Following God’s Call to Foster Care with Laura Hernandez

Jason Palmer 0:00
Foster Care nation. Listen, this is

a string for the powerless courage for the fearful hope and healing for wounded hearts.

Welcome back to foster care and unparalleled journey with Jason and Amanda. Today we’re talking with Laura Fernandez. Laura has a story. I say that a lot. Most of the people that we talked to have a story. That’s why they’re here. Laura has more than a story she’s got on, I think, one to skip a few close to 10 stories that live with her.

Today, Laura,

Laura Hernandez 0:55
I’m great. I’m so glad to be here with you guys.

Jason Palmer 0:59
Excellent, excellent. We’re glad to have you. You know, we have a lot of kids, seven kids, people look at us and say all the great things like you do know how that happens, don’t you? And I always enjoy looking at him. Actually, actually, you’d be wrong. And and I’ll show up that way, you know, but you actually can look at us and call us like the beginners.

Laura Hernandez 1:21
I mean, I wouldn’t say that.

Unknown Speaker 1:24
Family.

Laura Hernandez 1:27
A few more on you.

Jason Palmer 1:28

10. Kids, we were talking a little bit before we started recording and I asked your kids age and you have 146788 not twins, 10 1112 and 14?

Laura Hernandez 1:40
That is correct.

Jason Palmer 1:41
How many panic attacks just happened to people listening to this right here? That is a lot. So I guess First off, I got to ask, you know, how did you get into this journey?

Laura Hernandez 1:56
Oh, that is a very loaded question. So we had our first three biological children.

And all three of them were not planned, all of them just kind of happened for one of those families that is really obnoxious. And so we had our first three. And we had always talked about adoption. So when we were getting married, that was kind of one of my criteria of, Hey, if you’re on board with adoption, this is done, we’re not getting married, right? And so my husband came around and was like, for sure, let’s do it. But then once we had our three kids, he’s like, we need to hurry up and adopt or otherwise we’re gonna accidentally get pregnant again. And I don’t think I can do any more than four. Like, that’s gonna be my max, he only signed up for two, you know, it was kind of

we went to our, our church had an adoption class, and we went to the adoption class. And we really thought that I had wanted to adopt from Africa, he wanted to adopt from China. So we really thought that we were going to be doing a foreign adoption. And then the foster peer panel came up. And they started talking all about foster care. And all these things. We both looked at each other. I mean, nobody wants to do foster care, right? Like it’s, you’re signing up to get you’re heartbroken over and over again. Yes, you are. It’s so it’s like, I don’t wait, that’s, that’s off the table. We’re not doing that. And but while the foster care panel is talking, and we look at each other, and Whoa, whoa, crap. Like we both knew immediately that that’s what we’re being called to do. And so we started that process. And we did all the training. And we got Andrew replaced with us when he was three days old, straight from the hospital. And we fell in love with him. He was like, our baby had a ton of health stuff. And so we were spending nights in hospital and feeding tubes and all these things, he was just really had a lot of health issues. So we were kind of nursing him, which I think increase the bond tremendously.

And he went back to his mom, at eight months old. She checked all the boxes. This is her. Andrew wood was her fourth biological child, and all three of the others have been taken away. And so everybody was saying there’s no way that she’s going to get him back. Like this is your it’s pretty much a done deal. Right. So which you know, that’s never the case.

It isn’t done deal until it isn’t. Yes. Until this papers are signed. It’s nothing. Yes, so we got our hearts broken. Looks like our child was being taken away. We’re just crushed. And alone. It was it was really hard. And so then fast forward to my husband really wanted to move to Seattle to work, because he worked for Microsoft here but couldn’t really move up. And so he was like, well, I need to go to Seattle. And so I said the only way we’re going to Seattle is if

if I can have another baby. And so we had another baby, move to Seattle. And while we were there, we ended up having our fifth biological child. So thus far, we’ve only tried to have one child and we were successful. And so then we had our fifth up in Seattle. And then the week that we had our fifth biological child that next Sunday was Palm Sunday. And when we were at church, the pastor was giving a sermon on Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. And he was talking about Jesus who Jesus was weeping for. And it kind of went through all the categories like the broken, which I just thought was the most random sermon ever. But he said, he said Jesus was weeping for the orphan. And I was like, Okay, I just up until this point we had pursued and reached out to to CPS. I’m wondering if I can backtrack just a little bit.

Jason Palmer 5:36
Should we go ahead?

