In traditional terms I wouldn’t be considered a parent. I have never given birth, I hold no legal guardianship over another life, but I was born a mother. My maternal instinct kicked in early. I love taking care of people and kids absolutely melt me. So when my mom started talking about wanting to become involved with foster care I absolutely supported her. My two younger sisters were slightly more hesitant but decided to come along for the ride. So we decided to take the plunge; after about a year of taking parenting classes, being interviewed and evaluated my mom became a foster parent.
Four years later we are still here taking these amazing children into our homes and into our lives. It has been some of my most rewarding, exhausting, and emotional years. But I’m not writing to talk about the ups and downs of foster parenting (although it’s been quite a rollercoaster). I would like to tell more of a precautionary tale to the onlookers gazing from the sidelines… Continue reading "I'm a stay-at-home sister. Let me tell you about The Look." →
I recently saw my daughter for the first time in about a year. She turned 6 this past fall, is going to school, and looks just like me. She calls me by my name. I think if she ever called me her mother, I’d cry as I corrected her. She may be my daughter, but I am not her active parent, her active mother. I am her birthmom- not as a derogatory term, but simply as a clarification. A different type of mother.
So there I was: nine months of being called sir because of the Sinead O’Connor hairstyle (despite the ever growing belly), three months of craving beer like there was no tomorrow and enduring one of the hottest summers in New Mexico history with a tiny little space heater inside of me, numerous bad looks and negative comments regarding my plans to place my child with an adoptive couple (it didn’t seem to matter that it would be an open adoption and I’d still be a part of his life), absolutely no birthing classes (I couldn't justify spending good money on something that mankind has done it's entire existence), being arrested at 8 and a half months, and one woman who thought my son was a tumor (mostly because I, uh, told her that I was undergoing chemotherapy and would she kindly take her hand off my tumor… but I only did it because she needed to learn that it’s not okay to touch strangers, even pregnant ones).
