One of many many weird things about fostering is that you do not know what came before. Even with a tiny baby straight from the hospital (so we know things like she never lived in a physically or sexually abusive home before coming to us) we do not know other things – for example, we have no idea if bio-mom used alcohol at any point during the pregnancy and, therefore, if fetal alcohol syndrome is a risk, if baby was full term, etc. Of course, we also do not even know if we will have her with us long enough to know how she develops. The “what came before” and “what if they aren’t smart” or “what if they are emotionally compromised” concepts were really overwhelming while we were considering adoption. . . but has been surprisingly absent from my usually worrying mind since I got my hands on this little one. Presumably, that’s how love works!
So far, baby is developing exactly as a baby of her age is supposed to, except, of course, the not sleeping outside our arms part! (I say that, as, right now, she hits the 45 minute in the bassinet mark for the first time in a week! Perhaps I should have tried publicly shaming her for her sleeping habits sooner…) I love the internet for its wealth of information and I freaking hate the internet for its wealth of information. Trying to figure out what to do about a nine-week-old’s sleep habits is downright impossible. After endless reading, I concocted a plan…because baby’s LOVE PLANS and are generally very cooperative! Right now, we are doing everything we can to teach her to just sleep at night, without regard for putting her into the bassinet. We will hold her if we have to, we want to get her on a night-time-sleeping schedule. THEN, NEXT, we will teach her to sleep without being held. It seems too hard to teach her everything at once, and I am just not wiling to entirely traumatize my tiny baby through an intense crying it out scheme. I know people do it, and I know it’s probably fine, it’s just not going to be me. I just… can’t leave a baby in foster care to feel abandoned, even though she is tiny and doesn’t know any better, and basically has had her every need catered to since the day she landed here. We will do everything we can to teach healthy attachment every second we have her!
Baby loves faces and smiles. She has learned to do a hilarious ridiculous shriek of excitement that would probably be completely awful if it wasn’t so doggone adorable. Baby likes her special black and white books and makes excited faces when she sees the black and white animals.
I think she like “Hello Bugs” just a tiny bit more than “Hello Animals” but I’m probably entirely full of shit. But I have witnesses that she really DOES love the books!
We have learned that we are likely to know more about the first leg of this journey by the beginning of next year – which is pretty soon in the grand scheme of life. In some ways, we are luckier than most foster parents, because the court side of our baby’s case is moving faster than usual because there are other family members already in care. There is an emotional balancing act between wanting what is best for the baby and her family and wanting, for all the obvious reasons, to keep her. Anything that happens that is good for me is heartbreaking for her family of origin and will certainly have emotional repercussions for baby in the future. We have spent a lot of time thinking about that balancing act and the reality is, I don’t have any control over those pieces – they are not going to give her to me because I want her, they are going to do whatever is best for her without any input about my personal wants or needs. That means, if some day, baby (or future babyXs) stays with me for good, that I can simply be happy for our family because I am not the cause of the trauma. I get to be a piece of stability that helps her heal and address that traumatic history. With full awareness of all the complicated and moving parts, we have given our future selves permission to simply be selfish in our happiness when the time comes.