Raising Strangers

Hi, and welcome. My name is Amanda and I am a very happy mother of seven kids (they are early 20s not so much kids anymore). I am an even happier grandmother of 4 of the sweetest faces in the world. I have shared this life with my wonderful husband of the past 20 years. I used to think that our story was unique and we were special, which we are but I am learning that many Mommas and family’s experience the same struggles. The best way to tell you are story is to start in the middle of my own story and at the beginning of our family.

My husband and I met in 2002 weeks after I graduated high school. I was 18 and he was 25. I grew up in a very small town and under the control of some pretty strict parents. It all happened so fast. That August I had a disagreement with my Dad (that’s another story for another time) and it resulted in me moving out the next day. I moved in with a friend that I met at my job. I worked in a small retail store where my Mom worked. That friend that I moved in with took me in without question. I was so very young and naive (who isn’t at that age). I moved on a Monday morning and my life completely changed course two day later.

When I graduated high school I had a full ride scholarship to college and big dreams. I was pretty young when I was told that due to some health issues I probably wouldn’t be able to have children so I set my mind I was going to become a career women and did not even want kids. That was the plan at graduation. Fast forward not quite 3 months later and everything changed. After work that following Wednesday I offered a coworker a ride home from work. He said to me “I have $20 in my pocket lets go do something.” This was my first real experience of going out and even really talking to a guy. He went home with me that night and here we are 20 years later. I had no idea then what I had in store for me.

That night was in August 2002 and we welcomed our daughter (so much for not being able to get pregnant) in May 2003. That first year together was a whirlwind and completely changed the path I had planned. I never ended up going to college that fall. I spent every waking hour learning to build a relationship and was very sick all the time. While I was able to get pregnant I stayed very sick the entire time. I was also getting to know this stranger that I just jumped into life with. While that in itself is a journey, I’ll tell it another time. This man that I fell so deeply in love with was much older then I was and had already had a family before he met me. He had just moved to where we met that summer. He had previously lived in another state with his ex and their five kids. He went to work one morning and came home to an empty home. They were all gone. He moved here because he knew his ex had family here and knew that this is where she brought his kids.

He spent a long time trying to get to see his kids and during that time is when our story began. We were already very much together and expecting our daughter when he received a phone call from his ex telling him that she was ready to get back together with him and that she was also pregnant. He told her that he wanted to see the kids but did not want to get back with her that he had moved on. That weekend we picked up his oldest two daughters and spent that weekend with them. His oldest daughter was mostly non verbal and would use her sister to communicate. She was very stand offish and protective of he siblings and Daddy. Over the next little bit we finally got time with all five of the kids and I instantly fell in love with each of them. We his ex gave birth we began spending time with all six of the kids and eventually I gave birth to our daughter.

This is were our story turns. That early summer after having our daughter we picked up all of the kids for a Father’s Day picnic with the kids Dad’s family. He walked up behind one of the boys who was 2 at the time and he was showing his uncle small circle shaped burns on his chest. The couple months that we were able to see the kids it was very limited and we had no idea how they were living with their birth mom and the torment that we would later find out they were living through. That afternoon during the picnic the kids Dad called their birth mom and blew up. He found out during that phone call that DHS had been called on her and that they had a scheduled visit the very next morning and the kids had to be there. The next morning during that visit the state took the kids into the states custody.

The DHS worker told the kids Dad that the best way to have the kids returned would be to go through the birth mom. He said that her house needed to be spot less when DHS returned in a week. We went to the store and bought cleaning supplies. Their birth mom met me for the first time (by her own choice) when she let me into her apartment to clean so that the kids would be returned. She had told their Dad that if we would help her clean the apartment we could have the kids when they were returned. Unfortunately our state was and is very much about the mothers in this cases. This is the day we found out just how bad the situation was. We showed up to the apartment and had to walk through trash. I spent 4 hours cleaning the girls shared room. There were burns on their beds and food smeared on the walls. Their Dad helped and then started going around the apartment fixing holes in the walls and window sills. This is when he began finding drugs around the apartment. This is when he came to me and said “lets go we will have to go to DHS and find out how to keep them away from here.” He went and told his ex who hadn’t left the sofa that we were leaving.

We went to the DHS office and showed them pictures and told them what we found and began our fight to get sole custody of the kids. This is when we found our that the oldest had been responsible for all of the kids for hours at a time. We found our that they were allowed to be abused by family members. It was very much a nightmare. We moved out of our little one bedroom apartment and into a much larger brick home. It took six months of work to convince the state. Every Thursday morning for six months I was the first person waiting at the court to find out if the state would give sole custody to the kids Dad. Every week it would be the court trying to get the kids birth mom to take parenting classes to get custody back. Every week we would hear a different excuse why she couldn’t do the classes. Finally we went to court one Thursday and she said to the court “he can have them I just don’t want to have to pay child support.” Her rights were terminated that day. It took another few days before we finally got the call “come pick up your kids.” I still remember the phone call. I still remember the drive. I still remember the joy of the kids when we picked them up. I still remember bringing them home. I realized then that God had a sense of humor. I graduated a little over a year from this time saying “I’m not having any kids” and now I became the 19 year old instant mother to 5 kids and a new born. We asked the judge for all 6 of the kids to keep the siblings together because the youngest that she give birth to did not have the same father. The judge said he had an Aunt wanting to adopt him and that we had so much love already. 19 years old and my life course was completely changed. We were married a few weeks later at the court house and I was the Mom to 6 children all under the age of 6. I was raising strangers.