Secrets No More

If you are getting ready to read this post, I will warn you right now that it is messy.  It is open, honest, blunt, and incredibly messy.  I (with the encouragement of my husband and friends) have vowed to be honest about this from now on.  This is part of the continued healing process for me.  This is something I need to do.  I figure I am already hated by my family, so posting this isn't going to do much more damage for me.  It will only help me and my husband to move on.  So here it is, in all its brutal honestly and its messiness.  I apologize if you don't like it, don't agree with it, or are hurt by it, but sometimes the truth is not easy to hear. 

My mother meant a lot to many people in her life.  What most do not know is the last few years of her life, she was an angry, bitter, broken woman.  She spread a lot of poison among her children and caused hurt feelings and damage.

But, I’m not supposed to talk about it.

I was regularly told I would be the last one married, that I was unstable, that I was too messed up to really accomplish much in my life.  She told my siblings and others these same things about me.

But, I'm supposed to keep it a secret.  I'm being disloyal if I talk about it.  I'm speaking ill of the dead.

I spent many months in counseling dealing with not only my own abusive dating relationships and childhood sexual abuse, but trying to deal with the rocky relationship with my mother.  She forbade me to "talk about our issues" with my therapist.  I did anyway.

But, I'm not supposed to "air our dirty laundry" to others. 

Many of her words were hurtful, devastating, and cold.  They bordered on verbal and emotional abuse.  Her husband didn't live up to her expectations, I didn't live up to her expectations, and she turned to her children who did as her confidants and closest friends. 

But, she was perfect, and I shouldn't say negative things about her.

She almost destroyed my wedding because of the way she tried to make it, and many things in her life, about her.  I stood up to her and refused to allow her to destroy my special day, told her it was going to happen whether she was there or not.

But, I’m supposed to just be grateful for everything she did, and be happy that she "put aside her hurt feelings" to be there for me. 

After she died, my siblings and certain of my mother's sisters took over the, for lack of a better word, verbal and emotional abuse.  I no longer struggled with the issues of my past abuse and the mistakes I had made in dating abusive men.  I was in a solid marriage with a Godly man (still am), working a steady job, and honestly doing well.  But, I remained the brunt of the family jokes.  In this family, you stay cutting, hurtful things in a joking manner, and when the recipient of such remarks mentions that they are hurtful and inappropriate, then they "just can't take a joke."  So I quit saying anything, learning to ignore the jokes about me, my looks, my marriage, my job, my home, anything and everything they could think of. 

When we became parents, the jokes and rude and inappropriate comments didn't stop there.  Now they had a new topic to make fun of, my parenting.  Behind my back, there were stories made up based on little, insignificant bits of information that are blown completely out of proportion.  These stories are completely false, not once has anybody come to me to find out the truth, but they use these stories to back their belief that I am a horrible mother and generally an awful human being.

But, they are family, and family is everything, and I'm supposed to just accept it and be loyal, no matter what.

My siblings are struggling with their own demons.  The unhealthiness of our family dynamics are so glaringly apparent to outsiders, and more and more to me as the healthy people in my life, my husband included, point out to me how abnormal and unhealthy the dynamics really are.  So, I have set boundaries, with my husband's backing and support, to protect myself and my children.  They use this as another example of how unstable and horrible I am.

Because I’m selfish after all, and that twisted sense of family loyalty is supposed to come first, and is supposed to turn a blind eye on all else. 

This past summer, despite everything, we tried to help.  It ended very badly.  Actions were taken that could have brought my children to harm.  There was suspected illegal activity in front of our house (but, it wasn't actually ON our property, so that was supposed to make everything okay).  There was a refusal to accept responsibility for their own lives and circumstances and decisions (not something new, but we were now in the middle of it).  There was evidence that reconciliation was not what was wanted, only a desire to continue to be angry and place blame and accuse.  My children were reacting to the weirdness and the underlying tensions, and we set boundaries again, asking them to leave and not come near our property or our children. 

I broke the unspoken oath of loyalty.  Look past lies, dishonesty, and unhealthiness and remain loyal at all costs.  Even at the expense of my children.

The response was a call to Child Protective Services with completely false and untrue allegations about supposed abuse of my teenage daughter (not my preschooler, and not accusing Dave, just me).  The clincher - this latest episode of abuse supposedly took place during the week my daughter was at church camp.  She wasn't even home!  Needless to say, the social worker didn't really believe a word of the story (she had to follow it up anyway), there was nothing and nobody to back it, and when she realized she had stepped into the middle of a family mess, she was not very happy.  We had names and phone numbers of professionals who have worked with our children and our family over the years who would back us.  While she could not tell us who made the call, just based on the report and the specific words and phrases used (they do have to read the allegations), we knew without a doubt who it was (we have heard many of those words and phrases numerous times over the past few years, and the other ones were directly from a PRIVATE conversation we had had with one of my siblings recently, words that had been twisted and taken back to others in an attempt to hurt us).

