Holding Space: A Foster Care Series on Grief and Healing Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XujN8C4h7fI

Matt Darrah (00:00)

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Matt Darrah (01:27)

Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection and community guests. Thanks for tuning in today. We are on part three of a series on grief We had Laura for a couple of episodes kind of talk through some of the aspects of trauma. And so we've got some special folks here to kind of talk about their experience around grief and foster care. But before we get to that, this episode is brought to you by The Stretching Place, which is owned by Marla Evans. If you're dealing with tight muscles,

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590-1835. That's 806-590-1835. Your body will thank you. So, let's go around the table and let's remind everybody, Laura, who you are, what your background is, and then we'll talk to you two first. So Laura, remind our listeners why you're here, what your experience is. Yeah, my name is Laura Bownds and I'm a licensed professional counselor.

I work in private practice. graduated from West Texas A ⁓ I love working in child and family services. I love being a part of making a difference and being able to support families and kiddos. My background is mainly foster care and adoption. And so I'm really excited to be here with you guys today.

I'm currently working at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch and really enjoying it. And so, yeah, I think that this is such an important topic and needs to be talked about, isn't talked about enough. And so it's really exciting to be here with you guys today. Well, thank you for coming back again. of course. OK, so Amanda, tell us about you. OK, so my name is Amanda Rogers. I also work at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch. I work in marketing and communications there. So I get to interview the kids out at Boys Ranch hear their

stories, which is a real blessing. My background is in journalism. I have two communication degrees from West Texas A&M but I'm here because I'm also a foster adoptive mom. So in 2018, we had a daughter, we still have a daughter that was born to us, but when she was seven, we adopted a sibling group. They were 12 and 13 at the time. And so our world changed, all of our world changed very drastically, especially our daughter who was born to us. She went from an only child to the youngest.

And that was, we read all the books, we felt like we were pretty prepared, but like any kind of parenthood, you're never quite prepared. so I...

Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you look at it, I'm pretty adept to grief in the foster care world. But love my kids and really happy that we were able to make our family that way and complete our family that way. But yeah, so I have the personal experience of being a foster and adoptive mom, but I get to work with kiddos from hard places as well. And that's a real privilege to get to tell their stories. Absolutely. Absolutely. OK, Diane, tell us about you. So I'm Diane Ridgeway and I am the director of supervised

and

transitional living, excuse me, at Amarillo Children's Home. I have a background just working in general residential operations. ⁓ I started out in residential treatment at a very young age and just decided I was supposed to be a teacher and I just decided why would I do that if I can hang out with kids all day and just hang out, not even have to teach them. Obviously that was not what happened. And then I have experience too as a kinship.

placement that turned into adoption and then God actually just brought

our daughter to our door and then we just kept her. So that kind of journey ⁓ and then I was a house parent for several years at Cal Farley's and at Amarillo Children's Home. And so just that experience with grief, think I have some stories to tell. Absolutely, kind of from all different angles, from all of you guys. So... ⁓

Laura, let's start with kind of an overview of what we talked about the last couple of weeks. Can you kind of pull us just a brief?

know, intro reminder as to what we kind of covered. Yeah, so we talked about how grief is a part of the foster care and adoptive process, because no matter how you kind of look at it, there are perspectives of loss, right? ⁓ Loss of routines, loss of ⁓ possibly, you know, just things that are normal to the kiddo and those types of things. There is ⁓ grief on the kiddo's part. And then there's also after the kiddo leaves or goes to a different place,

there can also be grief on the foster parent part. And so kind of bringing all of those things together, understanding ⁓ some of the clinical pieces to that would be the behavioral components that we see. ⁓ Specifically, when a kiddo is having a hard time, how do they show up every day? When they're going through something hard, they are trying to communicate that to us. The way that they communicate that to us is through their behavior, which isn't always fun.

a fun process to go through. And so just being mindful of those things, I think one of the biggest pieces to this whole process is ⁓ the amount of support that we can provide kiddos and families with. ⁓ that can look like, of course, professional services, looping in a counselor. ⁓ It can also look like using your support network, whether that is your church family, your friendships, those types of things, your agency that you're working with.

but just being able to be mindful that this is something that is huge and it's something that we need to probably ensure that we're talking about often just to ⁓ kind of provide that normalcy to it because normalizing grief is important. I think in a lot of homes sometimes what happens is people don't want to talk about something that is difficult and so they kind of mask that. ⁓

Reality is that if we don't talk about it, it just gets bigger and bigger I like to kind of think about a pressure cooker and how when you're stuffing all of those fillings down then one day something little happens and boom Yeah, and that's really it's really difficult. So we want to keep that from happening Yeah, so I think ⁓ just kind of listening to what other people have been through Makes you feel like you're not alone. And so was really excited to have ⁓ Both Diane and Amanda here just to talk through some of those things. Absolutely.

