Lucky Thirteen and Counting

When I met Brandon I had 13 kids, age fourteen and under. 

Summer 2006 we began making plans to build our life together and we realized very quickly that in order to do that we had to get out of Utah.  I have taken a lot of shit about this decision because that meant we had to move away from Brandon's children and move my children away from their father.  Let me say here and now, this decision was not made without much thought, prayer, and discussion, but ultimately, it was a VERY EASY decision to make.  We were not going to stay together in the current state(physical and mental) we were in.  

I left everything I loved in Utah.  I packed up my kids and a few clothes and gave everything else away.  The agency was one of those things.  I had plenty to mourn.  Brandon drove the van to California with my entire life in it.   

Once we settled in California, and the business and our marriage were in a strong place, we began attempting to build our family.  

We had talked about it long and hard for what seemed like forever.  We knew we wanted "our" babies.  

Brandon was an amazing dad to my children.  I wanted so badly to have a baby with him.  So we began trying to get pregnant.  And I did, twice to be exact, but they never made it past five weeks.  We knew we needed help. We saved our money and we went the IVF route.  The first attempt produced NOTHING!  The second attempt produced three perfect 5-day blasts that were implanted to grow.  I failed.  They failed.  It failed.  

We licked our wounds for two weeks and went looking for a baby, the ONLY way I know how….  ADOPTION!!  I turned in our paperwork and we were matched to Parker's birthmom.  Brandon felt better about the situation than I did.  He believed he was coming and days with no contact from the agency or the birth mom didn't ruffle him at all.  I "knew" too much to not look for RED FLAGS in everything.  

I am happy to say that Brandon was right.  Parker was ours.  For the first time in my life, I had a partner that was as excited about the baby as I was.  We missed Parker's birth by twenty minutes.  He was born the minute our plane touched down in Mississippi.  It was love at first sight.  This was November 2007.  We had been married for two tears and stable for one.  We were elated!!

We didn't want Parker to be raised alone so we had our homestudy approved for two newborns.  

We wanted two babies back to back and AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!  I wanted to leave the hospital from one baby and scoop up another all in one fell swoop.  Brylee was so much older than Parker and we felt like two together would be the way to go.  Parker and Peyton were going to be our little Benson boys.  

Sadly, The Lord didn't agree with our plan.  

Peyton never materialized.  

It's so funny looking back on that six months of  "why isn't our baby's brother coming?"

We matched with a birthmom that NEVER DELIVERED.  We got strung along for months until I finally said,  "ENOUGH."  Funny, she was one of my agency's birthmoms from years back. Long awful story later….  she had the baby and a seizure in the process and I think that baby is either in the care of a stranger, or the state stepped in and "placed that baby with a family member."  And here we were, waiting and waiting for him to come.  Clearly, it wasn't meant to be.  

I got pregnant in August of that year.  

I made it 6 weeks. 

We matched to Ellie's birthmom while I was still hemorrhaging with a miscarriage on the beach.  Dee was in Newport with her family and she thought, with a little pressure from me, that M would be a good match for us. Ellie joined our family 3 weeks later.  I flew to Houston to pick her up and we were content and happy and it felt good to be "still" for awhile.  

I didn't think or feel that Ellie was the caboose.  I thought we would have a few more down the road.  But little Sailor up and surprised us one year later.  And the combination of my age, my exhaustion, and feeling a little overwhelmed, thanks to Parker, we declared we were DONE!  

Why don't I ever learn? 

Maybe if I hadn't walked around blabbing that stupid line a thousand times, I wouldn't be in this position.  

You are now all caught up on the "how we became a family of fifteen children" story. 

Now I want to talk about a few things that bug me.  

I hear all the time how special I am for doing what I do for these kids.  

I know this statement is made with good intentions and often admiration.  

BUT-

*Blink*

*Blink*

They are my children.  I am not "doing" anything for them that you wouldn't do for your children.

I just don't get it. 

I think you think that because these kids didn't grow in my womb that I am somehow doing them a favor by being their mother.  But to me, in my mind, that is crazy talk.  They are my kids. PERIOD!  I wanted them.  I am their mom in every damn sense of the word.  So when I hear what a good thing I am doing, or how "Thank God you adopted them you SAVED them."  I think you are all smoking crack.  These kids aren't lucky to have me, I am lucky to have them.  

I am living my dream.  My heart is full.  My anxiety is ramped up a few notches, but show me a mother's whose isn't.  

Please, I beg of you, don't tell me how fabulous I am for adopting these kids.  Don't think for one second that I was saving any of them, or that they would have died without me.  Except Ty, he would have died without me.  But only Ty.  Well, possibly Hunter too..