Laura Hernandez 5:38
There’s so much here. So when we moved up to Seattle, we would check in with bio mom and keep track of her she had her another biological child, who was two months away from our fourth biological child. His name is Matthew. So she’s down in Louisiana area, and ends up moving right across the border to Texas, in a little town called Port Arthur. And while she was there, like I am from Southeast Texas, so I feel like the Lord just kind of placed her right down there in that little corner. And so we could go visit whenever we came back to Texas, because all my family’s there. And so we go from Seattle, dumb selfies Texas, and we could drop in on them and check in on them and see how they’re doing. She went ahead and had another kid. So she had piano and piano. Sweet Hannah, when we went to visit them, Hannah was six months old, and she weighed eight pounds. And so it was just really, there was just a lot going on there and a lot of things that were really not great for them. And CPS ended up coming and taking them out of that situation and putting them in another home. And so while they’re in that other home, I would call CPS and I would check in CPS and they never called me back. I think they thought I was Cuckoo. And so I just call all the different people at CPS, like I’ve literally got the directory of CPS, I just called them each and said, Hey, would you pass this message on to their caseworker. And so that home Sunday, that we’re at church, and he was talking about the orphan and I was like, okay, Lord, I can’t do this anymore. Like I, at some point, I just have to trust you. And trust that you know what you’re doing. But I still want to advocate like, I’m not sure how to obey you here to trust or to advocate. And so I said, I’m gonna call one more time, and then just kind of my my Gideons wool out nice. I’m gonna call one more time. And if they don’t call me back, then I’ll be done. And I’ll just trust that you’re going to do what’s best. And the next day, she called me back, and she thought I was nuts. She said, I’ve never had somebody call to just check on kids before. I don’t know what you want. What do you need? I really just want to know how they are I want you to know how to administer or help the other family that has them now, can I buy them diapers? Like, what can we do to help them? And she really just thought was really odd. And so once we kind of got over the, her shock that we actually wanted to help and which is shocking to me that nobody ever volunteers help for these little buddies, or pursues them after they’re taken away. It’s kind of it’s just sad.

Unknown Speaker 8:27
But

Laura Hernandez 8:29
she started to talk more about Andrew, and all of his all of his behaviors and said, You know, we’re really thinking about putting them in a group home, because his behaviors are so bad. And immediately, we’ll take him What do we need to do? And she was like, Well, okay, we’ll start down this road. And so we ended up doing foster care, and private adoption, and all these things up in Seattle to try to get the kids to move up there. And we had, they kind of said, you have to either take all of them or none of them. We’re going to keep them together. So however we can make that happen. That’s what we’re doing. So over the course of like, two months, we tried everything in our power. To get these kids up to Seattle. We hired attorneys, we contacted local authorities, like we did whatever we could like the government, government agencies and legislatures, like we wrote letters we did when we did so much. And it basically turned down came down to like the icpc. So what is called

Jason Palmer 9:28
interstate interstate compact something so I Yeah, icpc. That’s it. We just, we just had an icpc case in our house recently. So that’s, that’s how I know that’s what it’s called.

Laura Hernandez 9:39
It’s fresh in her mind. It’s kind of I’m glad that it’s so distant from my mind. Yeah, that lady up in Seattle was just against us and against us having these kids. We already had so many kids in Texas, we have group homes. They were we used to. We don’t anymore, but they didn’t have anything like that in Seattle, so they thought we were nuts that we weren’t To do this, and we had so many young kids, and so they’re like, we’re just not taking on this liability. And so we had kind of my husband and I had talked about, like, what are we going to do? If they just say, no? What are we going to do? And so we knew that moment, like, when they said, it’s just not happening. We said, Okay, we’re gonna pack up everything and move to Texas. So we had about a month span, they found a new home for the kids, to sell our house, to sell our cars, to pack up everything, to find a home down here, and to move everything down here. And then we had to do foster care training again, I’m here, because our foster care license from way back before had expired, nothing up in Seattle counted. And so we’ve gone through the training so many times. Oh, yeah.

Jason Palmer 10:49
But I think it’s important to back up just for a second and point something out.

You packed up your life and sold a house and bought a house and quit a job and found a job and all that. For, for kids that aren’t your biological kids.

That’s not common.

