It isn't about the money we spend, but the time we invest in others

 I wrote this entry in December and it was posted on my Facebook, but I thought I would share it here too. It has a good message behind it and can apply anytime of the year, not just at Christmas.

So today I was at the salvation army when a call came in from a social worker. She said she had a patient that wasn't likely to make it to Christmas but his daughter really wanted her dad to have one last Christmas tree.  I told her that there was not thing that we could do, but it bothered me, so I decided I would buy him a small tree, lights and ornaments. It cost me $2.50.  I worked a full day at the salvation army and I still had to go to the store, I was tired and wanted to go home. Yet, still I felt like needed to drop the tree off tonight.  So I took it in and asked the front desk if the social worker was still available. They said no, but I could put it downstairs in front of their office door. So while I was waiting for the elevator there was a woman standing there, she was obviously distressed. After standing there for a few minutes, I asked that same stupid question everyone asks "Are you ok?"  She then poured out that her grandfather passed away on Friday, which caused her dad to have some kind of attack. He was sent to the hospital and she flew up to be with him. She assumed that he would be fine in a few days and they would spend Christmas together. Apparently shortly before I got there they told her they didn't think he would make it another week.  I assumed that this was the woman the social worker meant but I asked to be sure. I asked if she had asked for a Christmas tree? With tears in her eyes she said "yeah but they said they couldn't help me" Well me, standing there with a garbage bag, told her that I have a Christmas tree for her. She dropped her things, started sobbing and hugged me and thanked me over and over on how much this meant to her. To be able to celebrate one last Christmas with her father. She asked me to come meet her dad, which I did, she said what she really needed was someone to just care. She didn't have anyone.  She hugged me one last time and said God Bless you. As I walked down the hospital stairs it put so much into prospective for me. I say I am thankful for what I have, while wanting more.  Today, I made a dying man's last holiday with his child possible by spending $2.50 and an hour of my time. It was the best time and money ever spent. I found that John had passed away 3 hours after I brought the Christmas tree. A friend who happened to be at the hospital told me she saw his daughter after he had passed. She was sitting in the waiting room and heard her say, "at least we got one last Christmas tree together" It isn't about the money we spend but the time we invest in others. Happy Holidays

A shelter from the storm, a safe Haven

Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of teen pregnancy and child bearing. Two-thirds of young unmarried mothers are poor and around 25 percent go on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Low educational attainment among teen mothers affects their lifetime income levels. Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school or college, and are therefore also less likely to find well-paying jobs. This reality is evident in the fact that over the past 20 years, the median income for college graduates has increased 19 percent, while income among high school drop-outs has decreased 28 percent.

Only around 20 percent of fathers of children born to teen mothers marry the mothers. Therefore, child support generally represents a vital income source for these single parent families, accounting for 23 percent of family income among families that receive it. However, teen fathers may pay less than $800 a year in child support, compounding financial difficulties for the parent responsible for day to day care. Teen fathers are often poor themselves; research indicates that they are also less educated and experience earning losses of 10-15 percent annually.

Resources:

     Teen Pregnancy, Poverty & Income Disparity, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy


   As a teen mom I understand what it is like to not have a lot, and we had more then most. What we had that made all the difference is support. We had family that made sure we never went without the things we needed.  We never truly had to worry about how to buy diapers when our tiny pay check was gone. We tried our best to do it on our own but if we couldn't, our families helped. With love, support and a LOT of hard work we crawled out of the hole called poverty and are doing very well. We now have all the things we need and a lot of the things we want.
    I often think about how life would have been different for me and the kids without our support system. What if my parents had thrown me out, or disowned me. What if I had lost my friends when I became pregnant, like a lot of teens do. What would I have done?  I go though all the resources our community has (not that I really knew them at the time) and think about how they could have helped me at 15, pregnant, and alone.  We don't have much in this area. Without a teen homeless shelter, the ability to drive, and being to young to get a job or to sign up for a lot of resources without parental consent, it seems nearly impossible. I couldn't even see a doctor without my parents. If I was truly 15, pregnant, and alone, I would have been screwed.
    Going to school for my human services degree I learned about "Maslow's hierarchy of need" which states that Physiological needs must be met before anything else can be focused on. Those are the basics, food, water air, sleep, etc.  Next is Safety, a place to stay, the security of knowing where your next meal will be coming from, finding a way to survive beyond this moment.  The list of needs goes on from there but "going to school and getting an education" is not much of a priority on his list. To you and me we completely see the necessity in an education, but for a pregnant teen, alone, hungry, without a place to stay, it seems pretty low on that list.
    I am not trying to end teen pregnancy, although I would like to, I am just trying to meet a few of the Physiological and Safety needs so that it is possible for these moms to focus on making a life for themselves and their children.  The sooner they don't have to focus on where their next meal is coming from or if they will have what they need to keep themselves and their babies alive, the sooner they can make plans for their future.
    My life and my children's lives are what they are because our needs were met. If we can help even a few of those teens in need, to stay in school, stay off drugs, and dig themselves out of the poverty hole, then we have made a difference.  I created Haven so that the teens with no where to go, would now have a place. When they needed someone to turn to, there would always be someone there. When life knocked them down and they didn't know how to get back up, someone would extend that hand. It is a Safe Haven to weather the storm of life.