Anyway……

I try everyday to be a good mom and I honestly think I could do more.  But Brandon and I both know that babies come when they are supposed to and only the good Lord, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, can make it happen.   

I do not feel like a kid collector,  but I can see how I could be perceived that way.  Some people enjoy cars and spend their money buying them.  I know a few people that have more boats and toys and cars than garage space. (Dave) While I think he should sell a few of his toys and adopt a baby, he probably thinks the exact opposite about me.  "Stop adopting so damn many kids Sandi and get a hobby."   To each his own I guess.  

I have heard Brandon say, multiple times to people when they question us, "you have to spend your time and money on something," and he is right.  We could be traveling the world and buying cars.  But instead we are raising a family.  I think kids are much more enjoyable!  

Just last night Colby was crying because it was almost time for him to move out.  The conversation went like this.

Colby- "Do we have to move out when we are eighteen?

Mom- "Don't you think you will want to by then?

C- "NO!  I never want to leave you.  You are my mom."

M- "Well, we'll see how you feel at 18."

*cue fake tears*

C- "Me and Jayden are almost eighteen.  I don't want to move out."

*Mom does the eye roll and ignores the annoying behavior.*

C- "Oh well, it doesn't matter the world is going to end in 2012."

M- "WHAT?  Who told you this?"

C- "My brotha Barak Obama…… Aliens are going to blow up our planet."

I don't care how many cars you buy, cars can't come up with shit like this.

These kids are priceless.  

They are all different.  They are all awesome.  And I will continue to scream at the top of my lungs, "I AM THE LUCKIEST MOM ON THE PLANET!   

Thank you all for understanding me a little bit better and letting me tell this extremely long story.  Your comments have been lovely.  

BUT REMEMBER, I am not doing anything differently than any parent out there.  

I am just loving my kids to pieces and trying to stay sane in the process.  

I have heard these statements a few times in my life.  It hasn't seemed to matter if I had eight, or nine, or fourteen, or fifteen.  There is always someone out there that thinks I have some sort of disorder and just want to have as many babies as I can. (like a cat lady)  I would really like to address this concern, but I am unsure how to properly convey what I am thinking.  It is so easy for me to sit here and justify to you how and why each child has become a member of this family, but I don't think you'll understand.  Since most of my readers have 2.3 kids, I am not sure if any of you will comprehend the mind set.  It seems so many people already have an opinion of large families and regardless of what I write here it won't change.  Regardless, here is our story.  

I spent most of my life hoping and praying and dreaming of babies.  I was a born mommy.  I have multiple "Dear Diary" entries from the time I was seven until I was fifteen that express my great desire to have a family.  I have ALWAYS wanted to be a mom to the masses.  

I had Bronson and Shaylee 14 months apart and they kicked my twenty-year-old ASS!  I had conversations with my spouse and my doctor about tying my tubes.  I WAS DONE!  They gave me the biggest run for my money.  My doctor refused to do a tubal ligation based on my age alone but offered a NORPLANT instead.  That should explain the 2 and 1/2 year space between Shaylee and Hunter, a space that I still regret today.  

Hunter was ten days shy of his first birthday when Ty joined our family.  Hadley followed one year later.  She was the surprise of a lifetime!  Since my bio babies continued to come earlier and earlier I tied my tubes hours after her delivery.  That is one of my biggest regrets of all.  

Are you all following?  I have five babies under six.  I didn't save the world or collect more than I could care for, I was simply building my family.  

I enjoyed my little family of five for almost a year.  But I knew in my heart of hearts that adopting special needs children was what I was supposed to do.  I loved the patience and hard work that came with raising Ty and I wanted to have more. I followed my heart and added Jayden, Colby and Dalin within eighteen months of each other.  All special needs adoptions.  All private adoptions, meaning I paid for them and they don't come with a check.  (another common misconception about my adopted children.)  

I was a stay at home mom.  I was doing it all.  I had therapists in my home almost daily for Coco and Dalin and Ty.  Hunter started behavior therapy that year as well.  His anxiety and emotional health required full time day-camp for kids with behavior and emotional issues. It was located in SLC and required a daily drive.  Bronson was soaring academically through regular education and required a placement for gifted and talented children.  That required another drive in the opposite direction.  Shaylee and Hadley were the ones that required nothing but love, unless we count Shaylee's eyes and that in and of itself was enough to put me over the edge.  Funny how I can get through open heart surgery and weeks in the PICU, and an emotional basket case for a three year old, but taking my six year old to the eye doctor twice a year seems like the worst of the worst…

I was thriving. My kids were thriving.  I loved taking care of these kids regardless of what their needs were.  I enjoyed Bronson as much as I enjoyed Jayden or Coco.  Each child came with a set of needs and wants and quirks and I loved nurturing and healing and growing these kids.  I loved the challenge.  I loved the rewards.  I love kids.  

