Livia’s Parent Corner: May 2022

Livia’s Parent Corner highlight the kids of Arete Living employees and residents. This section is named after Livia Thompson, Senior Life Enrichment Director with Avamere at Bethany, who initiated this idea.

Hello. My name is Sandy Carpenter, and I’m the Executive Director for Avamere at Berry Park in Oregon City. Since this is the parent’s corner, I wanted to share with you my story of parenthood and how it differs from most.

The biggest life lesson I’ve learned and love to impart to others, is that biology doesn’t always make you a parent. Think about those we are close to, a best friend whom we’d much rather spend Thanksgiving with than that one weird uncle. You chose them to be your family and no DNA had to be involved for it to happen.

They say blood is thicker than water, but the connection of human souls in need is the real bond between us. Whether that’s as small as offering a smile to someone who’s had a bad day, handing some bills to a person on the corner, or as big as giving your last name to children whose future looks pretty uncertain. That’s my, or rather our, story.

I was the kid who played with baby dolls and wished them to become real. I was the first to cuddle a baby or to teach the little ones in church. The thing I wanted most in life as a young lady was to be a mother. I got married fairly young, at 24, and by that time had already learned from my doctors that having children the usual way was going to be a challenge. We struggled down that route for 9 years, a road that to me seemed to end in heartache, frustration, and a seeming lack of hope. But what really had happened is that I had reached the point of letting go of the reins of my plans and finally giving in to what my husband and I were meant to do.

Long story short(er), in the beginning of 2012, we started taking classes to become foster parents. We jumped through many hoops to be qualified, such as learning about attachment issues, how children in the foster care system can be affected by it, making sure every square inch of our home met state regulations and having a social worker come to do a home study to ensure Rob and I were “up to snuff”. It was at that point, that things started to fall into place. We were finally licensed, and the timing worked out perfectly for our home study to end up on the desk of a social worker who was looking for a long-term placement of two sisters, ages 5 & 6. We got the call in June of that year that they would be moving back to Washington from living out of state with grandparents at the end of the summer. What follows is an excerpt from a story I wrote on our experience for Adoptive Parent’s magazine.

“Hi, I’m Kendra. Where’s my room?”

These were the famous first words my husband heard from our younger daughter the day we met her and her sister. She had just jumped out of her grandparent’s truck, brown ponytail swinging. Her sister looked equally adorable in a matching blonde ponytail and Hello Kitty dress. That bright August morning was the culmination of years of heartache… But now, on this sunny morning full of promise, and in those first few days after, we only heard words that thrilled us and cracked us up:

“If I’m feeling shy, I’ll call you Sandy. If not, I’ll call you Mommy.”

“Can we paint our nails?”

“Can we go jump on the bounce-aline?” said Kendra, referring to her invented word for the neighbor’s trampoline.

“I’m allergic to hot cheese,” said Kendra as she disdainfully picked at the casserole set in front of her for dinner.

That first day in our home the girls explored, crawled under our bed repeatedly to try and coax out the cat, and were just happy little girls.

This article goes on to explain how most people get 9 months to prepare for parenthood, and then you start with an infant who doesn’t mind so much if you make a mistake. We had to not only learn to parent, but to parent children who’d been subjected to more than any kid their age should. We questioned our ability to parent but were so grateful to our support system during that time which included social workers, counselors, our church, friends and most importantly my mother-in-law who helped ease our load through casseroles, hugs, loving on the girls and lending an ear many times during the rough parts. Here’s another excerpt from the article:

“Two years, three months, and one day after Kendra’s famous first words, the best sentence ever came from the judge who made us a family: “You have been granted all the privileges and rights of a natural parent.”

A few months later, we received their official birth certificates with their new middle names of Hope and Joy and our last name. These certificates were just legal pieces of paper declaring what we had already known all along—they were ours. By then, I knew that I loved them with my whole heart and without hesitation. The drama we lived with in those early months has been replaced with a different kind—the chaos of raising tweens who will all too soon be teenagers. Today, the sentences flying around in our house probably sound a lot like those from many in our same stage of life:

“Feed the dog NOW please!”

“Get your shoes on!”

“Time for bed!”

“I want Daddy!” wailed Kendra recently as I rushed her to the emergency room for a cut finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding. That one made my husband feel pretty good.

Not long-ago Kendra, who spoke those first words we ever heard from our girls, came up with some good ones for me as I tucked her into bed: “You’re the best mom ever!”

Those girls who were tweens just a few short years ago are now teenaged young ladies, occupied with friends, boyfriends (sigh), learning to drive, navigating school, and thinking about the future. Rob and I look back on it all as a blur and can’t believe it was almost 10 years ago that they came to us and made us a family. Definitely not the traditional route, not through biology, but through commitment, choosing to be there in the most difficult of times even when we didn’t get it right, and choosing to believe that we were meant to take on this challenge of loving these girls as our own no matter how they came to be ours. A decision we’d make again in a heartbeat!

In honor of Mother’s Day, Sandy joined the podcast to share a glimpse into her fostering and adoption journey. Listen below!

Download the transcript below to read this episode.

People of Avamere Pod Episode 16.pdf

Download PDF • 69KB

Feature your family in the next Livia's Parent Corner! Submit your story here (and include photos too).