All those wonderful things about pregnancy and child birth that no one mentions…. Because if they did then no one would have children.

               First off, I would like to point out that PREGNANCY BOOKS LIE! It isn’t their fault. If they told you the UGLY truth, you wouldn’t buy it! Since I don’t have that problem, I see no point in not telling you all the wonderful things I learned in the 4, yes 4, times I have gone through it.

1.       Morning sickness is not just in the mornings. Yes I know, it seems a little miss leading being called MORNING sickness and all, but it will strike day or night, with no rhyme or reason to it. You can be walking along minding your own business and then BAM you smelled something unpleasant and have now vomited all over the baby clothes department.  They will tell you “don’t worry by the end of the 1^st trimester it will pass”.  That is the biggest load of crap. They just tell you that so you don’t off yourself when the hormones have you in their clutches and you haven’t felt like living in months. You will hold on to that hope that TOMORROW will be the day that the “anytime day or night whenever it is least convenient sickness” will be gone for good and that maternal glow you had heard so much about can finally show up.  I waited for that day to come, it never did. I had “anytime day or night whenever it is least convenient sickness” up until the time all 4 of my kids were born. Literally, on the delivery table puking my guts out. My day never came; I hope you are more fortunate then I.

2.       I found my maternal glow, and came to realize it was really just oily skin. I had FLAWLESS beautiful porcelain skin, the kind that makes everyone jealous. I had never suffered from acne. If I had one red bump, I thought my face was falling apart, and then I got pregnant.  My beautiful skin turned on me and I didn’t know what to do! I had dry skin and oily skin, I had acne and if I tried to treat it my skin would dry out and I would resemble a scale covered snake. Maternal Glow, HA!

3.       When you get pregnant you wait with bated breath for that moment you will feel those first tiny flutters, and they are amazing!  Then you feel that first healthy kick and are in pure bliss. How could it possibly get any better?! It can’t. Relish those moments now, because before you know it you will be walking around with your hand pushing your little bundle down praying they would stop prying your ribs apart. Then they drop and you can breathe again! With the comes the realization that you can now not stray farther then 20 ft from a bathroom at any given time and will from that point forward be walking around feeling like you are holding a bowling ball between your legs. By the way, don’t sneeze, nothing good will come from it.

4.       You have made it through the pregnancy and are now at the finish line. You have read in all the books that labor will start with a few minor, basically pain free contractions and it will intensify to feel like really intense menstrual cramps. Unless your menstrual cramps resemble being hit by a bus, you are in for a rude awakening.  I remember my first labor like it was yesterday. I kept worrying that I, for some reason wouldn’t know I was in labor until it was too late and my baby would be born at home! Hahahaha, yeah right!  Labor hit me like a ton of bricks! That first contraction hit and I was like HOLY !@#$  I was sure I must be one of those weird women that just don’t notice early labor and I had to be about ready to deliver. There was NO WAY I could imagine going through to many more of those. 2 hrs later when I finally made it to the hospital (thanks again MOM) I was praying the earth would open up and swallow me. I KNEW I was close, had to be at least 9 cm. No way could those 2 hours of torture have not gotten me there.  After anoh so fun exam to see how I had progressed, I was informed that I was at 2 cm. A FREAKEN 2! If I had been in less pain, and had more energy, that nurse who smiled so brightly when she announced that little fun fact, would have been badly beaten! I was in hard labor for 13 hours. Longest 13 hours of my life. It felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside. I tried it all. The shower, the ball, walking, sitting, standing, balancing on my head… nothing helped. If anyone says any of those things will help, they are lying.