At this point, I have eight under nine.

It was during this time that I met and became friends with two large families.  "Large family" in my book is more than a dozen kids. These two families had 14 and 17 at the time.  (They have since adopted a lot more.)  Most of the children were adopted.  Most came with a package of special needs and a subsidy to help raise them.  I thought these families were incredible.  The fact that they could take older children that had been in state care for years was amazing.  I couldn't do it.  I preferred my babies as infants.  I preferred to pay for them and get the service that I felt I needed in an adoption.  Adopting from the state is much like going to the DMV.  Adopting internationally is like going to the DMV in a third world country.  I wasn't emotionally qualified to do either.  Private domestic adoptions was where I needed to be looking for my children.   

I learned a lot from hanging out with these other families. If I had ever thought I could take an older child, I learned watching these other mothers do it, that I couldn't.  I also learned that no matter how desperately the state of Utah needed adoptive families for foster children, I could never work with a state agency. I could never do the foster-adopt program because reunification with a bio-mom would have destroyed me.  

Some of the other things I learned from hanging out with these amazing families were totally superficial, and at the risk of sounding like a total snob, I didn't want to look like them.  These families lived in homes that were falling down around them.  They didn't shop at the mall.  They accepted and loved second hand clothes and their homes were stacked with clothes and shoes and stuff that they might need again one day.  In their defense, they would look at me and feel bad that I didn't have a Christ centered life.  They wouldn't trade all the riches in the world for their testimonies of the gospel. They may not have temporal blessings, but they have eternal ones.    

Some people are shallow.  I am one of those people. People judge and pass judgements based on appearance.   Growing up, there was a family in our neighborhood that couldn't afford to feed or clothe their children, but they just kept right on having them. I think they had ten by the time I moved away.  They were stinky and dirty and you couldn't even walk through the door of their home…  It was that filthy.   As much as I wanted the large family,  I didn't want to look like that family or smell like that family.  If having lots of kids meant giving up Gymboree and a nice home, I think I may have settled with four.   I wanted my kids to be cute and look cute and not be embarrassed to bring friends over.  

While all the other adoptive families I have mentioned here were beyond qualified to care for children and love them and support them, and have raised incredible loving and giving people, they didn't look good in the process.   I am the only one that seemed to have a problem with the superficial BS, but it changed the way I view my own situation.  I find myself constantly thinking about what other people will think when they see us or visit us.  I don't want to look like a family that can't afford the finer things in life.  I don't want people to see us and think, " How can you possibly keep having babies if you can't clothe the ones you have?" 

In 1998 I had my tubal ligation reversed.  

Dalin was born in 1999.  That was the year I decided to open my own adoption agency.  I was passionate about adoption and loved birth mothers so much.  I wanted to spend my time doing what I love and earning money in the process so I could continue living the life I wanted to live…. Above the poverty line that is.  

The agency took off.  I placed 306 babies in almost seven years.

I chose to specialize in African American adoptions and refused to charge less for black babies than the white ones.  That was my philosophy and I was passionate about it.  Skin color shouldn't dictate a price.  It was one of the things I learned while adopting the four kids I already had.  If they were black, they were discounted.  I still find the entire practice disgusting.  I can't imagine looking at my kids and telling them that they were half the price of Jayden because they were black.  It makes me sick.  

I loved my job.  I loved my business.  I loved my employees.  I loved the adoption world.  I gave it my entire life until there was nothing left to give.  The death of the agency is an awful story and there were people involved in that death that read this blog.  I am not going to discuss the agency or the story of it's demise here.  But I needed you all to know about the agency so you can understand the additions of the next five babies.  

Although I was busy running a successful agency and raising eight kids and building a new house….  I was doing a good job.  I can tell you today what my kids were doing, what kinds of grades they were getting, what medications Hunter was taking, which ones didn't work.  How well therapy was going for my kids, who graduated from therapy that year….. I can tell you all about the multiple hospital stays and the surgeries and the ER visits, and I was doing it all.  My ex worked hard.  He worked 12-14 hour days.  This was during the building boom of Davis county and while I may have had the phone glued to my head dealing with adoptions and birth mothers, I was doing this all WITHOUT HELP and still doing a good job. Thank you very much.

