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Twinmom

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Everything posted by Twinmom

  1. I must take my son to Boston Children's Hospital in late October to see a specialist for a genetic disorder. In order to afford the flight, we've got to stay for four nights. He's a 12 year old history buff, so this isn't a big sacrifice to him! ;) (It is to me after looking at hotel prices in the area, but that's another thread!). So...history buffs, what are the must sees in Boston that we can fit in during a weekend in late October? His health is good overall and walking tours would be within the realm of possibility provided the weather is good. TIA!!
  2. Thank you, thank you! That's it!! For some reason, I also remember there being Prima Latina notes as well but don't see any. Faulty memory? Anyone else seen these?
  3. Last year I downloaded forms someone on a homeschool blog created and shared for taking notes while watching the Latina Christiana DVDs. Need them again this year...they were wonderful!!!...but can't remember the blog name. Does anybody know it? Please help!
  4. If your Grandpa needs long term care in a nursing home, has little resources and has Medicare, he may qualify for "nursing home Medicaid." I have a BIL in this situation. He has a mental illness and is on disability. A nursing home took him as "Medicaid pending" and helped us through the process of applying for and receiving nursing home Medicaid, which then picked up backdated medical bills not covered by Medicare. He is also required to pay in most of his disability check, which we obtained control over by having a doctor at the home declare him incompetent to manage his finances. Social Security then designated my husband as his Representative Payee, required us to set up a trust account called a Qualified Income Trust (as his SSDI check was slightly over the limit to obtain nursing home Medicaid) into which his check was directed deposited and through which we pay the nursing home. All expenses so far has been covered through this process. Prior to his entry into the nursing home, we set up a Durable POA, a Medical POA and an Advanced Directive. I got the forms from a legal site and had him sign them in front of a notary and witnesses. This definitely helped the process...especially having them done before he was declared unable to manage his money. Copies of the POA are now on file with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, giving me the right to manage his accounts without any hassle. He is advanced enough in his mental illness to now have a major issue with anyone helping him manage money, which is always a problem because he is not yet able to fully be declared incompetent. However, no govt. agency has yet to question the documents and he does not have the wherewithal to go through the process of revoking them, so I think we are good for now. HTH in some way. I'd definitely get those POAs ASAP before you get him declared incompetent. It will help a lot.
  5. I'm pretty sure my husband has the gift of spiritual discernment and he has never literally seen a demon, in any form. He just "knows" when something isn't right, isn't Biblical, is working against God, etc. It is hard to explain, but he can almost always spot evil, a world view working against Christianity or a bad situation in its many forms from way out, whereas I can usually end up right in the middle of something before I recognize it. He has a level of discernment and wisdom in the spiritual realm that i appreciate deeply. He sort of see things coming from way out, if that makes sense. Both of us believe in the existence of demons and of evil but I know he would (and has...he has a mentally ill brother) consider it mental illness if someone were regularly seeing demons. I think discernment is discernment and visions of demons is likely mental illness, if you know what I mean. HTH in some way!
  6. That's HUGE for a RAD kid!!! So excited to hear the progress. Continuing to pray for you.
  7. We used prescription meds here, but supplement with True Calm by NOW and also their GABA. Works great in combination. Frankly, I often take them myself and they really smooth out the edges, even in an adult.
  8. I got a general note forwarded from my local homeschool group that NCDNPE had begun sending them out, but I have not received mine yet.
  9. I think...well, more like I am sure as a mother but don't have an official label yet...that my DD13 has FASD. We have spoken to an FASD clinic and are going for an evaluation as soon as the paperwork has been completed. I'm an LCSW and intellectually I get it. I can accept it in my head. My heart, however, is following a different path. We've known all her life that she has difficulties but I've always believed she (and we as a family) can overcome them. We have sought treatment, sought God in prayer and believed that she could be healed. Now I see that this is not the case. We can make her life better, but healing is not going to come. Static encephalopathy does not go away. This isn't an issue I can muscle through. Her life is going to be hard, forever...and as her protectors, so will be our lives. There is no way around it. The rest of the world will not understand, will continue to reject us and she will continue to fail to meet its expectations. As hard as we may try to teach her, she will continue to make moral and social mistakes and have to deal with the fallout. She will struggle academically and perhaps never go to college. People will judge her by her outward, normal and quite beautiful appearance and then will blame her when she cannot measure up. We will continue to be viewed as poor parents, despite our near heroic efforts to raise four drug and alcohol exposed children. This is our life, because we chose to love our little birds with broken wings. It hurts. I know God can and will make beauty out of ashes, but it hurts. I don't want to be here. I don't want to do this. She doesn't, either. Today, I cannot see how I am going to make it through the rest of this child's life, not to mention what is going to happen to her when I cannot be there for her anymore. I'm sure others with FASD kiddos or other disabilities can relate. Just needed to put that out there somewhere. Prayers would be appreciated.
