Thankful

  I'm about a month behind on posting about what I am thankful for. This has been a very trying time for our little family. I didn't tell many people about this; but we decided to try out the foster-to-adopt program, thinking that since we can't have children that we would try and add to our family this way, at least until we make some big decisions about infertility treatments and adoption.
  We got a little boy the end of October, and we absolutely fell in love with him. My wonderful husband jumped right in and was the best dad I have ever seen. He fell in love instantly. The baby was 18 months and such a joy.
  A week after he came into our home we found out that he was going to be taken back to him family (because of privacy stuff, I cant say anything about the family, but lets just say it was a really bad situation). This broke our hearts. I have never felt a pain like this, my arms felt empty, my house was too quiet, the dining room floor was too clean, and I didn't think I would miss hearing "the princess and the frog" in the background...all day long.
  A month later DCFS called again, the baby was back in foster care, of course we said we would take him. It was a repeat of the same situation as before. Again, we had our barely mending hearts broken. So were done with foster care. I feel awful saying that, but there is no way we can do it. We want children so badly, that to have one come in and then get taken back, going through that over and over again...there is no way we could survive.

  The Christmas season has been especially hard because I just keep thinking of what could have been. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel...I hope.

  Even though this has all been very, very hard I do have a lot to be thankful for:

• My hubby. Even though, he was hurting as much or more than I was; he was my rock. He was strong when I couldn't be and made sure I was ok.
• My mom-in-law Wanda. She came over and despite her severe dog allergies, was here when they took him away.
• My Mom, Nana, and Aunt Mirola; their kind, loving words and prayers made everything seem a little bit better every time I talked to them.
• The little kiddo, in his short time with us he taught us so much. We never knew we could love that much and fall in love so fast. He taught us how to be a family and to lean on each other for support.
• The priesthood. Words cannot describe how thankful I am that we have the priesthood in our home and in our life. The countless blessing of comfort and peace we received made it so much easier to deal with this. My dad in law and his co-workers, who valiantly gave up their time, gave us beautiful, thoughtful, and powerful blessings that got us through the next 12 hours until we reached New Mexico.
• My wonderful & beautiful family in New Mexico, they surrounded us with so much love and support the second we got there.
• My cousins Roberta and Criste are such sweet women, I am so blessed to have them in my life. They surrounded me with so much love, I don't how they knew I needed them to stay by my side the whole time, but they did. I can't express how much their kindness and love means to me

  I keep using the word love over and over, but I don't have another word for what I felt that all these amazing people were doing for me, they were loving me, and even though that's all they could have done. It was more than enough.  I have so much more to be thankful for, but this experience has taught me that I really need to value the people in my life so much more. Even though I feel alone a lot, I know that if I just reach for them, they will be there to help me through anything.

Roberta, Criste, & me.