Our Happily Ever Aftermath

Hope was a thing with feathers Perched deep within my heart  She sang a tune a bit off-key  A mine canary’s art  Her brave  porcelain composure Wafted down amid the gloom Her voice shoving out the darkness  Like a lantern in a tomb But the years advanced with violence  And her fragile body broke When the darkness grew in size Cutting air off like thick smoke But she never perished, no Just reduced down to an ember That would not give up or go out Growing cold in deep December  As she started to recover  She grew keratinous scales And her bones became less brittle And her song was more like wails  She eventually found her perch again Swinging gently in the soul But the treatment poor hope had received Made obvious its toll Instead of buoyant flutters Trilling chirps and happy song She was trembling and whimpering Too afraid to sing for long No more cheerful blue adornment Just dark eyes now filled with fear She could only now imagine The next ...

  Look. This is not my normal content. It really isn't. And I don't want to be "that" person about all this but honestly, I can't bite my tongue, or press my frustration down any further or I will end up either tongueless or exploded. Okay? I need you to just listen. Got it? Got it.  Toxic Masculinity:  What you seem to think it means: Masculinity=Men. Men=bad. All men are bad ewww men.  If I see one more "Masculinity isn't toxic" post, I will scream. Because intentionally or not that is completely missing the point.  What it actually means (not according to the "woke" crowd, we'll get there later)but according to the actual dictionary : a cultural concept of manliness that glorifies stoicism, strength, virility, and dominance, and that is socially maladaptive or harmful to mental health: Men and women both suffer when toxic masculinity perpetuates expectations that are restrictive and traumatizing.  Examples include but are not limited...

 Hey friends. I'm going to cut right to the issue. I screwed up. I mean, I do that often enough it shouldn't be noteworthy but this one is stuck deep in my mom guilt so I'm going to put words to it and try to figure this thing out with all of you.  See, my oldest son just graduated from high school and is on his way to college in the fall. I am so impressed with him. I am so proud of his accomplishments and the strides he's made as a person. And that made me want to change the narrative of our life to the other kids that are living in the house.  It started innocently enough. The girls were complaining that school was starting again too soon. I said, "Well, your biggest brother is starting college in the fall so I bet he's nervous about school starting too."  The tears ya'll. I thought that perhaps framing big brother living elsewhere in a normal transition type of way would help. What actually happened was I made the girls deeply sad that now they wou...

 Confessions:  I haven't written anything specifically for this blog in months. I am apparently regressing to my 10-year-oldish self that was obsessed with Lisa Frank. Erego the Giraffe. Sorry, not sorry.  I've done a great deal of deconstruction of my faith and while I am still (and likely will always be) rebuilding Im happy and confused to realize Jesus is still an integral part of me. Some of his followers though, ya'll. Glass houses and stones and whatnot but man I think more of us brothers and sisters need to do some soul searching instead of holding onto lies. Ugh. It was much easier to exist as a human in this world before I started searching for truth and compassion. It is so much worse caring about people I would much rather "other" and move on from. It is also super gross to recognize that some of my past actions, thoughts, and postures towards others were at best unhelpful and at worst hateful and unfair. The number of times I have full-body cringed thi...

My kids went back to school after a lovely, relaxing Christmas break. Thursday. Why did they start back on Thursday? Unknown. I wasn't the one planning the school calendar. Pity that.  Regardless, I dropped my loves off at school on time, fed, and with all of their belongings. I should have known something was up then. That just doesn't happen, especially after two weeks of non-existent sleep schedules, and junk food free for all nonsense.  Around 9 o'clock, a mere hour and a half post drop off I get a call from the school. I briefly consider not answering, assuming it's a kid who forgot a folder.  Alas, it was the school nurse. My youngest had thrown up in class and would need to go home. Insert sad/frustrated mom guilt feelings.  So I picked up my girl who was really very sick and pitiful and went home. We hung out and watched cartoons. Truly my day wasn't going so far off what I had planned anyway, the contents on the TV and the sick child notwithstan...

https://authory.com/ChristinaGochnauer/If-I-Could-Start-Over-With-Adoption-af0551a6aefe04cc68b9966db511c6141

I'm not sure if you've noticed it. In the past few years, there is a surge of women between the ages of 30 and 40 walking away from Christianity. Seemingly legions of religious leaders are suddenly struck down from their pedestals and outed as rapists, molesters, abusers, and liars. Now people are finding the very foundations on which they rested their faith crumbling to dust.  After decades of being admonished to not build our faiths on the sand, but on solid rock, we are collectively looking around in disbelief. Horrified we are just now realizing the rock we chose was fragile soapstone. The second a crack developed the whole thing fell into a pile of debris.  Now, traumatized, horrified, and in disbelief, we are having to, as an entire generation, sift through the mess and find the pieces that remain intact.  Some of us are finding that nothing at all is left worth saving. They are using heavy equipment to move away the detritus of their past. Now the place their faith...

                              Today marks 5 years since our first 3 kids were adopted. A teeny baby girl and two older but small boys became officially ours. Since then we added two more little girls to our family. Adoption days are complicated anyway without our added family trauma. In the past, we have had a special meal or gotten ice cream.  This time last year our oldest wasn't with us. He had been in residential treatment for a while by then but I was still so deep in my grief over what he had done, and the fallout from it, the adoption anniversary didn't feel worse than all of the other days. Now that we all have truly begun to heal in earnest, today feels like a punch in the stomach. I find myself reliving the moment I found out my oldest son had broken our family. Facebook shows memories of 5 years ago, our beautiful, happy, smiling family.  Instead of being thankful I have childr...