  10. If you really believe it is separation anxiety, you might also look into a "Thundershirt" or some herbal Rescue Remedy when you need to be gone. Combine that with a chew toy in the crate and you may have a winning combination! It works beautifully for my neighbor's dog, the sweet little neurotic power-chewer that he is! :)
  11. Awww! What a cutie!! Congratulations!!!
  12. Bill, I am so sorry for your loss and I am praying for you and your family. Rejoicing with you that you were able to be at his side as you desired and that you have those memories to sustain you.
  13. Sick people who have nothing better to do, IMO. That's all I've got. I just try not to engage such folks whenever possible. :(
  14. This past week, we ditched school and went to Bald Head Island on the coast of NC. Totally awesome trip...cool weather, no crowds as it was just before Memorial Weekend, they had an awesome program for kids at the Naturalist Center...totally great trip! Best of all, I think we casually did more hands on science this week than we did all year! Just great!
  15. Well, reading these replies I guess I just want to add this: I did adopt from Bethany, once out of my four adoptions, but I speak from a place of knowing the inner workings of the agency as a high level, well known employee. I've been in the training meetings, been involved in the fundraising, the licensure, the counseling room, the whole bit. I paid the bills, hired and trained the staff, built the board of directors, and quite literally "wrote the book" that licensed my local office. Coercion is simply not a part of the corporate culture. In fact, were it found that I or any of my staff was involved in coercion, we'd have been immediately fired...not to mention the fallout from the state, as coercion is illegal. Many (not all, of course) of the birth parents who came through our doors were not in the best place in their lives in many, many ways. We worked with active drug users, birth parents who feared their partner, criminals, the mentally ill, abusive birth parents we had to call CPS on and yes, the sweet little teen who just made a mistake but is a really great girl who'd make a really great mom under most circumstances. Our clientele once even included a woman on the state's ten most wanted list! All this to say, our clientele would, from time to time, not be the most functional people and we could not "fix" them with any amount of counseling that could occur just during their pregnancy. There is a reason most of them were in our office. For a few here and there to post negative reviews of what we did would not at all surprise me. Adoption doesn't occur in a vacuum, guys. We weren't out there stalking birth mothers to steal their children. Those who wanted to place placed, those who didn't, didn't. Often, birth fathers would come in demanding that we force the gals who parented to place and we would refuse. Oh, and post-partum hormones also play havoc with these gals...those of you who have given birth can attest to that, but just think about it if you were to add in a relinquishment to the mix! It is heartbreaking. The birth mother who eventually placed three children in two separate adoptions with me personally once told me that she had panic attacks after the first placement and believed for a while that there was a conspiracy between the doctor and myself to take the baby early (no amniotic fluid found on sonogram) so that she couldn't change her mind. Once she got through post-partum, she realized how strange that sounded and went on to become a special part of our family and to even choose to place with us again when she became pregnant with twins. Her choice...not ours. She came to me about it! This is a loaded subject, I know. Abuses do occur, but emotions also run high because of the obvious connection to the abortion issue. There are, however, many good people involved in adoptions and we shouldn't throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water. Biggest place around is always likely to get the most bad press!
  16. Just read this article you posted and totally disagree with it, having worked for Bethany. Won't repeat my entire response here, though...if anyone wants to read it, they can head over there to check it out. It's really not fair to demonize Christian adoption agencies as that article does...most that I know, including Bethany, are operating on a shoestring, paying their employees peanuts and doing major fundraising in order to provide services to ALL the birth moms that come through their doors, not just the ones they place. I'd certainly never say there is no corruption in adoption...I have certainly seen otherwise. It didn't happen during my days at Bethany, however.
  17. I think this sounds like a very positive update, though I'm sure the roller coaster is very emotional for you. Perhaps over time, experiencing his birth family in this way will help him to see the differences in how you are raising him and will help with his attachment issues. Hugs!
  18. Haven't spent any time on the other thread, but do need to jump in here and defend Bethany. Having been the founding director of a local Bethany office, I'd have to say that I strongly disagree with this article's premise that this young woman's experience is typical of a Bethany adoption or of any Christian agencies that I knew or worked with. In fact, I'd say it was either very exaggerated or was an isolated case and that the level of birth mother abandonment she experienced was more typical of for profit, attorney facilitated adoption agencies in my area. In my experience, Bethany helped (free of charge, of course) many more young women who chose to parent their babies than who chose adoption. Many of those women obtained quite a few services at significant cost to us and parented with our full support. We even supported some with free counseling before and after they chose abortion. I wrote many, many more checks in support of pregnancies that did not end in adoption than I did for ones where the child was placed. Our message to adoptive families was always, "This is not about you, it's about the baby." We required all of our families to be willing to participate in a fully open adoption unless the birth parents requested otherwise (and we encouraged them strongly to do so for the sake of the child). Very few of our birth mothers declined the offer...most had strong relationships with the adoptive families, at least in the time that I knew them. We also offered free counseling to birth parents who placed long ago either with us or with other agencies, upon request. There is certainly corruption in adoption...I can testify to that, for sure. Seen some of it first hand, unfortunately. I do not, however, think it is fair to single out Christian adoption agencies as this article does. Most that I knew during both my work experience as well as my personal adoptions were operating on a shoestring, trying to do whatever they could for birth moms along the way.
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