Foster Failure (it's a long one)

Dear friends, I have alluded to this many times over the course of this blog.  I've had a series of down days this last week (and even now) and it's come up in my brain again.  I'm obsessing and feeling guilty again and I need the catharsis of writing about it.  If you feel up to it, indulge me by allowing me to put it out there.  While I clearly have a serotonin deficiency, "down" times are often triggered.  For the last year, my trigger has been our undertaking and failure of being foster parents.

The Beginning:

When my youngest son was 6 months old, I was rocking him back to sleep in the middle of the night.  As I was staring sleepily into the crib, I suddenly had the vision of a tiny black baby sleeping peacefully in it.   It made my heart happy.  What a beautiful picture of love to have a sweet brown baby in my home!  But, we aren't black, so with the memory of that little mental photograph, I began to think about ways that God might be working to bring that about. One thing led to another and suddenly we were signed up for 30 hours of training to become foster parents.  We passed the training and passed the home study and became licensed in September. 

Since I had been on an antidepressant for nearly a year, I was feeling MUCH better and thought we were up for the task of taking on a new kiddo.  We thought that, during this season of life, adding a ministry to what we were already doing (parenting young children) made sense.  Around the end of October, we got a call.  There was an African American brother and sister that needed to be moved because their current guardian was not able to get them to their preschool (which was mandated).  We were told that they were sweet little kids who were affectionate and had minimal developmental delays.  It sounded like a great first placement!

The Middle:

The day they came I knew we were in over our heads.  Instead of being a sweet, affectionate 3 and 4 year old, they brought with them earth shattering chaos.  They didn't get along with my children. My four year old suffered enormous amounts of stress and was the target of many vindictive plots to see him get punished.  My one year old was constantly being pushed over and having toys taken away from him. They needed constant attention and affection.  They cried every hour of every day about something and intentionally injured themselves to get attention and affection.  They had never had rules or been disciplined and hated the boundaries we set for them. 

The key word in this is constant.  I mean every minute of every day for 8 months was incessant craziness and upheaval.  For 6 months I ran on adrenaline, caffeine, and Zoloft.  Around the 6 month mark, I just ran out of steam.  I didn't have anything left to give to anyone.  I was totally depleted.  In addition, every time we tried to get a break, something happened to prevent it.  One weekend, when my husband and I planned a get away, our then 16 month old came down with chicken pox.  The next time we planned a whole week out in the country as a core family vacation (without foster kids), my husband's grandmother died and instead we drove for 24 hours to attend a funeral in Tennessee.  I could NOT get a break.  I even signed up for a gym membership to get an hour of free babysitting and time to work out, but it was so chaotic to get them loaded into the van, driven to the gym, checked into childcare and taken home that it wasn't even worth the break!  

Sadly, even my oldest son (then 4) was suffering emotionally.  He had become withdrawn and sad.  Once he stayed the night with my sister and told her that he wanted to go live with her because there weren't any foster children.  He oscillated between melancholy and hyperactivity and always seemed to be in trouble.   

The End:

Fast forward to the end of June...8 months.  It had been insanity since day 1 and there was no end in sight (they are, by the way, still in care almost a year later).  For the last few months, I literally felt like I had been hit in the head with a shovel every day, I'd even stopped taking my Zoloft.  It wasn't working anymore and it was making me fatter.  I reasoned at least if I had to be miserable either way, I could at least drop some weight.  I was getting more tired and the foster kids were getting worse.  The little boy became more despondent and started having weird episodes of zoning out, had memory problems, and began to tell outrageous fibs.  The little girl became more sassy and mean and began acting more like a 15 year old than a 5 year old (in many, many ways).  The last weekend in June it all fell apart.  A new (new-ish...we'd seen inklings of it previously) behavior popped up from the little girl.  We tried to train and teach her to make a different choice, but she saw that it was a hot button issue and took delight in continuing with this behavior.  She also thought it would be fun to violently threaten my husband...not to his face, but by telling out oldest son what she "planned to do" to daddy.  I had an urgent and overwhelming feeling that this situation was no longer safe for my children.

