First placement!!!

We welcomed our first placement on Friday! Of course Drew, my husband, was out of town for work and at about 10:30 pm I get the call for an emergency placement of a two year old little girl. The reason for removal without too many details, meth. Almost every foster parent that I know has a placement that has been removed due to methamphetamine use. It's a serious problem that is ravaging our children! But that topic is for another time. So I call Drew and we decide YES we will take her! Now this doesn't necessarily mean she will come with us. So we start more waiting. DHS is then presented with families who have said yes from multiple agencies, and from that group they make a decision. So finally at 11:45 pm I get the call that they picked us! The caseworker from DHS then asks if I will meet her at a Walmart parking lot to get her! Oh my goodness, I was so nervous. Not only am I driving to pick up our very first placement and have no idea what to expect, but I am driving to a Walmart parking lot in the middle of the night! So we agree to get there by 12:30. I am there at 12:20 and wait until 1 am! Finally she arrives. The caseworker parks right next to me, gets out, says an extremely quick hello, and proceeds to open the back passenger door. There she was, this little girl with the most terrified tear filled eyes. She's wearing all pink except for her little tan peacoat. The caseworker tells me she has been crying for the past hour straight and here are her things. A little purse with a onsie and two diapers. Then she says, I have to go to another case, thank you.

Wow! That is not what I had expected! So we make the 15 minute drive home and she doesn't cry. Thankfully. At this point I am running on adrenaline. I am shaky with anxiety and well the most nervous I have ever been. I carry her through the door and our dogs greet her with tail wags and kisses and she laughs! That was the moment I knew everything would be ok. I put her down and she wandered around the house until she found the cat, Booger. It was love at first sight. Haha... For the next ten minutes or so she followed him around meowing in her adorable little voice. I gave her a tour of the house, as we are supposed to do so within the first 24 hours. I probably could've waited until the morning but I think I needed some time to think about what I was going to do next.

Now came bedtime. She was terrified and refused to go to sleep in the crib in her room. So I set up a pack n' play in our room and she fell asleep in about 3 minutes. She slept until 10:30 the next day. Poor thing was exhausted. When she finally woke up she ate some breakfast and requested "leche". I discovered she only spoke spanish! Haha... as if it wasn't going to be challenging enough, we have to add a language barrier too?! Later that day we went to Kohl's to get her some diapers and clothes, as you remember she came with two diapers and a onsie. She loved shopping and was such a good girl. She liked to hold my hand and picked out everything that was pink!

After shopping we went to the park. She was very shy and didn't want to do the swings and was hesitant to go down the slide without assistance. First thought in my mind was that she'd never been to a park before? But looking back now she was probably just terrified. I was no longer terrified so she shouldn't be either, right? As each day went on she became more and more comfortable. She started to play and laugh and talk a lot more. I'll never forget when she picked up a toy cell phone and said, "Esta Mama?". I almost started crying. You can't help but be angry. Who could do this to their sweet little girl? Look at her? Completely confused and scared. But wow she is so brave at the same time! Look at her resilience! She hasn't been sitting around all day moping and crying. She's been playing and dealing with her circumstances. I know I couldn't be that strong.

Nights were the hardest for her. I would have to rock her to sleep for about one hour and make sure she was completely out before putting her down. Otherwise she would wake up and start screaming. Thankfully once she was out, she was out.

So when you get a placement, within 24 hours your home supervisor has to come to your home and collect all of your new placement paperwork and check to see how things are going. Our home supervisor didn't come until Monday since it was a weekend. This meeting was definitely a test to see how much I had remembered from training. Well I definitely forgot some things with all of the excitement of "L" coming! But she helped me through what I was missing. She ensured me that she seemed to be adjusting well under the circumstances. This is where Hope and Home is different. They really care about their foster parents and their job is to be our support, which is an amazing feeling because otherwise I would've been alone. No one else you know can help you through this experience as most people aren't foster parents.

Now fast forward to Tuesday at 4 pm. I get a call from the caseworker who says, can you bring L down to DHS? I say of course, for what and when? Her mom is here to pick her up, can you come as soon as possible? My heart drops. I have not been told any information about the case and this was a shocking surprise. For all I knew we would have her for another year! So I get off the phone and run downstairs to tell Drew and I just start crying. Why am I getting so emotional?! We've only had her for 4 1/2 days! I was already getting attached to her and I was worried about who and what she was going back to.

We made the 30 minute drive to DHS and I start telling her in the car that we are going to see her Momma. And her face lit up. She kept looking out the car window anticipating seeing her. When we went into the building they went to get the caseworker and her mom and aunt. Man those five minutes felt like an hour. All of these questions kept racing through my mind. What is she going to look like? What is she going to say? What am I going to say? What is L going to do? The elevator doors finally open and her momma comes running out crying and saying something in spanish. L just looked at her with a blank stare. She didn't try to go to her but she didn't resist either. Her aunt thanked me for taking care of her and I handed her L's things. Then I was told I could leave by the caseworker.

When I arrived home the feeling in the house was strange. It was now more quiet than it had ever been. But at the same time I was suddenly exhausted and felt relieved to have my freedom back. It's a very strange feeling to go from having no kids to suddenly taking care of another persons child like your own 24/7. After a couple of days we were anxious to get another call. Now starts the inevitable wait...