Squawk Box: Your Own Piece

Hey Lovelies,

Sorry to have missed Monday but the holiday season snuck up on me and I am drowning in travel plans, hosting guests, and buying gifts. Therefore consider this squawk the last post until the new year. I know how hard the holidays can be, having them be the season I dreaded most while in the trenches, and I won’t add to your pain by talking about my family this holiday season. So, enough about me, tonight’s squawk comes from S.W! Girl is a regular wordsmith on this blog and I keep trying to convince her to jump into bed with me and become another Unpregnant Chicken. So far she has eluded me. But I will keep trying.

In the meanwhile here is her latest piece on her journey. I absolutely respect her willingness to be open about her sometimes worried thoughts on if she’ll get to parenthood. I think everyone feels like this at times. Enjoy!

The picture is of a couple out having fun. This is part of what we get to enjoy with infertility. A little more alone time… Sometimes that is hard to give up! Share your experience here: Please! I’m running low!

XOXXO,
The Chicken

Your Own Piece

Written by: S.W.

Published with the author’s permission.

*Before I begin, let me start off by saying that every person has a different journey through life. My journey is different than yours. I hope that someday, everyone finds their own piece of happiness.*

Anyone who has ever read my squawkbox submissions knows that Hubs and I have gone through a lot, but not nearly as much as others. What we have gone through has brought us to where we are today. For that we are very thankful. However, it has also opened my eyes to what we will be losing and yet gaining at the same time.

We have decided to become Foster Parents with the intention to adopt. Now if you’re in the U.S. and you’ve gone through your local Department of Health and Human Services, you should know that it’s definitely never a given that you will be able to adopt the child you foster. However, in Michigan, and specifically in our county, the chances of us adopting the child we are placed with are higher than most. As great as that sounds, I also know to keep my hopes low and my wits about me because like most things in life, this a gamble.

This now brings me to my thoughts… Hubs and I took a late anniversary trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We LOVE Northern Michigan and we love spending time together (seriously, we do). When we took our trip, we were a tad spontaneous. Which would normally bother the living crap out of me because I need to KNOW what we are doing, where we are going, how long we will be gone for, etc… but that weekend, I just decided to ‘roll with it’. I knew that the week after, we would begin our PRIDE classes for our Foster Care and that every weekend would be taken up doing that for 6 hours and we would be exhausted after the fact.

While we were out ‘road exploring’ it dawned on me that once we become foster parents and just parents in general, that we won’t be able to do these things. One of the biggest things we did while on our trip was going to the casinos. I love to play online gambling games like dominoqq and I’m actually pretty good. I’d say I definitely make more money than I lose. However, I have only ever been to an actual casino once. I play casino games day in day out on my phone/laptop and know there are many different platforms and games for me to explore like vn88 the second room of W88 and more, and I know there are so many casinos, but I just never get the chance to visit one. Northern Michigan is known for its casinos along with its beauty, so we went around driving and dropping some money. It was fun (although I think I definitely prefer online gambling – it’s so much easier from the comfort of your own home). And you can also do it whenever you want to. Any free time? Play online casinos. Bored? Play online casinos. My friend told me that slot machines or Online pokies as Australians call them is a great way to pass the time. I might give it a go soon, or even visiting Northern Michigan could be an option. We had a great time just being together. Then it me! Holy smokes. We will never be able to just do and things for ourselves ever again. Or at least for quite some time… especially with foster care.

Foster care parenting is so different than regular parenting. Both have their ups and downs and yes, I know I’m not a (foster) parent yet, but I still know. I’ve seen what people have had to go through. At least with your own birth child, you can just take them with you no matter what. You want to go to a different country? Great! You want to visit family out of state? You go for it! With foster care we can’t do any of those things. Not that we regularly leave the U.S. (we’ve been together 10.5 years and have only take one major out of state trip), but it would be nice to have that option. It would be nice to have the option to just leave the Mitten if we wanted to and go down to Illinois, but no. Not with foster care. With foster care if you do, that’s called Kidnapping. As a preschool teacher, I cannot do that. If I want to try and do that, I have to get permission through my caseworker, who has to talk to the birth parent, and then make the decision based off of that.

My thoughts on this whole thing changed…do I really want to do this? I mean, I’ve known for just about my entire life, that I wanted to be a Mom. That I was meant to be a mother, but I didn’t know if I had it in me to just give everything up. Hubs and I are 27 and 31. We’ve spent our entire relationship just being us. Never having to factor in another person. I look at former classmates that got pregnant young and I think “Wow, your entire adulthood has been being a parent.” Whereas mine has been just thinking about myself. Doing whatever I want, going wherever I want when I want. I like that freedom. I’ve had so much freedom.

I know that sounds so incredibly selfish, and I at one time, when I was much younger, was a selfish person. However, I overcame that. That whole piece is a story in itself. However, I like having that freedom and it scared me. It actually scared me. I started to bawl and Hubs didn’t know what to think or say. Would anyone? I know if the roles were reversed I would’ve been very confused.

It wasn’t until the week after our trip, when we began our classes, that my mind and heart, reminded me why we were pursuing this. I’m still terrified of the freedom that we will lose. I mean, we are going to have meetings, and the child(ren) will have meetings with the birth parents, we might have counseling that will need to take place, we are going to have support group meetings that we will need to attend, etc…but I know why we are doing this. Freedom be damned. We will make it work. It’ll be hard but worth it.

I’ve always wanted to be a Mom. This is my chance to be a Mom and for Hubs to be a Dad. It might not be for a lifetime or it might be just that. Either way we are getting our shot.

Everything is going to be ok. This is what I tell myself. Everything is going to be ok. We might lose some freedom, we can still have fun. We still have a great support network, and we will be able to do things, as a family, it’ll just have to be arranged in a different manner.

I wish for a child with every shooting star, every birthday candle, and every Chinese Lantern that gets lit. I will take what I can get, and run with it. Together Hubs and I can do whatever is set in front of us. As long as I have him, I have no reason to worry.

S.W.