I'm writing a book. Or more accurately I have written a book and am trying to get it published. I have learned through some training I'm doing that a big part of becoming a published non-fiction author is having a following on my platform.  I didn't even know I needed a platform when I started writing so I'm a bit behind.  I am asking that if you have any interest at all in our journey that you do four things for me , pretty please.  1. Subscribe to my email list to receive weekly email updates and funny stories not shared on social media  sign up here 2. Share the link with friends in your circle.  3. Add me on Twitter and Instagram and encourage your friends to do so as well.  https://twitter.com/Go123Mommy Insta: Mommygo123  4. Pray for me as I pursue a literary agent and  publisher  Thank you for your encouragement and participation in our lives.  ❤ Chrissy 

If  there was a song dedicated the end of myself reliance, to its being lit on a funeral pyre as it floated out to sea, it would  start with a low whispered sticato of no no no no no no. The  crescendo would lift into a loud,  long high pitched wail and fade eventually into soft gutteral sobs of acceptance.  I have always been a pull yourself up by your bootstraps person. Not so much out of choice but of necessity.  I would encourage anyone who listened to get the help they needed while silently, slowly bleeding to death. All of that started to change when we first became foster parents. Being an island just wasn't an option.  Too many people routinely in and out of our lives to do it on my own.  The day, however that I finally broke, that my stubborn will and stubborn heart finally shattered was the day I found out my worst fears had been made real.  My worst case scenario was one of my children being molested. Not only had that ...

I get it. It's a weird, kind of long name, and also apparently the name of an episode of a TV show I don't watch. Regardless,  it fits. The aftermath is the part after the storm.  Where you survey the damage and assess what to do next. You are joyful to have survived and frightened about what you may find.  In 2008 Tim and I spent a few months in Mississippi doing post-hurricane Katrina clean up. I remember hearing a story about a house that got absolutely destroyed by the storm surge and hurricane winds. When people were cleaning up they found one perfect China teacup that looked like it had been gently picked up and deposited on  a pile of rubbish. They continued to find odd things. Pictures undamaged in one place but utterly ruined in another. It was all the same storm but it affected every home and every person in different ways.  Adoption is a lot like that. A family had to be broken for my children to be mine.  Their lives were tur...

  Lately when someone asks how I'm doing I snort and say something to the effect of "surviving" and move on to less uncomfortable topics of conversation as quickly as I can. I used to overshare. Sometimes I might still if I'm close to the person asking. But mostly the question makes me feel uncomfortable and inadequate. Which is kind of absurd, truthfully. I just can't seem to find the balance between oversharing about how hard my life is some days and undersharing so much that people around me think I'm just standoffish. I'm working on it. The real answer isn't much fun. I'm exhausted. I know I'll miss them being little but right now? I just need them to sleep, not hurt each other, stop tantruming over the same thing every day. They are beautiful, sweet, compassionate, loving children. I'm just weary of all the big feelings all of the time. There is rarely a day there are not tantrums and things getting ruined. We are trying hard to...

 I n the past 4 months we have celebrated 6 birthdays and 3 holidays. The celebrations looked vastly different. Tim's 40th birthday party was entirely different from Maddie's princess teaparty, the boys low key movie going and dinner out celebration, Sarah's little family party with a few presents and an icecream cake and a stuffed unicorn as big as she is. My birthday Valentines Day, Easter, Mother's day . Such very different days but they all have one common thread. In one way they are all entirely the same. One way or another at least one child worked their hardest to disrupt and sabotage the day. It isn't their fault really. I don't think they wake up thinking "I'm going to act batcrap crazy on my birthday because I really like people in walmart/church/dinner staring at me." I think they have SO MANY ideas built up in their heads, so many expectations, that there is no possible way we parents can meet them all. We are doomed to fail. I still so...

  I'm sure most of you know by now. I'm sorry for those of you who don't but I need to break the silence. This past summer my oldest son assaulted our youngest daughter and is now in a treatment program. Because of the nature of his offense he cannot come home for a while, maybe not at all. We are all processing and grieving. Everyone is seeing a counselor and we are trying to live our lives in as much of a normal way as possible. I have tried and failed to write this post a dozen times but then just can't find the words or the strength. We are all hurting, my youngest most of all. Next week will be the first Thanksgiving in 5 years that my oldest boy, my first son, will not be at home. Quickly on Thanksgiving's heels will come the first Christmas in 5 he won't celebrate with us. I am undone. I love my son but his past is so broken and he has so much healing to do, I find myself wondering when the next season of celebration will come with him a part of it,...

The other day my littlest asked about her first mommy. Every time this happens I am gutted. It doesn't get easier for me but I'm glad she is comfortable talking about it. Hopefully opening the door to communication now will make it easier later down the road. It has never been a secret. We have pictures of adoption days hung up in the house. We have books about adoption on our shelves. Our oldest sons were 10 and 11 when they were adopted so they very much remember life before adoption. My girl is sunny, silly, and in many ways more mature than her four years on earth should allow her to be. To be sure she is every bit of a silly little girl but she sometimes asks me questions that I know if I blow off will just come back to me later, probably in public when changing the subject becomes more of a song and dance routine. So we have a policy of just trying to, in age appropriate language answer the question. When she asks me to tell her about why she couldn't live with her ...

Over the past year I've had the privilege to write for adoption.com Here are some of my favorite pieces I've written so far. https://adopting.org/alabama-adoptions-during-pandemic/ https://adopting.org/choosing-adoption-already-have-kids/ https://adoption.com/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-a-forever-family/ https://adoption.com/how-and-when-talk-to-child-about-adoption/ https://adoption.org/what-is-a-mother https://adoption.org/what-makes-adoptive-families-different Do you have questions about adoption that you'd love answered? Email me or comment here with suggestions. Happy reading!