We, and I say this a lot, this one, it's ⁓ all things foster a place for coffee connection and community. We do better, regardless of what our experiences are, we do better in community, whether it's foster care and adoption. it's, you know, I talk about how, you know, I can't really connect with and support someone who has leukemia because I don't have that lived experience, right? And so connecting with other folks that understand

what we're going through is so critical to healing.

I think ⁓ also ⁓ foster parents, former foster parents and former adoptive parents would also discuss how having a support network of people who just what you're saying to your point understand specifically what the emotions, feelings, the stress that that can bring about in your daily life and being able to talk through those things. Because it can be healing to walk that journey with someone who's walked it before.

Absolutely. Well, and on that note, you you guys have dealt with grief in your situations as well, right? I mean, you know, I know that, you know, adoption is a beautiful story, right? And it can be. But there's a loss from the child, too. You know, and so when somebody walks up to your kid, and they're like, man, you're so lucky. You know, you just.

kind of want to die inside a little bit. You're like, are they really? I mean, yes, it's great that they've come and that they have a safe and stable loving home, but there's also a loss associated with that.

Yeah, think, you know, my kids were older when they came to us. They were 12 and 13. It was funny because one time their friend asked them, did you know you were adopted? And my daughter's like, well, yeah, was 13 years old. ⁓ And they had been in foster care for many years before that. And I told them from the beginning, you know, in a perfect world, you'd be with your original family. And I understand that. You don't need to be appreciative for me. You don't have to feel thankful for me. You don't have to call me mom. You know, they did eventually call me mom.

not that long actually, but I wanted to set that precedent, especially because they were older, like you're gonna hear these things and I'm pretty well known where I live in Canyon and so people knew what we were doing. It's not easy to show up in Walmart and all of a sudden you have three kids with you instead of one. So there was a lot of really awkward moments and people would say things like that, like, my gosh, you're so lucky and Amanda's great and you should, but.

They don't feel lucky. one, they haven't had a family in many, years. again, you know, I always think that...

you know, if you can be in your original family, that's best. And that's one reason we adopted older kids. Our kids were legally free when we adopted them. Our whole goal was to adopt an older child who probably might not get adopted otherwise. And then my husband was like, let's do siblings. So we got two instead of one. But that in itself came with a grief and just preparing for that. On my end, there was an automatic grief, which sounds... ⁓

weird, but my parents had passed just a few years before we did this. And my parents had set a great example about bringing children into your home, bringing, you know, loving others well. And I don't know any two people who would have been better at being grandparents in this situation than them. And so that could be really hard because on hard days or even fun days, you want to share, like you want to tell you, you want to call your mom and tell her the big thing. If your kids are being difficult, you want to drop them off at Papa's house and say, just just handle them for a few hours and talk to them. Right. And even my daughter born

to us would say, you know, I just wish Gigi and Papa were here so I could spend the night for a night and just get away for a night. So there is that automatic grief on our part that people don't think about when you're missing loved ones in your life and you're going through these life changing things that I didn't really expect that.

to have that kind of grief at the beginning and throughout the whole process. mean, even today, it's been almost seven years and even today I think, gosh, I just wish I could call my mom or I could send them over to my mom's house or whatever. So I think sometimes when we think about these things, we don't think about whether it's someone who couldn't have a child themselves or things like that. There's another layer of grief because not only are these children coming from a place where they're not with their original family, but there's a reason that we've been called to adopt these children.

often that comes from a difficult place. Absolutely, that is for sure. Yeah, mean, the reason we were open to the experiences that we've had is because of my experience in foster care as well. so, Diane, what is your experience been so I was just kind of thinking about what she was saying. excuse me, my son, we adopted him. He came to live with us when he was five months old. He's 20 now. And so we didn't, he was a kinship.

placement.