We have a family friend who is a foster veteran.  On the night I finally decided enough was enough,  she was there to speak truth and kindness to me.  I felt guilty for breaking our commitment.  I felt like I was letting God down and the foster ministry down.   We were giving up on these orphans and that felt wretched.  She gave me some wonderful wisdom.  "God's giving you a STOP sign," she said, "you can either choose to plow through it and think that only you can save these kids...or you can accept it.  You are not the only people who are capable of caring for these children.  God will provide what they need."  Those words were a salve to my weary heart.  We took the stop sign.  It turned out to be wise as a few days later it became abundantly CLEAR that this was no longer a safe situation.  We'd made the right call. 

It was yucky.  When the little girl left, they told her she was going to have to go to a new place because of her bad choices...she responded with "YAY!".  That stung.  We had loved them and provided a stable, structured, kind environment for them.  We'd read to them and prayed with them every single night. We'd given them special birthday parties and opportunities to learn about their interests through sports and dance.  I had poured myself out for them to the point of mental exhaustion.  I didn't understand why she hated us so much. 

We were cut off from them immediately after they left.  I no longer knew where they were or how they were doing.  I didn't even really get to say goodbye to them.  It wasn't the way that we pictured this ending.  We were planning on a sweet goodbye when they found a family to adopt them.  That didn't happen. They ended up in a good situation, but they had a brief stay in an orphanage while they waited.  The thought of that was guilt inducing. 

The Fallout:

Beginning on the day they left, I wrestled with depression and obsession.  "What could I have done differently?" looped in my brain every minute of every day.   I couldn't make mental sense of what had happened to me and to my family.  I'd have days of peace followed by weeks of gut wrenching guilt and shame over disrupting this placement.  I confessed any sin I could think of but still felt condemnation.  It's all I could think about and talk about.  People that I loved stopped wanting to hear about it. 

My oldest son was ANGRY.  We had to work hard to restore our relationship and bring him back to normal.  He was acting out at school in bizarre and disconcerting ways.  We consulted a pediatric psychologist about him.  I was worried that I had ruined my child because of my desire to serve God and my city. 

We spent the whole fall and most of winter insulating ourselves from everyone but close family and friends.   I started seeing my therapist more regularly.  I went back to work. 

My blog began in January and I've kept you abreast of the status of my heart.  It's not great.  Since going back on my meds, it's better, but I still have days when I feel awful about the whole foster situation.  We've decided not to take any more placements.  We've even decided to freeze our respite license for 5 years (and will likely let it lapse after that).  My relationship with my oldest son has improved tremendously but we still have times when I have to kind of go back and explain some things that went down while we had our placement. 

I wrestle, not with God, but with the concept of suffering.  Today, the halls of our church were freshly painted with saying like "City Renewal Is Hard" and "City Renewal Is Messy".  Instead of falling in line and agreeing (I do on some level), I felt a physical pain in my heart.  I couldn't do it.  I wasn't willing to sacrifice my sanity (I'm not being dramatic, I mean it) and wasn't willing to put my children on the alter of service to our city.  On one hand, I am proud that I had the courage to say I couldn't do it any more.  But, on the other hand (the heavier hand, if I am honest) I feel guilty and ashamed that we let down two of our cities orphans by admitting that their mess was more than we could handle. 

That begins a cycle of doubting my faith and doubting my devotion to God.  Am I unwilling to do hard things for Him or was this just the wrong hard thing for me?   I sit here, defeated, bawling all over my laptop.  I hurt and I don't have any answers. 

Tonight, in the sermon, the pastor said that we can't hope in ourselves, because we always fall short...even short of our own moral standards.  I fell disgustingly short of my own moral standards.  Good Christians don't say they are weak, they pray and God makes them strong enough...right?  Good Christians don't give up on the unlovely people, they stick with them until the bitter end...right?  I don't know.  Here's what I do know...I didn't...I couldn't. 

I also know that God loves me.  He loves me in my grossest most vile and sickening moments.  He is greater than I could ever hope to be.  I have to hope in Him...I have to or my heart will die.  In moments like this, the knowledge of His unfailing, unwavering love is all I have...ALL I have.