We recently posted a blog by Snafu Suz that was actually written over three months ago. This new blog is another candid and poignant account of beginning motherhood with older children adopted from foster care.

Things are much better than they were when I wrote my last entry. I'm surviving, I swear. And it's not all horrible. The meltdowns have greatly reduced and we continue to feel more and more like a family. All things considered things are pretty good. It's just such a huge life change. I can't really stress that enough. Huge, I tell you! HUGE! Taking this particular path to parenthood is not for sissies, I'll tell you that much.

In a way I feel like I'm the one who's been hit the hardest by all this change. Maybe I'm underestimating the stress everyone else is feeling, I don't know. All I know is that I feel overwhelmed most of the time. I feel like I've been inundated with a million new tasks and there's an increased busyness to my life. There's more laundry, the house is a cluttered mess, and I actually have to cook now (and lord knows cooking is not my strong suit). There's homework and sports and afterschool activities and doctors appointments and the PTSA. But it's not just that. There's something more. Something bigger. There's a huge amount of pressure hanging over my head.

I'm the mom now.

Snafu Suz has blogged for us in the past and after she “disappeared” from the face of the earth temporarily, I finally found her and voila, here is an update on her life and the adoption of her two children. 

Susan Metters (aka, Snafu Suz) is a 40-something writer, cancer survivor, and adoptive mom. She and her husband were in the process of adopting two children through the foster system [the last time she blogged for us]. First-time parents, they found themselves going from zero to sixty at lightning speed when they brought a 5-year old boy and an 8-year old girl into their lives. Admittedly, Susan is completely winging the mom thing and parenting by the seat of her pants. You can read about Susan’s life adventures by visiting her two Seattle PI blogs: Lemon Margaritas and Adoption Adventures. Her adoption blog can also be found at SeattleMomBlogs.com.

Zero to Sixty

I bet by now you've started thinking I've dropped off the face of the earth. I haven't, although my world has turned upside down.

After 5 months of waiting and wondering (which in the adoption world actually isn't that long), we found our children. We're parents! YIKES!

We first received info about them from our agency on July 14th; an 8-year old girl and 5-year old boy. (C'mon, admit it. You're relieved we didn't end up with 3 kids.) Their social worker had read our home study report and asked about us specifically, wanting to know if we might be interested. Their description sounded good (and as an added bonus their pictures were pretty cute), so we said yes, we were interested in more info. Our agency sent along a summary of their foster files.

Now we didn't think much of it right then. We'd gotten to that point with other children several times and they didn't pan out for various reasons. So having a social worker interested in us and getting to read a foster summary didn't necessarily mean anything would come of it.

But then we read their summaries. There wasn't anything that jumped out at us as something we couldn't (or weren't willing) to deal with. They sounded like good kids who had been dealt a bad hand. And with a bit of curious wonderment we looked at each other. Could these be our kids?

We called our agency and said we were still interested, and from there things started accelerating much more quickly than expected. We talked to their social worker and then their current foster mom, and before we knew it we were driving 3-hours from home to meet them.