Moving on to better news...

    Shortly after the loss of our dog Bailee and our twins things started looking up. I am praising Jesus for that. My husband went shopping at our local wal*mart and ran into a caseworker we worked with years ago. Technically 7 years ago. She was one of the best casworkers we worked with. She was our son Corey's caseworker when we got him. At first Mark and the caseworker looked at each other and said to one another that they each looked familiar to one another. Keep in mind we havent seen this caseworker in 6 years. After a few seconds Mark said oh your are so and so and then she remembered Mark. They began to talk and Mark told her the story of us losing our foster son after 3 1/2 years. She said that isn't right at all. We were working with Berrien County DHS at the time. During this time Berrien County DHS was going downhill and rather quickly. It was sad. We had so many good memories from DHS and it was terrible the things that were happening.  We were licensed for 8 children and they took that away from us and told us we could only have 6. It seemed that every day they were hating us more and more. I am not trying to toot my own horn but we were told we were one of the top 3 best foster homes in the county. So we went from being great to being terrible somehow and we have no idea why. We were told we would never be able to have anymore children ever. So during the time Mark was talking with this caseworker she told Mark she left from Berrien county DHS and went to Van Buren County DHS. Not only that she was the foster care licensing specialist their not just a caseworker anymore. She began to tell Mark that she could allow us 8 children again. What awesome news. Thank you Jesus. So she began to work on reopening our license and transferring our license from Berrien County to Van Buren County. This was happening in April.
     So our home study and paperwork we sent in and we were waiting. I hate waiting. lol Now it is June and we were on vacation for 10 days. We got a call 5 days into our vacation that our home study and our license was approved and that they needed a placement for 2 girls ages 10 months and 2 yrs. They were sisters. Our license had just been approved 3 hours prior to the removal of the girls. Talk      about great timing!
     We now needed to make a decision if we should pack up and go home or stay for the rest of our vacation and pick the girls up when we got home. We couldn't imagine our girls going to a different family for 5 days and then coming to us after they had just been removed form their parents. That would be way to much for them and way to much moving around in just 5 days. So we talked with all the kids and asked then what they wanted. We didn't want to take our kids vacation away either and so we thought it would be best to ask the kids. If the majority wanted to stay we would, but if the majority wanted to pick up the girls we would do that. God is amazing because ALL the children agreed right away that should go get them. They were all very excited and couldn't wait. So we decided to leave the next morning because at this point it was getting late and the caseworker suggested to wait until the morning. Plus we were about 5-6 hours away and we wouldn't have gotten into town until at least 10:00.
     We packed up the next morning and made it into town and to the foster home where they stayed the night around 6:00. I was so excited but also feeling guilty for calling off the remainder off our vacation. The kids didn't seem to mind, but my mommy heart felt so bad. We new this was the calling on our lives and we know we need to always be prepared to to do the work of The Lord. We are so thankful we obeyed. We initially saw Abygail as the foster mom met us on the porch while holding Aby and it was instant love at first sight and has been ever sense. Zoe was inside and I couldn't wait to see her and hold her too. It was also love at first sight with Zoe. I was in love and I was super excited that God allowed us to be foster parents again.
     We still have the girls and we are still in so much love if not more than the first day they came to us. We have had so much joy with them and it is so fun having some more little ones around again.

Lots and lots to say

So many things things have happened since Nov 2011. First off we lost our foster son who we had for 3 1/2 years. Not to mention we got him from birth. This was the most difficult time of my life. It was so painful. We lost him to a non-relative grandmother (that would be a whole different post). That was Nov 4, 2011.
     So after we endured such a terrible loss we became pregnant with twins. I was so super excited. For some reason I have always wanted twins. Everything was going along very smoothly around 5 weeks. I began to bleed heavily which prompted an emergency visit to my doctor. I had a blood clot in my uterus that was situated between both babies. At this visit although there was the blood clot both babies looked fine and both heartbeats were detected. I was sent home on bed rest just to be safe. I continued to bleed which made me very nervous. So at my next ultrasound which would have been 1 week later we were delivered some bad news. We had lost one of the babies but the other twin looked very healthy. I was heartbroken and grateful at the same time. So we moved forward and had another ultrasound at 8 weeks and we were expecting good news but we were again delivered bad news and we lost the second baby. I was devastated to say the least.  So the doctors and I decided to let the babies pass naturally. So it was about 10 days later (we are in March at this point) that I began my miscarriage. It was around 1:15 a.m. when I passed the first baby.
      That evening around 7:30 our dog Bailee began to get very sick. I mentioned in my previous post what happened to her. During her surgery they found a mass on her spleen. They sent it off for testing. Unfortunately the test came back with devastating news. She has a very agreesive form of cancer that attacks organs. They said it wouls attack her heart as well and she only has about 3 months max to live. I couldn't believe it. I was devastated and I didn't want to believe. Iwas hoping she would live longer than 3 months. The vet said she would be fine one day and the next she would not eat, she would sleep alot. That day came and I was so scared. It was a Friday and she was so ill she could barely walk and she was leaning against the wall for balance. Sat came and she seemed to have more energy so i was hopeful she was fine and maybe she was just not feeling well. However deep down I knew this was it, I knew this is what the vet was talking about. Then came Sun. she didn't eat anything and she only went outside once for the bathroom. she could only take a few steps and she either fell against a wall or she laid down. It was around 5:00 we called the emergency vet (which happened to be our vet) and he said it didn't sound good at all. Her gums were snow white and the vet said she has is losing oxygen. The blood vessels in her eyes were gone. Around 6:00 on May 7 we said goodbye to our baby girl. She was my baby. My sweet sweet girl was gone. Cancer had spread like wildfire throughout her organs.
     Tomorrow I will have a more upbeat post. The Lord is awesome and he has turned our morning upside down.