That’s true. That’s true. That says something about you as, as a family, that you would go through that much work for kids that weren’t your biological family. I assume these aren’t like your nephews and nieces or anything like that, right? No, these are just random kids that that were placed on your heart and, and you picked everything up and moved from Oregon, all the way to Texas. That’s that’s the big thing. And because people think that we do foster care for money, that’s a really common thought process we write I see you laugh. I see you laugh. I laugh too. I don’t know what Texas Oregon does. Missouri is one of the lowest paid states in the whole nation. So I always laugh when people say that to us, but but how much? How much money? Is it really worth to when you have to sell your house and your cars and find a new job and move halfway across the country? That’s That’s huge.

Laura Hernandez 12:10
Yeah, and not. I’m like, you’re saying this now. And now like five years in, I’m like, and they’re continually destroying our house. And we’re continually having to like redo stuff in our house, because they’re picking it walls or punching holes and things like it’s just constant. And so I feel like they’re not paying us enough to even like upkeep what they’re destroying. Right.

Jason Palmer 12:30
I have picked marks and holes up. Yeah, yeah. I feel Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:33
As soon as you said picking I wanted to look at his face to see the reaction. Because Yeah.

Jason Palmer 12:39
There we have an older home that has the old plaster and lath walls in it. Hmm. And I have a five year old who seems to think that if there’s anything he can pick out, he wants to get through the plaster. For what reason? And I suck at fixing it so far.

Laura Hernandez 12:54
He drives me crazy.

Jason Palmer 12:58
So I just what was it that made you want to move that far? For for, like I said, basically random kids that were placed on your heart? What’s that motivation there?

Laura Hernandez 13:11
I think it was just obedience, like I, both of us felt very strongly that we were supposed to do this. And so we wanted to be obedient to that. Like that the Lord was calling us to adopt these kids. And we kind of sat back and said, like, hey, would we regret it? If we stayed here and did nothing? And our answer was, yes. And then we kind of thought through like, okay, would we regret it? If we sold everything lived down there? And then we didn’t end up getting them at all, like, we went through the whole process, and they ended up going to someone else? Like, would we regret that? And really, no, because we know, we did everything in our power to keep them safe. And I think that it helps a lot that we got to see the circumstances that they were living in several times, several different areas and several different homes because they move like every three months. And so I think seeing that helps. Helped me want to keep them safe, like that. Just put a little more fire under me to have like, I’m very passionate about wanting to keep them safe and fed and healthy. And yeah.

Unknown Speaker 14:20
Wow.

Jason Palmer 14:22
Wow, that’s that just speaks loads to who you and your husband are. Because that’s just such an uncommon occurrence. Especially when you’re fighting with the icpc. And in the middle of all that and all those struggles. It’s really easy to throw your hands up and say, Look, I’ve done what I can. I can’t do anymore.

Laura Hernandez 14:42
I never thought that was an option, I guess. Like it never felt like an option. It was always like he’s our son. We want him with us. How can we make that happen?

Jason Palmer 14:54
So you guys ended up moving moving back to Texas without any guarantees. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 15:01
That would be very difficult. I went to home, how I would do that, you know, to pick up and leave my support system and probably friends and lots of connections. And

Laura Hernandez 15:13
yeah, I mean, it helped that we had already built all that here in the Dallas area too. So we had a great foster care community and we knew the area well. I mean, now I love Texas with all my heart so

Jason Palmer 15:27
well, you text tend to be that way. Don’t you?

Laura Hernandez 15:32
know it’s obnoxious to everyone else. But

Jason Palmer 15:34
I would stay in San Angelo for a little while. And I did not have such a high view of Texas as most Texans did. But if you’re familiar with St. Angela, they have oil rigs. They have cactuses, and they have jackrabbits the size of German Shepherds. And that’s that and 130 degree temperatures.

Laura Hernandez 15:54
Yeah, I’ve never been there. And I don’t think I ever want to go there. Come over, come up and over a little bit.

Jason Palmer 16:02
Yes, I Well, actually, we went down to corpus on vacation. We took our kids down there once. Several years ago. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 16:08
We had a blast, though. Yeah.

Jason Palmer 16:10
That was a good time. And you know, we’ve seen other parts of Texas that are fun. But I always love given Texans struggle over that.

Unknown Speaker 16:18
trouble. Well,

Jason Palmer 16:20
that may be that may be. So you guys move back down there. And I assume you were able to, to get get that situation into your into where you had hoped?