But, I am horrible for even talking about this, and I should be loyal, no matter what.  I should put aside all the lies, unhealthiness, dysfunction, and legal issues, and be loyal.  Period.  Cause they're family, and being loyal is all that matters. 

We are done.  No longer will my husband and I put up with any of this.  No longer will we sit back and allow twisted, untrue, hateful, hurtful words to be spoken over us or about us or our children.  Nor will we continue to pretend that we are such a close, tight family with my siblings.  That is a lie, and we are done wasting time on relationships and people that do not like me, want to bring us harm, and have proven they will stop at no lengths to harm our children.  The hatred for me goes so deep that they are honestly convinced I am manipulative and have even professionals fooled, that they are the only ones who know the "truth" about me. 

Before anybody thinks any of this is my imagination or I am being overly sensitive, there are several people, including my husband, who have watched this over the years from the outside. who have watched this dance go on for years.  My husband supported my attempts to try to reconcile, even when he wanted to be done with all of them.  He will not any longer. 

I am not perfect, I have never said I was.  I have had my own struggles and "stuff" I have had to deal with.  God has, and continues, to bring me to a place of complete healing and peace. 

But by the grace of God, I would be in the same place.  I have been in the same place.  But my God is a God of healing, a God of peace.  And He continues to bring peace and healing.  This is another step in that process.  Keeping the family secrets and not speaking out the truth will only continue to keep me, my husband, and my children in the middle of the dysfunction, the lies, the hurt.  God is a God of Truth, and He expects His people to walk in Truth.  

Ordinary, Everyday Hero

Four years ago today, I was having coffee with a friend when I got the phone call. "My water broke, they're sending me to Billings." This young mother had been in the hospital all night with preterm labor, when I had talked with her an hour or two earlier it had stopped and she thought she would be going home. Just like that, things changed. I hurried back to the hospital, leaving my nephew whom I was babysitting with my sister. Within an hour, Dave and I were driving to Billings, and she and her doula were on the plane on the way to St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings, where we spent most of the weekend until she was stabilized and we felt we could go home.

Little did I know that early Friday morning that our precious son would be born only nine days later, yet I would not meet him for eight weeks. In those initial days, she did decide to parent her son. I was devastated, and oh, how I grieved! God did some work in me over those eight weeks, bringing peace and healing to my heart and soul even as the ache of the loss was ripping me apart. Then, eight weeks almost to the day after he entered the world, just as I felt ready to move on and pack away all the baby things, I received the phone call that forever changed my world. On Saturday morning, May 10, the day before Mother's Day, I held my baby boy in my arms for the very first time.

Over the ensuing weeks and months, I learned just how difficult life had been for he and the young lady who had brought him into the world. It was truly a miracle he had survived. Premature and ill, he spent at least five of those early eight weeks in the hospital. Initially in Billings for two weeks, he was transferred back to Bozeman, where he remained another week in the hospital before being released. Then he had two other hospitalizations in the ICU for serious respiratory issues, both for a total of another two weeks. After the second hospitalization, he was released to the custody of family members when CPS became involved, and some time during his initial release he spent a few days in the care of a friend while she was dealing with some legal issues.

This little baby did not know where or with whom he belonged the first two months of his life. The week he was placed in our custody, the day after papers were signed, he ended up hospitalized again and had surgery. I remember finally brining him home a week later, lying on our bed with this tiny person on my chest, exhausted from the week. He just lay there, looking into my eyes. It was almost as if he knew he finally belonged!

But he did not come through all this unscathed. Prematurity, prenatal drug exposure, and poor attachment affected him mentally, emotionally, and physically. By 7 months of age, he was diagnosed by early intervention services as "high guard, high tone." He was stiff as a board, pushed away, had poor eye contact, and already suffered with night terrors and nightmares. But, the same stubborn determination that likely contributed to his early birth and his survival in those early months remained. This little guy fought to learn to breastfeed, fought to bond and trust, fought to crawl, to walk, even to eat. He fought to get work through serious sensory issues. He screamed (literally) when the physical, occupational, and speech therapists worked his stiff muscles, molded his little body into crawling position, then walking, put him through obstacle courses to work on his coordination and balance. He threw a fit when he was put in a swing to work on sensitivity and balance issues. He yelled and refused to cooperate when the OT worked with him on feeding issues and getting his tiny mouth to get used to food textures, learn how to chew properly, and take decent bites. But, he worked hard, he learned, and 2-1/2 years later, he was finally released from all early intervention therapy services.

This little boy is my hero. He inspires me every day to fight for what matters in my life. Today, he is well-adjusted, happy, and firmly bonded with us. He has faced and overcome more things than most children meet in their entire lives.