I love to tell this story. All of his aunts were my best cousins and they called me one at a time and said, the kids have been picked up and we told them you might take the baby. And I'd hang up with one and the other one would call. And so the third one, I said, well, I have to let you go because I'm pretty sure CPS is calling me. And I lived at the ranch. I was a supervisor. And the daycare on the ranch has something in their policy about that you have to be the guardian of a child to put them in

daycare. So I thought, well, I'm not going to be able to take this baby because I can't put him in daycare and we live in the middle of nowhere. And so I just prayed about it and I just said, okay, God, like if I'm supposed to have this baby, make it happen. And got in the shower, went to work and the supervisor

was in the office next to me said I've been waiting for you to get here because my wife said she's gonna babysit that baby if you get it. So we moved forward with that process, you know, and we just I just always felt like God, you know put us together. But there was the sadness that this was not necessarily a rift in the family, but there was and there was grief for his aunts, even though they got to still be there still his aunts, you know, he had four older he has four older siblings that he has relationship with.

with, they all went different directions. So, you know, dealing with that grief, really, I didn't tell him he was adopted. I didn't hide it from him, but I just felt like when his brain was smart enough to be able to handle it, he would figure it out. But we fast forwarded that situation because five years later, my daughter came to live with us.

She was just dropped off for a weekend and to stay with us and.

We ended up keeping her. And so then we were going through the adoption process and he was five. So he had a lot of questions. And I just remember the day that he figured out that he was adopted. And that was a lot of grief for me as a mother. I didn't know I was going to get emotional, but there's no shock. And so so, know, but he just said, Oh, my gosh, is.

And he said his birth mom's name, is that my mom? And I was like, yes. And he said, OK. He's like, well, you're my mom. But that's my mom. And I was like, yeah. And so just that going through that grief process, was bittersweet. I knew that he would figure it out. We've maintained a relationship with both of their birth moms and still have relationship today As I've gotten older, just see my daughter go through some grief.

of wishing things were different sometimes. the grief my son had, gosh, at 18, he was hanging out with his sister a lot. He still hangs out with him, but his older sister and his birth mom would be at the house. And he would call me from the bedroom. And this poor guy, because he just loves me so much and I love him too, but he would be like, I don't know what to do. And I was like, it's OK if you're friendly to her. Like, that's your family. That's your birth mom. But that's also just your family.

Right. Just think of her as your cousin if that's what you need to do. he felt torn because of his loyalty to me. so that was a grief process that we've had to work through. And they've both done great. that's kind of my adoption stories. Just a blessing.

You talk about, I'm from a small town. And so when I got my daughter the first weekend, we went to the football game and I walked up in the stands and my friend stood up and said, did you get another baby? I was like, no, she's just visiting. You know, she's just, we're just having fun with her. And my friend said, we'll see. So, you know, I mean, just God's little winks all along People say the funniest things. My daughter, who's seven, she has a real good friend.

⁓ She met the girls right away and she was asking them some interesting questions and I let her know like, you can ask me these questions, like no question is bad, but maybe don't ask in front of them. And we were with another friend and the three girls one day, so there's four girls with me, and this little girl saw me in the hallway and said, Amanda, did you get another one? No, no we didn't. And and you know, we could all laugh at that, but you know, our kids' friends are curious too. You know, it's an interesting situation, whether it's a baby or an older kid.

You know, my daughter had told her friends forever we were getting a girl we were gonna adopt. And then when we showed up at back to school and we had two teenagers with us, they were like, what? Like they were expecting babies, right? And so ⁓ there's a lot of, you know.

Funniness that goes with that too. There's a lot of humorous stories. But you know, for her, as excited as she was to get Big Sisters, because she was so excited, so on board, but there's a grief process that goes through that. Like all of a sudden you're having to share mom and dad. All of a sudden you're having to share the resources. ⁓ You know, she often talks about how we were kind of harder on her disciplinary because we wanted to set an example that she was no different. And so sometimes she got in a little more trouble than she probably would have because we wanted to set that example.

