It's time...

This week is what I've been waiting for since the weekend we got the kiddos in October. This week their mom will be having baby #3.

The week before Christmas we met with the kids' CPS worker for her monthly visit. During that visit she told us what was discussed at the most recent Permanency Conference. If mom keeps doing like she's doing and baby #3 does not test positive for drugs at birth they will move forward with reunification. She will have time to adjust to new baby then they will start unsupervised extended visits (3-4 hrs a week) with mom where she is staying. My heart began to sink. If things go well with that they will then move forward with weekend visits with mom (probably an every other kind of situation). My heart breaks.

Here I've been asking friends to pray that I would be able to let my guard down to bond with them. To love them even though it feels like I'm just the babysitter sometimes. And the Lord has answered that! Just in time for CPS to set up a reunification plan…It doesn't look the same as with my kids but there's definitely a bond.

The next day was their visitation with mom. Jonathan stayed at home with our boys so I could run some errands after I dropped the littles off. I ended up crying the whole way from visitation to Target. Crying out to the Lord, "My heart hurts so bad!" It took me a while to compose myself before I could actually walk in to Target. (Our family has a splotchy crying face curse or the crying Rudolph nose) I wanted to get mom a Christmas card and I stood in the card aisle at Target for a while. There's not really a card section for this kind of thing…

Their visitation went well and we packed down our Explorer to begin our Christmas travels. I'll have to blog about the coming back to Abilene adventures soon!

So this week mom will have her baby. She has asked for the kids to come up to the hospital to see her and the baby. I had already thought about going to visit her after baby comes. I don't know if she has friends. The part that makes me a little uncomfortable is taking two kids two years and under into a hospital room with lots of "no touches" while their biological mom watches me potentially get on to her  kids right in front of her.

Will you pray that the Lord will use me when we make this trip to the hospital? Will you pray that the Lord will begin to prepare my momma's heart as we might start moving toward reunification? And for the boys. Luke is particularly attached to Little Miss. It's going to break his heart if she goes back and that's going to rip my heart out of my chest. Thank you for being apart of this journey with us. We truly are so blessed to have an incredible support system as we walk through this. We will keep you all posted.