5.        Right about child number 3, I learned that those wonderful little things called AN EPIDURAL, that people (who obviously never had one) tell you to avoid, are like MAGIC! I remember thinking I was an IDIOT for going all natural with my first 2. It seemed to me, to be right up there with denying anesthesia when getting a tooth pulled. Sure it won’t kill you if you don’t use it, but why the hell would you torture yourself like that?! When I went in to have baby number 4 I started asking for my epidural as soon as I walked in the door. I wasn’t even in labor yet! I knew what was coming, might as well be prepared!

6.       I was under the impression, (thanks again lying pregnancy books) that after the baby is out, you are done. You will be handed a squalling little red faced miracle, the cord would be cut and life would continue as usual. Oh sure, you know there is the placenta, and it has to come out, but it seems that it is grazed over in the pregnancy books. It is like delivering a 2.5 pound boneless baby. If you are unfortunate enough to have your contractions stall after the baby comes out, a cheery faced nurse will “gently massage” your stomach until it is expelled. What that means is they will cause your uterus, which is a muscle, to basically charley horse causing immense pain through your midsection while they wait for a few more of those wonderful contractions to push the rest out. Enjoy

7.       Stiches, never something anyone wants to think about going into your nether regions. ESPECIALLY if you need them! Your poor Va Jay Jay is so traumatized the last thing you want is someone spending another 15 minutes down there with a needle and thread, “patching you up” After my first I was informed that I had a small tear and they suggested I get 2 stiches.  I thought about it for about half a second and told them to take the needle and back away slowly. MISTAKE!!! For the next 3 weeks every time I went pee it felt like LIQUID FIRE! I became one with my peri bottle and I found a whole new use for preparation H wipes. I found that had I gotten those 2 tiny little stiches, after about 5 days I would have been fine. Lesson learned.

8.       Of course the first thing they do is try to get the baby to latch. Breast feeding looks so easy who could imagine doing anything else?!  Professional figure skaters make triple axels look easy too, have you tried to do one of those lately?  About day 3 I was so engorged I looked like I was sporting 2 watermelons. They look great but even the slightest bump to those puppies and you will start swinging. They are painful to even look at.  I remember BEGGING my infant to just EAT and she seemed to think that was the day she wasn’t really hungry but wanted to catch up on her sleep. Sadly, I was far too uncomfortable to join her. Pumping helps a little but not much. You soon reach the point where your nipples feel like they have been put through a meat grinder. Then you get to decide “extreme nipple pain or extreme engorgement”. That’s always fun.

 I will leave off with this, although my boobs may now look like deflated balloons that are left over from a kids birthday party, I have enough stretch marks to resemble a road map, and I spend way too much time wondering why, Dora, a 4yr old, who is left alone to wander the town, talking to strangers as she goes, seems to be an appropriate preschool role model. I wouldn’t change a thing, but ask me again when they are teenagers.

The woes of parenting....

As a kid I remember thinking I was never going to be like my parents.  If my kids didn’t want to clean their room, then I wasn’t going to make them.  It is their room after all.  If they don’t like fish, then they don’t have to eat it, and an 8:30 bed time is just unreasonable.  Then one day, I woke up and realized I had turned into my parents.  I am not sure if it was a slow progression or if it just happens one night while you are sleeping. You find yourself saying things like, “Because I said so that’s why” “If you just listened to your mother then things like this wouldn’t happen” “Well I am not (insert child’s name)’s mother now am I” Or my personal favorite, “If Johnny told you to jump off of a bridge would you do it?!”

I, like most other women, saw parenting like it is on TV.  The nurse would hand you a clean, great smelling, quiet little wide eyed baby after a brief drug and virtually pain free delivery and life would be perfect. You would ONLY use cloth diapers, you would breast feed of course, and when the time came, make ALL of your own baby food.  Your perfect bundle would only fuss when she needed something and quiet as soon as they saw you. They would sleep through the night practically from birth and it would all be so blissful. Then reality slapped you in the face. After 12-50 hours of intense EPIDURAL FILLED labor you are handed a gooey, slimy, slightly misshapen screaming baby. It is the best feeling in the world. Although things didn’t go as planned initially, from here on out it will be PERFECT! Then you leave the hospital. Your perfect baby wont latch well, your nipples feel like they have been put through the meat grinder, you have a HUGE pile of dirty cloth diapers and you are FAR to sleep deprived to wash them.  Welcome to parenthood.