But then she'll, you know, she'll cop up and be like, well, yeah, but then you take me for ice cream afterwards or whatever, talk me through it. But there's that, that process of her world had shifted too. And as happy as she was, it was very hard to adjust, especially at seven years old. And our girls, as happy as they were to be in a safe home and a forever home, you know, they had been in foster care for a long time and they had, one of them especially had grief losing her foster mom. Like there was a lot of grief, like on adoption day, all she asked about was, is foster mom coming?

all morning, which broke my heart a little bit, right? was like...

This is our day. But you know, it hadn't been that long and that's all she could think about was foster mom. So it hits you in a way and I think we don't talk about it enough. We don't talk about all these surprises that you're going to get in grief and the five stages of grief that just come and go in the waves of it. ⁓ And you know, sometimes it shows up in the big things like when your kids decide, you know, they don't want to be part of your life anymore or if they have to leave your home or for whatever reason. But it's also in those little things like

You know.

I have to write my family tree at school and I don't know how to write it. That's a hard day. Yeah. Yeah. I love hearing the memories that you guys are bringing up, especially as it relates to, ⁓ you know, specifically other people in the family too, because sharing mom and dad, but also when those kiddos leave, they feel the siblings feel that grief to the kiddos in the home, feel that grief. And so I know Diane, you formerly did, you were a house parent. And so can you talk

to us a little bit about kind of your experiences with grief along that way? I can. ⁓ It was pre-kids for me. you know, just sometimes that happens rather quickly. We were fortunate to have most of the kids that we had for a long period of time.

But what happened, actually what keeps coming to my mind as I'm talking about this is the grief that came afterwards. And when we left, but we maintain contact with them, you know, to be all these years later, and we've had a son that passed away that, you know, that had been in care and just all of those boys just reaching out.

to me and keeping that connection. It definitely helped me through the grief part and then just felt like I was more connected to them as they're adults now and starting their own families and stuff. And then I just have always worked with transitional living kids.

There's the grief of just when they graduate, you're not as involved as if you were their parent. You know, you would do weekends or whatever. And so there was a grief associated with that too. Just missing out, like I missed out on some of it. But again, I'm still connected with a lot of those kids.

So I was really kind of blessed in that area. Yeah, mean, there is a loss, but it's not as deep because you maintain that relationship. That's right. I mean, I think that that's the biggest takeaway for me.

I would say that that's something that's really important is if you can maintain that connection on both sides, you know, when it's safe to be able to maintain that connection with the biological family and also with the foster family or the caregiver that was there for that kiddo for whatever amount of time. I it's so important. no, I 100 % agree. mean, you know,

When it's good with the biological family, like, let's keep that relationship. But then, you know, there are times when it's not, and then, you know, there's a rupture there, and then a grief.

because of that, you know. Yeah, we were able to kind of do a little bit of both where it really wasn't healthy or safe for our daughters to have involvement with their mother ⁓ who's local, but they had an older sister who's local and we kept contact with her all throughout and they still have contact with her. And so that was really nice because they were able to maintain a relationship with their sister and now into adulthood because they're both adults now. They get to maintain that. And now that they're adults, if they want to have contact with their mom, that's up to them.

and I always told them if you need me to help you transition into that or help you with that, I'm always here for that. unfortunately, we're estranged right now. So when you talk about grief and foster care, I'm so excited that Diane can keep those connections with the kids in her home. But it's hard when you adopt and you don't picture your story. ⁓

coming to an end. You know, it's forever family. That's what we call it, right? Forever family. And so when your children, either because of trauma or ⁓ psychiatric issues or just being...

growing brains, teenage, young adult growing brains, they decide they don't want to be part of your life anymore. That's really, really hard. And not only is it grief, but you feel like a failure, right? And you have to do the work to overcome that. But as we were doing that and as we were walking through that, then we have a daughter at home still who's missing her sisters. And even though they're estranged from us, they have decided to make contact with our daughter, with their little sister. And it's not often.

⁓

which is probably good, but we don't want to sever that. We don't want to cause more pain and grief to anyone, and so we allow that connection as long as it's healthy and it's okay, because we are forever family, whether they want to think that or not at this time, we're forever family, and we're not gonna get in the way of that sisterly relationship. If that's what's best for them, then...

we're okay with that. Do we wish they would love us to come back in their life? Of course, but if they want to, we're here. But that's a constant form of grief. I've talked to Laura about this before, how hopefully my daughters will want to come back to us someday, but I can't live in that hope. I can't wake up every day thinking, is this going to be the day? That is a grief that you can't let go of. So you have to just find a way to accept the grief.