In the year 2000 I hired a full time nanny. I adopted a baby girl that year.  She was healthy.  She was black.  She was number nine in her family of birth and I felt good about her.  I wanted to round off the family with a healthy female and be done.  You can read Embree's story here.  I can look back now and tell you all the things I did wrong.  But the thing I did right came at the end when I let her daddy and her step mom have her.   Just because it was the right thing to do didn't make it easy. 

In January 2002 I felt like another baby was coming.  This is a different feeling than "I want another" baby.  I was not looking for a child. I was not trying to get pregnant.  I had about three birth moms due in January and February.  They were all matched to my waiting families.  I had two other families awaiting a match.  They were both waiting for girls.  On January 20th, I got a call from a girl in Alabama that I wasn't currently working with.  She had gotten my agency's name and wanted to make an adoption plan.  When I asked her how far along in her pregnancy she was, she replied, "I am waiting for the ambulance right now.  I am going to deliver today."  and she did.  It was a boy and I didn't have any families that were waiting for a boy.  Jace Carter sat in that hospital for ten days learning how to eat, being a "Feeder-Grower."  During that ten days we worked our asses off to find a family and get them homestudy ready to adopt.  It didn't happen.  So I hopped my ass on a plane to pick up my new son.  

I was smitten with Jace.  Absolutely smitten. He was the cherry on top of my perfect family.  I WAS DONE!  I said it multiple times to EVERYBODY!!  Oh what a fool I was.  

May 2002 Jasmine was born in Alabama.  An adoptive family was matched and thrilled to death with her. That is until a stupid doctor in the NICU mentioned she looked like she may have downs syndrome.  They packed up and came home without her.  At this point consents had been signed giving my agency care, custody, and control.  I needed to find a family that would be willing to take her prior to test results.  I hopped on a plane and brought her home.  

By the time those test results were in, she was 31 days old and I was 100% bonded to her.   I couldn't part with my peanut.  It's important to note here that I had another newborn in the house at the same time as Jazzi.  Her name was Reagan.  She was born one day earlier than Jasmine. Her Birth Father was contesting the adoption in the state of Virginia and the adoptive family I had placed her with wanted to wait until his rights were terminated before taking placement.  They couldn't emotionally handle a disruption.  I didn't blame them.  

I had two tiny baby girls plus Jace who was four months old all in my bed every night.  It was hell.  I bonded very quickly to Jazzi.  She felt like mine and I was a mother bear with her. Reagan felt like a child I was baby sitting. And she was.  I just wanted to point out that not every baby that came into my home for week long periods of time were snatched up by me.  I know my babies.  It's a feeling that you wouldn't understand if you didn't adopt.  

Are you all still awake?  I am truly sorry this is so long.  But you know, if I wasn't trying to save the world….. More on that later.

It's 2002.  I have eleven under twelve.  I am working full time.  I have help.  My marriage is in trouble.  My kids are amazing.  The ones with special needs have very few medical issues at this point and only a handful of emotional/mental ones.  I was honestly a tiny bit disappointed that Jazzi didn't have Downs Syndrome.  Because having another Ty-Ty around would have been perfect.  

Kate's birth mom is a repeat.  She placed a child with my agency in 2002.  Her adoptive family didn't feel like they could do one more.  She asked me if I would adopt her and I said "HELL YES," without a moments hesitation.  I adore Kate's birthmom.  I can't express enough how much I love her.  It was an honor for her to ask and that was after she had spent weeks with my family.  She clearly thought I was doing a good enough job with the eleven that I had to add her precious daughter to the mix.  

Kate made her appearance in April 2003.

November 2003.  My marriage is hanging by a thread.  We are both working hard to make it work.  The agency is killing me.  I can't live with it, I can't live without it.  Brylee is born in Virginia.  She has multiple anomalies.  She will be severely special needs.  The family that wanted her, that agreed to adopt her in spite of all her differences, brings her back to the agency after ten days.   I LOVE special needs.  BUT THE TIMING COULDN'T HAVE BEEN WORSE!  I tried to place her.  I didn't want to want her.  I had my hands SO FULL!  I will never forget that Thanksgiving.  My entire family (parents/brothers) gave me shit about taking on the kids that should have been "state" children.  I didn't get help with medical care.  I didn't get monthly checks.  We made too much to qualify for SSI.  We were making ends meet, but is was getting more and more difficult.  My Ex and I had separated our accounts, and the kids and the monthly bills were my responsibility.  He paid the nanny……  Oh the Irony.  

Obviously you can figure out the rest of the story…  Brylee stayed.  The Ex did not.

 Brandon and I got married in 2005.  

Brylee was adopted by both of us in 2006.  

AND ONCE AGAIN I WAS DONE!

To be continued tomorrow……