If I Only Knew...

If I only knew back then what I know now, I am not sure I would have made the same decisions. I could have easily wrote the chapter I just read. A chapter on the variety of family structures. We are a blended family of eight. A his mine and ours brood. Divorce, parental rights being taken away, custody battles, failed coparenting, the list goes on. All I can say is I did the best I could with the information I had back then, and I can continue to do better as I know better. Our two oldest daughters will turn 18 this year. They both have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly about marriage and divorce. They both have vowed to make their selection carefully on who they will marry because they never want their children to go thru what they have gone through. Am I allowed to call that a success?? 2009 was a year of pure hell...excuse me for using such language. My husband and I had just gotten married, then there was a custody battle because a custodial parent had moved out and left grandparents to raise children, then CPS involvement for abuse and neglect of another child, and then orders to move 1200 miles away from "home". We gained custody of two children (going from one to three), made the move, and he deployed all in six weeks time. Children were traumatized. I was traumatized. I had no clue what I was doing, and I was doing it alone. That began my journey...my journey into this major, my passion for how trauma affects the brain, and my search for whatever resources I could find. We were blessed by a Licensed Social Worker who was willing to do some research and find me some much needed answers. Referrals to some of the best cognitive developmental specialists in the country, with waitlists six months long. Diagnosis after diagnosis came down but with each one we were another step closer...or so we thought. Trauma doesn't go away overnight. I expected the number of years the kid was old when they came to live with us to be how long it would take, so three and a half I expected us to be at normal by Kindergarten/1st grade. Little one who was six I had high hopes of things moving much better for her because her start wasn't as rough. Things went well, until she turned a teenager and got her own phone and constant communication became a nightmare. Five out of six kids are special needs in some way. It's hard to balance all the time needed to care for each one the way they deserve. It's hard to protect the younger ones from the trauma one of the older ones puts out because hurt people hurt people. Generations of drugs, alcohol, abuse, neglect, poverty comes into play to make a situation like this happen. But I put my foot down and say it stops here. I will fight to give my babies the best life I can give them, to break the generational curses. And I will go out and share what I have learned to help others do the same.