Laura Hernandez 16:32
Yes. And, you know, the whole time It felt like the world was against us. Like, especially up there. Nobody trusted us. Nobody wanted us to have the kids. Like it just felt very alone. And even a friend like close friends and family would say things like, are you sure you want to do this are you which, you know, it’s always such an encouraging thing to hear when you’re making huge life choices. And even when we when we moved. So when we moved down, and we were about to go drive and get the kids the next day, like so we’re all set up, we’re ready to go, we’ve done the training were approved. And we’re going to go down to where they are and pick them up and bring them home. I get a call from our agency in the Dallas area. And the lady says, Are you sure you want to do this? I was just reading through this report. And I’m so infuriated because like we just gave up everything to come down here and get these kids like help, we’re gonna go get them like this is not okay. It made me so angry. It’s just like I’m reading through this. And some of his behaviors are just really bad. I’m like, great. We know about those, we’re going to get the kids like this is not, you’re not changing our minds on this. And so we went down, got him brought him back. And it kind of felt like it felt like we just watched a nuclear bomb go off. And every day, I’d be like, Whoa, gosh, because it was a different kid coming back to us. And I had that knowledge. But I just wasn’t expecting all the emotions. And I didn’t know these other two kids at all. And but now they’re kind of mine. And it was just so awkward and hard. It was so hard. And what we didn’t know at the time was that they had special needs, which made which made them more more difficult, I believe. And so over the years of waiting for them to kind of catch up, we kind of unveiled some of the special needs. And that gave a lot of light to why that season was so hard. That I didn’t even know.

Jason Palmer 18:43
And that is what took you to the full 10 kids. Right.

Laura Hernandez 18:48
That took us to eight to more after that.

Jason Palmer 18:53
So some people appreciate punishment.

Laura Hernandez 18:57
I can do bio babies all day long. Like the connection there that I mean, like that’s just I love that. Like that’s not a thing for me. Doctor buddies are hard.

Jason Palmer 19:10
Yeah, yeah, no, I have to say that. I can kind of understand why the workers would be asking those questions like, are you sure you because I mean, let’s be honest, you guys are weird ducks. Like you picked everything up. You moved across the country to to take care kids like these. This isn’t things that people normally hear. And you did it because you wanted to. And again, this is something that most caseworkers Don’t, don’t see often at all, I mean, bio groups, sibling groups, they’re, they’re hard to play sometimes on their big groups. And they see people struggle with what just take it in, you know, three, four kids alone, let alone having bio kids on top of that and all the other struggles in your life. So I guess I kind of understand why they would be like, are you sure You know what you’re getting into?

Unknown Speaker 20:02
Well, the other thing you have to look at is the benefit of the kids too. And if if this is another placement that doesn’t work out, that’s retraumatization. And, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of things that, you know, people on the outside don’t necessarily see.

Laura Hernandez 20:17
Yeah, for sure. And I, you know, one of the things that they had talked about if we weren’t gonna be taking the kids was that they were going to go to two siblings, two adopted siblings of bio mom. And I got kind of fired up about that, because kind of not i thought that i thought that they were going to be like a failed placement, but because they weren’t around the first time, like when he was a baby and got out of the hospital, nobody from the family stepped up and said, I’ll take them. Like when he was the easiest, the easiest possible scenario, right from the hospital, right? Nobody said they take them. And so I was like, why are you doing this now? Like, what do I don’t understand? And so the intentions? Yeah. And I’m sure that they were fine intentions. It was kind of like, Okay, this will do it. But at the same time, I just didn’t like that. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

Jason Palmer 21:13
Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned that these kids had special needs that had not been diagnosed or addressed. What kind of special needs did you find?

Unknown Speaker 21:24
Mini Mini.

Laura Hernandez 21:26
So we kept waiting for them to catch up, you know, and I think this, this is one of the things that in adoption people talk about often is like, once they’re in a safe home, and they feel safe, and they have that felt safety around them. After about two years, they’ll really start to catch up mentally, developmentally, developmentally. And all these things, right? Like, I’ve read that so many times that there’s like a two year magical mark that just, they’re perfect after that, right? They say, but they like catch up. And they’re great, right? So we kept waiting, and I was like, they’re still really behind. And so we had children that were right next to them, right. So we had another like Matthew was to, we had another two year old. And we could see that the vast difference between the two. And same with Andrew. And same with Hannah, like we had, we had samples all around us to kind of be like, yo, you should be doing faster than the baby was passing a piano and in development. And so we got, you know, we already had a ton of therapists going and our first one of our first things was that Matthew had a seizure. And with that seizure, we took him in and the neurologist did the eg. And in the eg he was like, well, there’s something else going on, too. He did have a seizure, but his processing speed is a little slow. And I you know, I didn’t know anything about special needs people at all, like I just didn’t know anything. And so sick, okay. Sounds great. Like just didn’t have a clue for what that was. He was talking about an icicle, so does that mean? He said, Well, we call this global delay when there’s several things that are behind it. Okay. So he just continued to talk and I was like, What is it like? So when he grows up like right now he’s two years behind. But what does that mean? When he’s 15? Like what it is, Will he’ll be acting like a seven year old when he’s like, 15? Because he’s kind of trying to lay it out for me of what this development really looks like, down the road. And once I got home, I saw all the things after I looked them up. I was like, Oh, I see. Like, he’s, he’s mentally retarded. I didn’t have a category for what the doctor was saying until that that happened. And what they say now is intellectually and developmentally delayed. So it’s called IDD, and it’s the new PC term for mental retardation. Which I had no idea and I’m kind of trying to share with the world because if a doctor says they have ID or something like that, you’re like, Okay, great, but I felt like I had I had a bucket for mental retardation. But it didn’t have one for these new acronyms that were being thrown at me.