I am here to tell you, that it is ok.  What makes a good parent is not breast milk, cloth diapers, or organic steamed beets.  Don’t get me wrong those moms exist, my sister in law Moira is one of them. She has 5 kids, she home schools, she gardens, her babies wear cloth diapers, she is still nursing her nearly 2 yr old, and she even has her own chickens. She is my hero.   Is she a better mother then me? I don’t think so.  I live in my car half the time, running to this child’s sporting event, or 4h meeting, or Girl scout project. We are never home. My idea of home cooked is frozen pizza warmed in MY oven in MY HOME, therefore home cooked! I KILL house plants just by looking at them. My sister says my house is where house plants go to die; it is like a plant hospice. If we had to eat only what I grew, we would all starve to death.  Moira had her 5^th child unassisted at home drug free; when my 4^th kiddo was born I walked into the hospital NOT EVEN IN LABOR YET and asked for my epidural. I had been here a few times before and I knew what was coming, might as well be prepared. My son was born a few hours later, a perfect gooey misshapen screaming baby. He was not harmed in any way because I chose not to suffer through the pain of child birth, to each its own.

I am here to say, IT IS OK! If you feed your kids boxed macaroni and cheese, they will survive. If you don’t pick them up and hold them the second they start crying, they will not turn into the children that shoot up play grounds. If you let them watch Yo Gaba Gaba on a 3 hr loop so you can have a few blissfully quiet moments, their brains will not turn to mush. IT IS OK!  In reality, society has now made it so that no matter what you do, you will feel like a failure.  If you exclusively breast feed you are causing the child to have an unnatural attachment to only you making it difficult for the child to bond with their father therefor insuring that they will have daddy issues in the future.  If you exclusively bottle feed then you are lazy and are choosing to poison your child.  If you home school you are isolating your children and insuring they will be out casts in society. If you put your children in public school you are just pushing off your responsibilities on others so you don’t have to deal with them.  If you let them watch TV you are letting the world poison their minds, if you don’t let them watch TV then you are sheltering them and they will be unprepared for the real world.  I could keep going forever, but really, you get my point.  Society seems to LOVE to make parents feel like failures.  

So when you wake up one day and realize your life of parenting resembles more “Children of the corn” then “Cheaper by the dozen”, don’t feel bad, you are not alone.  Millions of sleep deprived parents out there feel your pain.  I wish I could lie to you and say it gets better, it doesn’t.  People will tell you it is just a stage, they will outgrow it, and they do. They then start a new stage, their stages never get better.  I once asked a father of 4 grown children what age is the worst, he replied that it depended on the child, for one of them it was 35.  So fear not, it is only the first 50 years of parenting that are the most difficult; it’s all downhill from there.

Welcome to spring, in Alaska

                                                                     April 1st 2012

                                                   Today March 24, 2013 in my backyard

                                                                    April 1st 2012

                                                                 March 29th 2012

                                                                   March 29th 2012

                                                  Bull Moose  March 29th 2012

It is spring! When you think Spring, you envision a warm sunny day, with the smell of fresh cut grass in the air and beautiful flowers popping up all over, unless you live in Alaska. Today it is a balmy 27 out, snowing like crazy, covering everything with yet another layer of the not so wonderful white stuff.  It is days like today that I wish I lived in the lower 48. Somewhere more tropical would be nice. Who am I kidding, at this point, I would take anywhere with a temperature above 60 right now. This winter seems to be lasting forever!  It is probably worse because I hold in my hot little hands, our HOUSE PLANS!!! As soon as the snow melts we can get started on building. So while I watch the snow get deeper with each passing day it seems like winter 2012-2013 is going to continue in to June, just to spite me.  So I did what every true masochistic Alaskan would do on the first few days of spring, while the snow is falling. I put on my new sandals and a tee shirt, went to the store and looked for patio furniture. EVENTUALLY I will need some, what better way to spend a fine spring day other then freezing your toes off looking for furniture you will have to wait a few months to set up. *Sigh*  I decided that some of you might appreciate a few pictures of our fine Alaskan spring. :)  Hope yours is MUCH warmer then ours!

Why is it that the people with the smallest minds, have the biggest mouths?!

