Rachel Lewis's Blog, page 2

We made it a year: Foster care the second time around.

A year ago today, I opened the door, quite uncertain of what would be on the other side.

I knew who was standing on the other side of that door, holding our agency director’s hand.

But I didn’t know how he would come.

What would he look like? What would he sound like? Would his hair still be curly? How big would he be? Would I recognize him?

And most important — would he recognize me?

The door fully open now, my eyes took all of him in.

His moppy hair. His thin frame. Nothing was left of the baby boy I returned home. Instead, a smallish boy stood in his place.

With barely a moment’s hesitation, he charged in like a bull let loose in the arena — frenetically running around our living room, an imaginary bullfighter playfully taunting him this way and that. It took me the better part of a year to find out that bullfighter had a name.

Within seconds, he turned all of our toy bins upside-down creating a mountain of mess in my living room.

Chaos feels most at home in chaos.

I introduced myself as Miss Rachel.

His wild eyes barely landed on me, or anything in our home, his attention flitting from one thing to the next.

He wasn’t angry. But he was charged — like a wound-up toy wound a a few rounds too tight.

He was the same boy we loved. He was not the same boy we loved.

We survived that day, spending hours outside pushing him on the swing until my arms ached.

He asked when he would go home. We could not answer. We didn’t know.

I tried so hard to tap into my emotions that day. I wanted to pinch myself, and say, “He’s here, he’s here, he’s back in our home.”

I wanted to cherish this moment that had I had longed for.

But I didn’t long for it to be like this. His presence reminded me that the circumstances weren’t ideal … they never are. It was hard to shut down the constant wondering of what happened.

He’s been gone for 2.5 years — very little of it, I imagine, will I ever understand.

The only photo I dared let myself take his first night back in our home.

Try as I might to be introspective, to take it all in, I simply couldn’t. This was real life, not a Hallmark movie. Just trying to navigate that day was exhausting.

I couldn’t truly ask how I felt until he was asleep in his room — his light on, as it has stayed for the last year.

I watched him sleep for a bit from the doorway. He was peaceful. His face looked just like it had as a baby when he slept. I recognized him, really recognized him, for the first time since that morning.

So many unknowns lay before us. So much fear. So much that felt unreal.

I asked myself how I felt, watching him there, his eyes closed, his breathing soft, all adrenaline from that day worn off …

The only answer that came was a lump in my throat and a few tears down my cheeks.

In the year since that day, many have asked me that same question, “How does it feel to let go of a child you called son, not hear from him for years, and then suddenly he’s back … completely changed?”

Therapists ask. Family asks. Friends ask. Social workers ask. Everyone who knows our story seems to want to know what this experience has been like. How do you feel?

I didn’t know how to answer any of them. Maybe even I resented the curiosity just a bit — not frustration with them, but just frustration that I cannot say with integrity, “I’m so relieved.” Or “so thankful.” Or, God help me, “We’re so blessed.”

I cannot give the answer I so long to give.

I think it’s because it’s like asking someone what flavor a smoothie is.

Well, it’s not just one flavor. It’s mango. And banana. And pineapple. And coconut.

It’s all of those things, deconstructed then reconstructed, a million tiny particles all becoming one whole. And when you drink the smoothie, you have these little bursts of flavor where you taste the coconut more, or the mango. With each sip, a different flavor comes to your awareness a bit more than the other flavors, but the other flavors are just as much there, same as they were before.

My feelings at his arrival, at the fact that we are here (or rather he is here) one year later, have all been blended together in such a way that one feeling does not exist without the others. And on certain days, certain moments, one comes to the surface a bit more, and I feel that emotion a bit more than the others — but the others never go away.

Gratitude for seeing him again.

Regret that he needed us.

Fear (so much fear) that things won’t get better.

Resentment for the drastic changes our family has gone through.

Pride in what he has accomplished, and in every step toward recovery he makes.

Love, because he calls me mom, and I call him son.

Anger at the behavior that has wreaked havoc in all of our lives.

Stress at the amount of services we need, and people I need to report back to.

Thankfulness that they called us.

Hope that somehow, we can do this.

Despair that maybe we can’t.

Compassion for him and for his mom and siblings.

Sadness. Oh the depth of sadness that he has to walk through the loss of a family again.

Worry because I can’t see an outcome.

Joy when he laughs and things feel ok.

And through it all, a touch of surreal-ness.