Jason Palmer 24:01
Yeah, I’ve never heard that phrase either. And Amanda actually used to work at a home for some older ladies who all had and they call it Mr. Their don’t they just called Mr.

Unknown Speaker 24:11
Something really, there’s several terms, but they like to that particular company like to use the word spirited adults.

Unknown Speaker 24:20
Oh, I love that.

Unknown Speaker 24:21
So But yeah, I took care of four ladies with special needs. And it was one of the most rewarding times of my life. I love that. You know, it was it was wonderful.

Jason Palmer 24:33
Yeah, so that that’s one of those things that a lot of people you’re right. I’ve never heard that term either. developmentally delayed.

Unknown Speaker 24:41
Yeah, like in school. The kids like to sped you know.

Laura Hernandez 24:46
Yeah. A wide range of like, they get a severe autism or they could have a DD you know, so it’s kind of a huge

Unknown Speaker 24:55
Yeah. Other special needs. Have you encountered.

Laura Hernandez 25:03
So all three of them have fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, okay. And we were under the impression, because mom told us that she never drink. And for whatever reason, I choose to believe that and so I was kind of shocked that a therapist said, well, they’re kind of walking like, the only time I’ve ever seen a kid walk like that with that gate is who’s had fetal alcohol. That’s like, Oh, I never you never crossed my mind that she would lie to me about that or not tell the truth on that, which sounds kind of naive. And I get that. But I was very surprised by that. So when we went to go get everything I read about Fetal Alcohol, it’s like, I guess some early, get that diagnosis, because there’s so many things later on down the road that you’re going to need to have that for. But after 18, you can’t diagnose it.

So we went to a behavior. A cognitive behavior. Doctor, I think is a better name than that. I don’t know what it is

Jason Palmer 25:55
time to behavior therapy.

Laura Hernandez 25:57
Yeah, but it wasn’t therapy. He’s like a, a diagnostic guy. Okay, we diagnosed his kids. And so we took them in. And he explained it to me like that they each have the umbrella of a pasty, and then each of them has different things underneath. So all of them have ADHD. Andhra has a growth hormone deficiency. And they all three have IBD.

Jason Palmer 26:21
That’s a bucket.

Laura Hernandez 26:22
It’s a bucket. And it’s a it’s a lot. It’s a lot besides letters, there’s a lot going on here. And now we are, I feel like every year it’s like discovering new things that, oh, my goodness, this is going on, too. It’s kind of like we kind of whittled it down to Okay, we’ve got these big things out of the way. Now we can kind of see other small things that are popping up as well.

Jason Palmer 26:47
So what’s been been you guys’s best resources to work through some of that?

Laura Hernandez 26:54
I think the best resources for that has been kind of building the team around us. So we had a great therapist in play. It took us a really long time to find a neurologist who understood, we had a lot of issues with Andrew like sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. And he was four at the time, it would go a mile down the road. And we would, you know, had all the doors locked, put alarms on all the doors and said that he would sneak out the windows, and then we’d lock on the windows. And he would just figure out how to like do undo the latches. And my goodness, it was a lot. So it took us a while to find the doctor who could actually understand what was going on. Because we did go to a sleep specialist who made him pinky promise that he wouldn’t get out of bed at night. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I could that I wasted my time there. And he was like the leading sleep specialist at the Children’s Hospital in Dallas, like, ridiculous.

Jason Palmer 27:48
That’s an amazing theory. I’m gonna try that one out. See if that works.