So as I mentioned I am an admin on an Adoption Situations site. It is a site that helps hopeful people find the children to complete their families.  It is a great site, it is full of wonderful information, support, and children waiting for families. Most of the time it is an easy site to admin, just not today. Today a thread was posted about fees. Yes they are crazy high, and yes it makes people VERY frustrated and discouraged, because of that I let them rant. It was full of  "if we stand up against the  man, then they will have to make changes" I don't personally agree with that. Personally I believe it is all about supply and demand. Yes it is a SICK world you enter when you plan to adopt. It is so sad. You hear the statement "we are adopting" and you picture a nice childless couple opening their lives up to a poor family-less child that needs them. Once upon a time it was like that. Now it is selling babies to the highest bidder. Birth moms getting paid up to $10,000-$15,000 dollars in "expenses" to sign over their child to the people willing to pay it. It used to be the Expecting mom picked a family and that family adopted the baby.  Now it is the Expectant mom picks the family and the Agency or Lawyer tells the family if they pay, $30,000-$50,000 then that child can be theirs! If they can't pay then the expectant mom has to keep picking until they find the desperate enough family to take out a second mortgage to adopt. Agencies actually SUGGEST that you take out a loan to afford their fees. It is a sad sad place to be in, this adoption world we have entered. I don't believe that "standing up against the man and refusing to pay the fees" will help because there will always be someone desperate enough for a baby willing to pay them. It just is what it is. We are adopting. It is costing us over $30,000. We are paying it because we want another child and I can not have anymore. What else do you do. Anyway, that was way off topic... The thread was going ok until someone made a comment about people on state aid not being fit to raise children. Then it turned to an attack on teen parents. Don't get me wrong, I don't CONDONE teens having kids. I do not ENCOURAGE teens having kids, but it happens. I do not believe they are unfit to raise them because of their age. I don't believe that age or income make parents, good or bad. You can be 40 with an income of 500,000 a year and be a TERRIBLE parent. I also believe that you can be 16 and make $15,000 a year and be a great parent. I was a 3 time teen mom. My oldest 3 were born when I was 16, 18, and 19. My youngest when I was 21. I have been on state aid. I am now 27, about to adopt our 5th child. I am the director of a non profit group that helps teens in need. Our 9 bedroom house will be finished in August. We are not on any type of assistance. We have plenty of money to raise our 5 children. I am not a statistic. I am not just another welfare mother and my life was not over when I had my kids. Of course I do not want my kids to struggle like I did. I don't want them to limit their choices in life by becoming a teen parent. I just want to point out that being a teen parent doesn't make you unfit, neither does being poor. Sometimes bad parenting happens because of circumstance, sometimes people are just not meant to be parents, and age and money wont fix that. So after my rant on people and judging others based on age and income they started in on our same sex couples that we have, and religion. Of course, the thread was deleted but it made a few people mad. Then they had a "lets complain about the Admin rant". YAY. You can't make everyone happy.  I just wish people were not so small minded. I have met good and bad parents of every race, age, income, religion, and sexual orientation. What makes a good parent is love and sacrifice, and dedication. It takes a village, it's just too bad the village (society) we live in now is so judgmental. A helping hand goes a long way...

MoM, DaD, and BaBy makes 7!

We were working on adopting before the house burned down. We just found out WE ARE EXPECTING! We were matched the beginning of March with a baby girl due July 31st.  We are ecstatic!  We are working with a wonderful attorney named Paul, that has helped us tremendously. The baby is Marshallese. We will adopting her from Arkansas. Our attorney works exclusively with Marshallese families looking to find adoptive families for their children. We are ALMOST done with our home study, just waiting on references and background check. I was sweating a little. It seems a little crazy to give a 27yr old, a 5th child, a few months after her house burned down, while going to college, and starting a non-profit program, and yet, they are! We will work all of the details out. The house should be finished about the time the baby comes. I will only take one class this fall and the baby can come with me. I can run my program from home. I am sure with a little finesse, and a lot of juggling we will get it all worked out.  The case worker was worried that this wasn't the right time for us to add a baby to our family. What she didn't understand is our lives are ALWAYS like this. We are just active on the go people! Nothing is ever dull in this house.  If you are pursuing adoption and need any advice, helpful hints, someone to vent to, I am happy to help. I also am an Admin for an Adoption situations page on Facebook, that helps family's wanting to adopt connect with babies looking to be adopted. We are also foster licensed to be able to take in foster children.  We had 2 for about 6 months before they were placed with their relatives. If you are interested in how you can help children in need in your area, I am happy to help you with any questions you may have. I am adding an ultrasound picture of our new baby girl Kaydence. :)