Take it as it comes, whether it be a sweet picture that pops up on your Facebook memories or something that comes up and let yourself feel the feelings, but also be okay with we may never be an active part of their lives again. And if we are, we'll be surprised and we'll be happy and be so excited, but I can't.

live with that hope every day because in that that's kind of grief. Yeah, every day hoping that's you know, and I did that for a really long time and it just wasn't healthy. And I had to I had to get you know, professional help and I had to take care of myself and read all the books and do all the things and all the breathing to get to where I am today to be able to talk to you guys about it and say, this is the reality of our situation. ⁓ It's not uncommon, which I didn't know at the time, know, especially with older kids adopting older kids.

very common for that to happen but it's something we don't talk about right and so you don't know and but now I know that it's common and it's not because of any one thing or we weren't enough you know I think all of us at this table know if love was enough all the families would be perfect and all of our kids would be awesome but that's just not how it works and you know working at Cal Farley's we learn a lot about brain development and different things and we just know that the brain development

you know, these kids go through and my kids had went through some really, really rough stuff basically their whole lives until they came to us. And so when you take that into account, you know, one of my daughters, she just really has a problem with women in general. And I would say, you know, I'm your mom, I'm here for you. she said, yeah, but you're my fifth mom, big deal, you know? And so you just have to learn to ride that wave. I'm glad you brought that up because I think too, just moms in general.

and adoptive moms get a little bit of rough. Like I feel like in our family, yeah, I can be the scapegoat. Like there's some grief in that. I'm like, ⁓ your dad's sitting right here. Yeah. Let's share that a little bit. But it's, know, especially when kids come from trauma. Yeah, there's I don't know. And you might speak to this, Laura. I don't know. I don't know if it's because oftentimes

the biological father's not in the picture or that he was the abuser or I don't know what it is because it's really common. I in my home and in lots of the family, the mom is the target more so than the dad.

⁓ I like to think, and I've seen this kind of unfold just in sessions and situations like that, you know, who do you feel safest acting out in front of? Someone who you feel like loves you unconditionally. And typically that is a mom figure to kiddos, right? I also think about the fact that, you know, we're all sitting at this table and we've all dealt with grief on a certain level of either

life-changing in some way we talked about in one of the segments about Transitions like moving changing jobs those types of things we know how that makes us feel and then you add in the history of trauma for these kiddos and It just you know adds so much to whatever they may be feeling so you know you think of your saddest moment of missing someone, you know and adding on a history of you know trauma and going through really difficult things

and you can kind of see what the kiddos are dealing with. it's difficult because we want to be able to, we also hit on this a lot last time whenever we were talking, but I think at this table, all of us are helpers. So what do we want to do? We want to fix the problem. And I think sometimes, ⁓ especially since in most families, moms are kind of the

ones who are nurturing, right? I think dads are too. But I think, you know, kids and families, they are longing for that. And so that's who they kind of connect with the most sometimes. And so that's the person who may take the most heat, for lack of better word, in terms of the behavioral pieces or ⁓ especially, I think, with teenagers. You know, we all love teenagers, right?

And so, you know, and then there is that component with moms and daughters too, you know, and I think it's hard, it's difficult, and we do everything that we can to try to work through situations like that. And I think...

You know, sometimes we do, we loop in the professionals. Sometimes we talk about it with other people and that's helpful. And sometimes we just, you know, have to sit in that space for a little bit and try again the next day. I think it's something that can change over time as you work on the relationship and things like that. But it is hard. I think sometimes, you know, kids, we sometimes we don't know everything that they come into our home with.

We don't know all the things that they've been through. We may have a small idea, but that may just be.

breaking the surface, you know? ⁓ There may be a lot more that we're not sure about. And so just taking the time to really get to know them and to keep all of the things that you can familiar to them. I think that's really helpful. ⁓ I think creating that daily predictability with them. ⁓ I think also being able to let them...

talk about their emotions instead of shutting them down. So, you know, we are the generation of kids, go to your room. We are the generation of kids, go to time out, you know, and we're learning. We have learned and when we know better, we do better. you know, kids do need to express those emotions. They do need to talk about how they're feeling and it's very healthy for them to talk about how they're feeling. It gives you that for sure. Yeah. So, ⁓ I mean, I think that it is something to, there is something to

just kiddos feeling safe with certain adults and really letting that behavior out and there's emotions and feelings out because they feel safe with that person. Yeah, that makes sense. So what, from a foster parent's perspective, what are things that they can do to try to work through all these...