It’s been a year, and things still feel new. Routines change, services change, progress changes, behavior changes, and I just want to come up for some air and see outside it for a bit, and know for certain what lay ahead.

And then today comes, August 14th. We made it a year. One of the most personally challenging years I’ve experienced as a parent.

I wondered how I should commemorate today. After all, a year in foster care is not really a win. He’s still deeply grieving (as he should be), and if I’m brave enough to say it, I’m grieving too.

I’m grieve the ease we had as a family before. The freedom I had before. I grieve the naivety that he was doing well. I grieve the amount of time and attention I’ve been able to give my kids. I grieve normalcy. Nothing has felt normal in a year’s time. I long for normal.

I grieve for him, every time he asks for his mommy. I grieve for him when he thinks certain circumstances are normal because that’s what he knows. I grieve for him because he has had so much loss and so many challenges. I grieve for him because even though I know he loves me, having me means losing the rest of his family. What a horrible burden to bear.

So with all this grief, is there room for celebration? Probably not.

But I do think there is room for recognition.

So tonight I will make brownies for dessert and we’ll take some time to affirm the things we’re proud of this year. Like perseverance. And strength. And vulnerability. (Well, those will be my answers. I am sure you will get a very different set of answers from my kids.)

We made it a year. I have no idea how much longer it will take, how much more our hearts will break, how much pain is at stake, how much longer the grief will ache …

But we are here, today. We were here for him.

We made it a year.

The post We made it a year: Foster care the second time around. appeared first on The Lewis Note.

I am proud of my country. And that’s exactly why I feel so ashamed.

I love America.

As a military child raised on Air Force bases across the country, national pride in runs in my veins.

My heart swelled and eyes filled with tears each time I placed my hand over my heart during the national anthem — which was sung before every movie I watched in the theater as a kid. I loved listening to the colors played over loud speakers each day. I revered every person in uniform.

Patriotism was my lifestyle — and I loved it.

When the fourth of July came each year, I watched in awe as each firework burst in the sky, its boom ricocheting off the landscape. The sound reminded me of the wars that were fought in order to bring peace, and freedom, to our beautiful land.

Later, in college, I remember watching with shock and horror as people lept from the burning towers. It looks like a war zone, I wrote in my journal that day. And it did. Devastation. Shock. Horror.

And yet a sacred pride enveloped me when we united as Americans in the aftermath.

Pride in our country was sacred … to the point of being untouchable, as sacred things often are.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Declaration of Independence

So when the fireworks began their annual raucous, I expected my pride, my heart, my tears to swell. For the familiar and deeply abiding pride in my country and in all those who have gone before and beside, protecting our country, to fill all my senses. To be overwhelmed by how good and deserving and right our country is.

But as the fireworks began shooting off, my mind wandered to the children held in detention centers across our border.

I wondered how these kids might feel as they heard the fireworks go off around them? This is the land, the freedom, we celebrate?

“Let freedom ring …”

Abby Anderson

They are too young to know that our country was founded on the very principle that ” We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness …”

The are self-evident. These rights do not need to be proven in a court of law, or by any man-made argument. We do not, nor should we have to, post photos of dying children in order to prove their humanity — their right to live. We do not have to prove how helpless they are, or how dire their circumstances are. As a country, we have taken a moral stance — all humanity, all of it, is created equal with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

They are endowed by their Creator. How many of us Americans believe we deserve liberty because we are Americans — completely ignoring the fact that most of us are Americans because we were born here. Our privilege runs deep in our veins and poisons our thinking. To believe we are in some way morally superior to any other ethnicity, to believe that our children deserve more than other people’s children. How easily it could have been us. But life and liberty are not privileges to be doled out. Their are rights. Inalienable rights.

Inalienable. I cannot help but think of the irony. That we look at everyone else coming across the border as an illegal “alien” — while we hold to this truth as inalienable. As in there is not “us” versus “them” when it comes to these rights.

“Having rights that are inalienable does not mean they cannot be attacked by our being arbitrarily killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed. It means that such acts are not morally justified and that we have a ground for moral complaint” (Center for Civic Education).

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.“

Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia Declaration

The pursuit of life. What I have found so interesting in all of the media and posts about our current border crisis is the constant use of the terms “immigrant” or “migrant.”

It is is as though by using these terms, we are saying that every person who comes to the border is doing something wrong, and that they all have the same motive.

We often think of immigrants as people who are pursuing a better “quality” of life. As in, “I don’t have the resources or opportunities in my country of origin, therefore I will move to a country where I will be able to better provide for myself and my children.”