God blessed us with this precious and unexpected gift. Then, he has allowed us to watch him grow, learn, overcome, and thrive. Look around you, you may find ordinary, everyday heroes in your own family or friends. Let them inspire you!

In Blessing or Heartache

I don't share much about our struggles with infertility, mostly for two reasons. The first is because I get tired of the idiotic and hurtful comments people make about those who are struggling to get pregnant. Some mean well, some think they are being funny, but infertility is an incredibly painful and often extremely lonely place to be. The other reason is because I hate it when people think we adopted because of infertility. Adoption was always in our plan, and my children are not "second best" or a "second choice." It was something we knew we would do even before we were married. I this post, though, I am going to be open and vulnerable about the past week and one small sliver of this years'-long struggle.

This past week was a strange one. It's hard to put into words what is going through my heart and mind. I know some old "stuff" has been triggered by my having to deal with an ovarian cyst this week. While I was going through this, I realized, maybe for the first time, the emotional connection with what happens in our bodies.

I have struggled with infertility and reproductive health issues for many years. I have had to deal with this on many different levels at different points in my life. It's not something that ever goes away, but it does get better. It takes a lifetime of healing. And I could not have gotten to where I am in this area of my life without God and His work in my life. True healing began for me when He became all I truly needed.

That doesn't mean the pain doesn't still hit at times. That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt. Infertility is a loss, one that must be grieved repeatedly. And like the grief from any loss, it sticks with you forever; even as the pain dulls, it still remains. And one in awhile it stabs into your soul, sharp and poignant, like a knife in an old wound.

We have adopted four children, not as a second choice (we always knew we would adopt, even before we started trying to get pregnant), and they have been such blessings in our lives! Our first three children were older when they became ours. That was not the route we thought we would go, but it is the path God had for us. We have never had second thought. Yet, the desire to raise a baby has always been so strong in my heart. After our Russian adoption, within months of us brining them home, actually, God placed our Filipino daughter on our hearts. It took us almost three more years to bring her home, and at that point, we no longer qualified for infant adoption through most agencies, as we had too many children in our home. Foster adoption has never been a route we felt we should pursue.

Therefore, I knew the only way we would ever have a baby was to become pregnant, or for someone to approach us via a private placement. That did happen four years ago, and what an incredible blessing this little boy has been! Yet, I have felt God isn't done yet. I feel, among the other children God has for us, there is one more little baby. Only He knows how and when this will come about. A year ago, we thought it was time again. Sadly, this did not work out, and this adoption loss was as real and poignant as the loss any parent experiences when they loose a child. Loss on top of loss...but God is divine and wonderful, and He brings healing and peace, in His time, and He and time cause the sharp pain to become a dull ache.

Last week, I developed another ovarian cyst. I have managed my endometriosis and cysts and other comorbid health issues fairly well over the last few years with alternative treatment modalities and dietary changes. I have not had problems serious enough to need to deal with them acutely for awhile. Last week, I did. As I was receiving acupuncture treatments and Mayan abdominal massage to help dissolve this cyst, the years of loss came over me. The frustration at my body not working the way it was designed in the first place, the pregnancies that never came to be or had the opportunity to grow, the failed adoption...as my body began to heal, my heart had to heal again, also.

Very few people know we are once again in the position of waiting to see if an adoption of an infant will happen. God has opened the door to another possibility, but nothing is definite. The uncertainty is enough to make me want to run in the opposite direction. I wonder why I am putting myself in this vulnerable position of being either incredibly blessed, or deeply wounded. But, God is still in control. He still has a plan. He has placed us on this path of deep loss for a reason. Whatever happens over the next couple of months, I pray that He will use me as a blessing in the life of this young mother and her family. I pray that on my journey down this road of heartache and physical pain, He will use me to touch the lives of others.

I choose to trust Him, whatever the road ahead may bring, blessing or heartache.

I'm Back!!

I have decided to make my blog accessible to all again. I have heard from some people who actually do read my blog, and I don't want to have to keep adding people to read it, or requiring them to log in to do so. I realize I am opening myself up to a level of vulnerability and judgment once again.

If you are reading this and you only do so to judge me, then know that it doesn't matter to me. If you don't like something I post on here, then simply stop reading it! What you think does not matter to me anyway. I do not make decisions for myself and my family based on what you think. And I don't care how you twist the things I say to your own liking. I am entitled to my feelings, my thoughts, and my beliefs, and those who really know me, my husband, and my children KNOW us, and they respect us and what any of us have to say. I started this blog to share what is happening in my life and what God is doing. You know who you are, and there is nothing you can do about it anyway. I am choosing to live my life in freedom, and you have no affect and no influence over my life whatsoever. Think what you want!

To the rest of you, I look forward to updating what is happening in our lives over the comning weeks and months. Thank you for following my blog!