different aspects of their personal grief? I think, you know, foster parents, they are dealing with so many different things at that time. If a kiddo is leaving or...

a kiddo is dealing with their own grief because they've just come into the home after being removed from their home. If a kiddo is about to move on to an adoptive placement, those are all hard things because not only is the caregiver dealing with the kiddo's specific feelings, they're also dealing with their own feelings. And so I think in those situations, we have to really kind of, you know how...

whenever you're in an airplane, they tell you, you know, with the oxygen level drops or, know, they drop the oxygen masks and they tell you to put yours on first. You have to be able to ensure that you're taking care of yourself. You have to ensure that you're in a good place mentally to help that kiddo through whatever they may be going through. And I've seen it lots of times where we all kind of put ourselves on the back burner, right? That can wait, you know, I'll deal with that later. I've got this, this and this, but it really is so important to put yourself first in those situations.

so that you can provide the best care. And I think, you know, also making sure that everybody in the home feels like they have a sense of control because grief is something that no one has control over, right? And those feelings can feel overwhelming. So when you have the opportunity to give some control back to the kiddos in your home, or even giving yourself some control, some feeling of control, it can really help. And I feel

feel like, you know, we talked about kind of conflict in the home between the child and maybe the adult that they trust the most and some behaviors that come to the surface and that type of thing. But, you know, reminding that kiddo, I'm still here. I'm going to be here. I love you and I'm here for you. That's so important. ⁓ And just, you know, whether they are in a place where they can hear that or not, ⁓ being able to say that to them, because I do think it makes a difference.

And I think reminders are always really important, especially because sometimes the feelings and emotions may be overwhelming. And so, you know, being able to say that and say that often is really important. What are some things that you guys have done that have kind of helped with the different types of griefs that you guys have felt?

I would say first of all is just name it. Say I'm feeling this way. I'm giving myself space and telling my husband at the time, this is what I'm feeling. Are you feeling it too? I'm talking about it. And then just having that trusted, I call them inner circle of people that know the whole situation and just having them listen to you talk about it 159 times. And just tell it.

I ⁓ always think that a trouble shared is a troubled halfed you know, and so just try to live by that, sharing with others. And then just self-care. mean, being sure, you know, Laura kind of touched on that, that I'm taking care of myself because I can get real ⁓ hyper-focused on my child's feelings.

and disregard my own. that's kind of... I agree with that too. As I've said, it's pretty obvious that our situation is unique, right? We adopted 12 and 13 year old sisters. So there's a lot of differences that come from that. One is there aren't a lot of people who do that. So finding that support, you might... I even had a caseworker of mine say, you know, I've adopted through foster care, but my kids are two and three. So I no idea what you're going through. So kind of like, good luck, lady. You know, and that's hard, you know.

Your kids are older and I'm sure this can happen with younger kids, too. We actually lost some of our support system We actually lost some friends, you know They just didn't want to deal with the girls and their behaviors and they just didn't or they didn't want their kids around them And our kids were good kids. They're good kids But for whatever reason they just didn't want to want to hang in there, right? So that that's hard What I found for myself was when the kids were in our home and doing well You know I did all the things like Diane talked about and we just tried to name it talk about it

I always tried to be there for them. remember, know, holidays were always the hardest and there were many, many holidays where we're spending the evening crying on the floor because there's big emotions, right? And you just hold space for that. But once my kids had drifted apart from us, there's not really a guidebook on that, right? And we tell them we're forever family and we're never going to give up on you. And that's true. But at some point, you are twisting yourself in circles trying to be there for them.

when they don't want you there for them. And so for me, that's where I got super unhealthy because I never wanted to give up on my kids. But at some point, I had to listen when they said, we don't want you.

