What's a family to do?

I have found that one of the biggest challenges of parenting a child with the variety of diagnoses that Oksana has is making sure the rest of our family is OK.  Much focus is put on Oksana and getting her well physically and emotionally.  As we sunk deeper and deeper into her issues this summer a wise friend, and therapist, told me that we can not sacrifice the mental health of the rest of our family for hers.  I could see that was exactly what was happening so it became obvious that some changes had to happen for our family to stay strong. 

-Respite - The truth is I've known for a long time that we needed respite but I was so reluctant to find it.  Honestly, leaving my kids with anyone is hard for me much less leaving them for a weekend with a bunch of strangers.  Regardless, when I told my boys that we were given the opportunity to send Oksana to a weekend respite program one weekend every other month I was shocked by the joy in one of my boys in particular.  It really showed me how desperately we needed this.  Larry and I filled out pages and pages of paperwork and then toured the respite facility.  We were incredibly impressed.  Only 5 kids can be there at a time, they all have a 1 on 1, they all have their own bedrooms, they go on field trips, help cook meals, the facility has a sensory room, an art room, a multipurpose room, and a great playground.  I knew she would love it!  Oksana went to her first respite weekend back on November.  We dropped her off on Friday evening and picked her up Sunday around dinner time.  She had a blast and we had a great weekend.  She goes for her second weekend on Friday. The best part of this is that they can handle her.  I specifically told them that if they are going to call me to come get her when she gets aggressive then it is not respite for me and we can forget it.  They asked me to describe her behaviors and then the described to me what they deal with and told me they don't call parents unless the children are in danger.  Yeah, she will be fine.

Now we need to find in home respite.  This is what I was discussing a couple of posts ago.  We need to find qualified caregivers to watch Oksana (and Anya, not because she is as challenging but because we just need someone to watch her sometimes) other times of the month when we need childcare.  We are still in that process and have a husband and wife couple who were highly recommended by a friend coming to meet us on Wednesday.  It's not easy at all. 

- Community programs - There are a couple of things that we are doing for ourselves to stay emotionally healthy as well.  In February I will be starting a class with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) designed for parents of children with mental illness.  I really hope this will help me understand her better, but more than that I hope to meet some families in the same shoes.  Also, our boys are starting a program called SibChat at our church that meets once a month.  It is for kids 11-17 who have adopted siblings.  They will have dinner together and then 2 licensed therapists will guide them through activities and games, giving them a safe place to say what they enjoy and find challenging about living with adopted siblings. 

- Support - The other thing we are doing is surrounding ourselves with people who we can be real with, and being willing to be open and honest about our struggles.  This summer we told almost no one the depth of what was happening in our house.  We are still very careful about some of those details but we realized we were suffering alone and needed to open up to start to heal and get support. 

- Summer - Half way through the 21 days of Christmas break with Oksana our Regional Center worker called.  She just had a quick question for me but since I had her I told her that we needed help finding summer programs for Oksana.  Oksana goes downhill fast when she is stuck with little to no routine or activity.  There is no way on earth that we are going to do a repeat of last summer.  It's not happening.  Luckily she knows all too well what we are dealing with and said she will find us help.  I asked her if there were going to be camps and such that could handle Oksana.  She said if there aren't we will hire a respite worker to go with her.  That is a huge relief to us.

With these things in place I truly believe that our family can stay healthy and really be able to enjoy Oksana.  She's an incredibly awesome kid but she is also incredibly challenging.  With help we can cope with the challenging aspects better and fully enjoy her through the good times!

A quick side note.  Because of all of the snow days our meeting to determine Oksana's school placement has been delayed.  There just isn't enough time now to do all of the observations that need to be done by Wednesday.  I should know more soon.  I'm just incredibly anxious to get this done!