fine," they said, "Just get here as soon as you can."

I raced home to St. George, stopped by the house to pick up a carseat for the little one, and headed over to the hospital. I was escorted to the nursery by 3 caseworkers. There was little C, the only baby in the nursery that day, wrapped up tight with just his little red face and masses of dark hair peeking out.

We stood about for a long time trying to get everything finalized. The birth mother was being stubborn about giving him a name (he nearly left the hospital as "Baby lastname"). The hospital said he could only keep the socks and hat he was wearing, and nobody thought to tell me I'd need to bring some clothes for him. One of the social workers ran down to her car and luckily had some jammies just his size.

They handed the jammies to me to put on him, and it was at this moment that I realized it was noon and I hadn't eaten a single thing all day. I immediately broke out in a cold sweat and felt myself sway. I quietly went to one of the caseworkers and told her I was newly pregnant and hadn't eaten all day and needed to sit down. She handled it gracefully (though the foster office later had a fit when they found out, worrying that I wasn't healthy enough to care for C) and I dropped into one of the rocking chairs nearby. I wondered what the others in the room must think, as I sat there ignoring my new foster baby, camped out in a chair.

When I'd recovered enough, I strapped the little guy into his carseat and we all headed out. I tried to get some clarification on his case from the workers. All they knew was that his mom had shown up at the hospital on meth (he was, luckily, fairly unaffected by it) and would shortly be taken into police custody. There was not a chance she'd be getting him back. They joked about how busy I'd be come September, with a 6-month old and a newborn.

And that was it. "Here's your baby. Good luck." I went home and Fritz and I spent a few hours regrouping. We hadn't really anticipated ever having a baby placed with us, as we understand that's pretty rare. We were also wondering if it was completely crazy to be taking on such an incredible responsibility, when just 1 week prior I had been completely bedridden.

It was what it was, though. With the little bundle of baby still snoozing in his carrier, I headed out to get some baby supplies.

And so, February, which had started out so bleak, ended quite a bit shinier.