You know, and so I had to then put myself first and get help and get better. So if they come back to us, I'm healthy now and I've got some boundaries. I can keep myself from getting twisted up in that as much, but I can, I still love them very much. If they walked in this door today, Matt, and said, hey, we're here. wanna, you we wanna see you, mom. That would, that would just amaze me, right? I would love that. But as we talked about before, that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon. And so to take care of myself and my family and my daughter who's still at home,

I had to get healthy and I had to come with terms that it's okay to have boundaries and it's okay to let go at some point. Like we talked about earlier, I can't hold onto that hope every day because holding onto that hope every day and trying to hold onto them was killing me in a way. Yeah, you're just making yourself suffer and for what? It wasn't making me better for anybody. It was costing me relationships and I was having trouble at work and it just wasn't good. And so finally I had to say,

Okay, it stops today. I'm gonna get healthy. I love my children. I'm gonna hold them in my heart. ⁓ But I can't, you know, send them cards or letters or reach out. They don't want me to. And to just do that was just making it worse, right? And so ⁓ that's how I moved on. You know, it's been two years since I've seen one of my kiddos. ⁓ And it's been a year since I've talked to both of them. And that's heartbreaking, but...

At the same time, I'm in a place now where I can talk about it without crying. I'm okay. You know, I'm okay that my daughter is talking to her sisters as long as it's healthy. And if they were to come back, then I'm in a healthy place where I can accept that, but not go so far in that if they left tomorrow that I would fall apart again.

It's just tough. I don't think there's any aspect of foster care and adoption that's not riddled with grief. mean, there's so many people...

involved in so many broken relationships and wounds and traumas that it's just not, it's not, I mean it's just not possible to not have some grief and so that's why it was, that was why I was really wanting to have this, you know, this...

the series because it's not something that we talk about and it's not something that we try to figure out how to move through and get to the other side. We want hold out hope that this kiddo, this prodigal child is off on their own and hopefully at some point they're gonna, know, but letting that go. All of these things are just, there's just a lot of pain.

Well, and you know, we talk about being able to have control, feeling as though we have some control over our lives over the situation. And there is some control and acceptance, not in acceptance of this is the way it will be forever with your situation, but acceptance. And this is the way it is currently. But that doesn't mean that that's the way it is forever. But I do think, you know, these, this brings up a lot of really important aspects of

the system that we're working with and being able to talk about it is so important because I will say that I have had a lot of families who have come to me and said, know, counseling was helpful, but actually talking to someone who has been through this was probably the most helpful and beneficial to me. And so there is a lot of value in that. And so I appreciate sharing stories, talking through things, being able to discuss things that are important to all perspectives of

foster care and adoption because it is important. Yeah. You have kind of a toolkit.

with with regards to trying to work through some of this trauma. Can you kind of walk us through that? Yeah. So, you know, we always talk about breathing is so important, right? So breathing is probably the number one, I think, coping strategy that people utilize. And it's important and it does help. But there are times where breathing is just not going to work. Right. And so we have to look at some of the other things that ⁓ can be helpful. And so, you know, sometimes it can be important where if things are feeling too

overwhelming being able to take a step back, being able to take some time to just decompress and kind of allow someone else to step in. I think that's so important knowing your emotional limits and capabilities. Some foster parents and adoptive parents, they may take a placement and then take a break before they take another placement because they're trying to get used to either a new family dynamic or they just need that space.

in between. ⁓ And then making sure that you're utilizing, you know, the supports that you have within your own life, whether, like I talked about earlier, whether that's your church family, or if your agency provides respite services, or if you do see a counselor and being able to kind of make sure that you're using all of those services, because that's so important. I think it's important to especially for ⁓ couples and marriages to make

sure they're taking time for themselves. ⁓ know, sometimes people feel guilty for taking time away from kids, but it can be really, really helpful to just have that time to reconnect and regroup and all of those important things. ⁓ And so just being mindful of knowing your limits, but also knowing what you need and also being able to voice your needs. Because a lot of people don't ask like to ask for help. We are the helpers here. We know how to fix everything. So we don't need help.

you know, but I think it is really important that we realize that everybody needs help sometimes, especially in such a... ⁓

you know, what can be very difficult situations and being able to talk about it. I think support groups are so ⁓ beneficial to so many people just because there is a sense of belonging there and being able to relate to each other and being able to talk about what's been helpful for one family may be really helpful for another family. ⁓ And, you know, just having the space to be able to talk about those things.