But when it comes to those coming to our country, there are actually three legal terms, and they each have different legal processes and ramifications: Immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. (Read about the differences of each of these here.)

” An asylum seeker is someone who is also seeking international protection from dangers in his or her home country, but whose claim for refugee status hasn’t been determined legally. Asylum seekers must apply for protection in the country of destination—meaning they must arrive at or cross a border in order to apply…. Tens of thousands of children and families from Central America have fled extreme danger—murder, kidnapping, violence against women and forced recruitment by gangs. Those arriving at the U.S. border are being depicted as ‘illegal immigrants,’ but in reality, crossing an international border for asylum is not illegal and an asylum seeker’s case must be heard, according to U.S. and international law. “

International Rescue Committee

We as educated Americans have failed to educate ourselves on the most basic of principles when it comes to the crisis at the border. We presume that every person who walks across our border, children in hands and arms, are here illegally, and are a problem to dispose of.

But the truth is that the majority are crossing the border IN accordance with our law. And our lack of oversight and proper management of the border should not ever come down to families and putting children at risk.

For these families, it takes risking their children’s lives by coming to the border in order to save their children’s lives. And for those who simply cannot wait at the border often try to come illegally only because of the most dire of circumstances.

They are sitting ducks for sex traffickers. Rapists. Murderers. Fleeing makes sense.

So yes, pride in my country runs deep. I am ever grateful for the sacrifices of so many, including my own family members, who have helped create and protect this land that offers abundant freedom.

But let’s be clear. This country is about protecting the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not about assigning the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to whoever we feel deserving.

Those rights are God-given. Not America-given.

To the children and their families who have come to America, desperate, hurting, and clinging to the belief that your inalienable rights will be recognized here … I can only say how deeply ashamed I am at the “welcome” you received. That you were treated as criminals for seeking asylum according to our own laws.

I feel deep regret that so many of my fellow countrymen and politicians, those who pledge allegiance to a flag that promises liberty and justice for all, would not only turn their backs to you at this time — but also inflict deep and lasting trauma that will haunt you and your children for generations to come.

I am so very proud of my country. Except for this. And it is because I have reason to be so very proud of our values that I feel nothing but shame in our actions.

Tonight as the fireworks fill the sky, my heart will be fixed on a singular cry ….

Let freedom ring.

The post I am proud of my country. And that’s exactly why I feel so ashamed. appeared first on The Lewis Note.

This Mother’s Day, You Are Worthy of Honor, No Matter Your Journey

Perhaps your journey to motherhood doesn’t look like anything that could be captured on a Hallmark Mother’s Day card. If so, this is for you …

To the mother who has given birth, and understands not only the glory of pregnancy and childbirth but also the sacrifice …

To the mother who has welcomed, advocated for, and deeply loved children who have called another woman mother …

To the mother who has watched through tears as her child was taken from her arms …

RELATED: Mourning the Child Who Did Not Die

To the mother sitting empty-handed this morning, her heart full and also broken from loving her children who never got to take a breath …

To the mother whose life is broken up into the two-week wait and the two-week wait to try again. They say a mother’s heart is sacrifice, and she has never sacrificed so much and still, no one calls her mother …

RELATED: I Miscarried. You’re Infertile. Both Are Devastating.

To the mother with her children all grown and gone, thankful for the time she had, wishing desperately it had not gone so fast …

To the mother who has stood at her child’s grave, mourning, angry, desperate, weeping, stoic, silent, accepting, denying, broken … and even brave …

RELATED: 5 Things You Should Never Say to a Woman Whose Baby Died

To the mother daily giving of herself facing a lifetime of unknowns, her child on their own unique path requiring a kind of mothering she’s never had to give. And yet, she gives it anyway …

To the mother who has children not by birth, but by heart. Who mothers from a place of privilege, not obligation …

To the mother who has lost her own and grieves the place her mother should have in her life right now …

To the grandmother who is so active in her children’s and grandchildren’s lives …

To the grandmother who mourns a child or grandchild …

To the mother whose arms are full …

To the mother whose arms are empty …

To the mother holding life in her womb …

To the mother who never had a chance …

To the mother holding on …

To the mother letting go …

Today we recognize you.

Your journey to motherhood … the sacrifices you have made, the grief you bear, the love that is so very real …

It is seen.

You are seen.

You are loved.

You are worthy.

You are honored.