that ⁓ Leanne LeFever is doing ⁓ an adoptive support group as well. And so if anyone needs information on that, we can certainly give that out. But being able to find people who are in similar situations so they can talk about all of the challenges, but also talk about the wins, because that's important too, right? Yeah. It's like, AA mean, you go there and you say,

say,

is what I'm struggling with, but this is how I've been successful, or if I screwed up today, then have some folks stand there with you and say, okay, we'll get back up and try again. We need community. It's so stinking important. And I think in the past year or so where I've gotten healthy, that's where I've found the most help, when I have loved ones, friends, coworkers, people who will say, yeah, I know this is hard and this really stinks, that the girls aren't part of your life,

graduated high school. They've made it through all these challenges. There's things that happen that may or may not have happened without your love and support. Because we tend to not give ourselves the credit for that, right? Like, I don't know what I did. I brought them in and now they're gone. It's like, yeah, but they hit milestones that they may not have hit. And especially like...

You know, we got them in 2018, so we parented through the pandemic. If they had been in foster care during the pandemic, as, you know, young teenagers, I mean, I don't know. I what could have happened. And so, we don't know. We don't know on the side of heaven the impact we had. And so that's important is for you to listen to your community and to believe them. I have a hard time believing them. Laura will always tell me something, I'll say, I'll choose to believe you because it can be hard, you know, because you're in your own head about all the things. She doesn't know all the things I've done or all the mistakes I've

She doesn't know, but she does. She's my friend and she loves me and she sees the impact and she works in this field. And so that's what I would say to especially parents who are, you know, feeling grief is believe your people.

Believe your people. Let them believe it for you if you can't believe it for yourself. Laura adamantly believes that one day my children are going to be back in my life. And I just tell her, I'm going to let you believe that for me because I can't today. But I'll let you believe that for me. And we can't, like you said, this side of heaven, we can't see the impact that we've had. And we just have to trust that we've had an impact that's beneficial.

like I said, kind of move past it, you know? Man, this is good. This is just a good conversation. I'm just, I'm super grateful that you guys are willing to kind of, you know, bare your souls. I mean, it's a tough thing to talk about. And so, you know, we need folks that are out there that are willing to...

to share that so that it hopefully will help other people. That's why we have this podcast is to help folks that are out there that need some help and they don't know where to go, what to do and all that kind of stuff. And so it's just super, super important. Well, we're gonna wrap up this episode. We're gonna talk a little bit more in the next episode. But.

But thank you guys for coming in and talking with us, sharing your experiences. Guys, our main thing is with placement packages. So we provide placement packages for kiddos that are coming into foster care. And so we provide those all across the Panhandle So 26 counties, we deliver these placement packages too. And so each placement package, they get a suitcase, a Bible, a teddy bear, a book, a toy, blanket.

And then beyond that is whatever the foster family needs. So could be clothes and diapers, car seats, just all the different things. And so in order to get to where every kiddo gets a placement package, that's the end goal. We need your help to get there. So we ask folks to set up to become a placement package partner. That's where they just set up a monthly donation. It could be $100. That buys us all the clothes we need for one placement package. Or 50 bucks buys us.

a case of diapers and 10 bucks buys us an outfit. And so, you know, if you're interested, go to our website, www.panhandleorphan.org/donation. Just think about setting that up. That really helps us to continue to grow. Did 161 last year. Our hope is 250 this year, but there's about 600 kids that come into care in the 26 counties in a given year. And so we need your help to get to that point. So if you would think about that.

You know, guys, again, thanks so much. And I look forward to talking with you guys a little bit more on some other aspects of grief. But Laura, thank you for, I mean, you put all this material together and bringing your expertise and sharing with us as well. Yeah, thank you for having me. And Amanda and Diane, thank you so much for, again, just boldness and openness and just being, you know.

being willing to share, so I appreciate that. Thank you, Matt, thank you for allowing us to do that. And I think as adoptive and foster parents, sometimes we feel like when things go wrong with our kids or things that we're looked at in a certain way, it can be really hard to even want to share. And so thank you for creating a safe space where we can share. And hopefully this will help other people to see that they're not alone. Yeah, that's the thing. This work is so alienating.

Like you said, you've got some friends that pull back or some family members that don't support in the way that you had hoped that they would or things like that. And so it can be very, very isolating. So, well guys, thanks for tuning in. Catch us next week as we delve one more week into some grief and some things that we can do with those. And have a great week and we'll catch you next time.