Your motherhood may have been everything you wanted. Everything you didn’t. Or somewhere in between.

But no matter your journey …

You are worthy of recognition and honor this Mother’s Day.

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If you are looking for grief support through the loss or removal of a child or fertility, join us a Brave Mamas.

If you could use some encouragement this May, join me for my 30-Day Mom Giveaway here.

The post This Mother’s Day, You Are Worthy of Honor, No Matter Your Journey appeared first on The Lewis Note.

Why I hate your fake pregnancy announcement … And it’s not why you think.

Several years ago, a friend posted a charming pregnancy announcement on Facebook. I wish I could say I responded with unadulterated joy — but the truth is, it brought up a whole lot of feelings … let’s just say … I wouldn’t call positive.

We had been trying to conceive after our first loss, and the day of this friend’s announcement was the day my body also obnoxiously announced we were not pregnant. It was “only” our second month trying since our loss — and in hindsight, I could say that wasn’t very long — but when you’re expecting a baby and then suddenly you’re not, time is relative.

This pregnancy announcement definitely stung. But not for the reason you might think.

I was sad for us. But not sad for her. I was angry at our journey, but not angry at her. I was tired and weary of the grief I carried, but I didn’t want her to have to carry any of it.

No one should have to deal with loss and infertility, but I didn’t want to be the one to deal with it either.

RELATED: I Had a Miscarriage. You’re Infertile. Both Are Devastating.

But I knew deep inside this person did not deserve any of my negativity around her pregnancy. All babies deserve to be celebrated.

And so — I wrestled.

I wrestled my thoughts and feelings. I brought the deep feelings to the surface so I could explore them, confront them, understand them, and challenge them.

Realizing that this one post would spur nine months of posts of her burgeoning belly (back before “unfollow” was a thing), I prepared my heart for all the posts and all the triggers yet to come.

I spent time mourning my own expectation that I would have a healthy, thriving child in my belly instead of the a healthy, thriving tree planted out back that was given to me in my baby’s memory.

I spent this time, and all this emotional effort, because this person was worth it, and I knew this baby would be worth it.

And then she filled us in on a secret — her pregnancy announcment was nothing more than an April Fool’s joke.

My heart dropped, then bounced between anger, frustration, and betrayal. I felt like my deepest emotions had been taken advantage of. That they went unseen.

I don’t like fake pregnancy announcements. I totally understand if you might think I’m bitter.

But do not assume this indicates a massive character flaw on my part.

Could it be that I don’t like fake announcements because I try my hardest to be happy for every pregnancy announcement, no matter the cost to me personally?

Can you see that the reason it was so hard was because I valued my friend, valued her baby, and valued the significance of new life? That these values paved the way for the deep and painful wrestling with the legitimate feelings my own loss has brought about?

Do you recognize the amount of time and energy it took to write “Congratulations!” while tears poured down my face for my own baby I wished I could hold?

RELATED: 5 Things You Should Never Say to a Woman Whose Baby Died

Isn’t it possible that it is not anger at another person’s fortune, but rather deep mourning of my own misfortune, which prompted my feelings?

Pregnancy announcements should bring joy. But for those dealing with infertility or loss, pregnancy announcements are hard.

They are hard because we care — not because we are callous.

They sting because we value life — not because we take it for granted.

They hurt because we recognize that loss has changed us immeasurably, and we are no longer the person who can easily celebrate with others — not because we aren’t trying.

And when we’ve gone through all that emotional upheaval, to tap into whatever is left of our posititivity and hope and wrestle anew with our own deep sense of loss, the last thing in the world we want to hear is that all of that wrestling was for nothing.

Every time you post a pregnancy announcement, odds are roughly that one out of the four women who see your post will have to do their fair share of wrestling to simply like your post or offer congratulations.

So when you post a fake announcement, I understand you are attempting to be funny.

But instead of prompting just laughter, you are also unwittingly prompting tears.

Not because your friends dealing with loss or infertility are bitter — but because they love you and are trying their hardest to do better. And finding out their hard emotional work to celebrate was all for nothing is a super low blow.

There are a million and one ways to be funny this April Fool’s Day. But fake a pregnancy announcement is not one of them.

Are you a woman grieving the loss of a child through infertility, pregnancy or infant loss, child loss, or loss in adoption/foster care? Join us for an online support group at Brave Mamas. Click here to join.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash

The post Why I hate your fake pregnancy announcement … And it’s not why you think. appeared first on The Lewis Note.