Laura Hernandez 27:52
Oh, my gosh, all that to say we’re kind of at our everybody’s like, I don’t know, I don’t know what to tell you that all what to do. It’s a pinky promise was kind of last straw. And so we found after that we found our neurologist who we adore, and who kind of gets Andrew a little bit more. So having him and having our, our therapists that we love who are on our team, and having people come in and help. I think asking for help has been huge. So if it would just boil it down to one thing I think asking for help, is what it is. And to keep pushing through when it feels hard and you’re not sure what to do next. Just keep pushing through.

Jason Palmer 28:32
Now, this might be a better question for your husband, because I know us guys are wired this way for sure. what point did you finally get to where you realized you didn’t have all the answers. You couldn’t fix it all yourself. And you needed to reach out for that help for some somewhere else.

Laura Hernandez 28:54
That’s funny that you think it’s a guy thing. A woman thing. It’s a mom thing. It’s hard to admit, because this is kind of my domain right? Running the house and the kids like that’s kind of what I do. It’s my job. And when I kind of have to wave the white flag and say like I can’t take care of all these children by myself. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t think they’re driving me crazy. I don’t know how to make all these things happen. I need help like that feels like a that has been in my past is coaching mamas I feel like that’s their hardest thing is asking for help. Whether that’s from a spouse or seeking out therapist or like having to babysit or come over to help you. Whatever that is. It’s hard for them to be like I can’t do it all and I need help.

Jason Palmer 29:42
Yeah, Amanda had to run off to go apply fresh duct tape to keep a kid stuck to the wall I think and I think she would probably agree with you. I’ve heard her say very similar things over the years. I just know that us guys we are we are pretty hard wired to think that we can fix it all. And that’s That’s just our thing. We we fix things. As a matter of fact, I was on a call with a guy earlier today. And he was wearing a shirt that just said, I fix things. That’s part of who we are. Right? That’s what we do we fix things. And so that moment of finally realizing that I don’t fix everything I can’t. I don’t have all the answers I might think I do when I started this journey. But life teaches us different and it’s amazing the things I’ve learned from my kids. And that’s one of them is that I can’t fix everything. I don’t have all the answers. It sounds like your kids really taught you that lesson as well.

Laura Hernandez 30:40
Yes, very early on. I mean, very early on, I feel like this first few days, like, I’m just reaching out for help. And because nobody had our story, nobody had our journey. It was very unique. And so. So I would read books, and I’d read blogs, and I searched and searched for somebody who has our story. So I could gain some encouragement. And there was absolutely nothing out there. And so I think I realized very early on that I needed help. I just didn’t know how to get it.

Jason Palmer 31:14
So if you were to talk to the mom out there who’s in the middle of that moment, right now, what would your best, the best way you could encourage them to go find help? What would you say to them?

Laura Hernandez 31:26
Well, it’s a call me and I’ll help you find the help you need. I feel like it’s such a broad thing. And it’s so like a mom could be so I work with so many moms that their first words to me are I feel like I’m drowning. And I get that I’ve been there. So I feel like I’ve been in these places of just hard and feeling overwhelmed and feeling like you’re drowning. And there’s all these people that are relying on you and you can’t do it, you simply can’t do it. And so it could be like overwhelmed from the workload at home, like laundry and dishes and maths and all that. Or it could be more, more serious. It could be deeper, and be like diagnosis or needing to apply for programs to receive help from the government with your special needs buddies. Like I feel like there’s a whole spectrum there. And every every family’s so different.

Jason Palmer 32:21
I imagined with having three kids who’ve dealt with special needs. You probably have a couple of appointments you have to keep up with every every week as well.

Laura Hernandez 32:31
We have about 20

Jason Palmer 32:33
Weekly,

Unknown Speaker 32:34
weekly.

Unknown Speaker 32:36
Wow. How do you find time for all that?

Laura Hernandez 32:39
Well, that’s been one of the things I’ve asked for help on. And it’s also been very humbling to, to do that. Because so all of the all of the appointments that are like neurology appointment or like what’s up work? well child checks, like I clearly take them to those appointments, but all the PT and OT and counselor and all the other things that everyone has on a weekly basis. We hire babysitters to go take them to those appointments, and then bring them home. And so I’m not waiting in a waiting room, the babysitter is waiting in the waiting room. And it was a pride. It’s definitely a pride. humbling thing, which you wouldn’t think that it would be but had to kind of get over what is the therapist going to think about me if I’m having somebody else’s, like I’m not showing them to these appointments, like what are they going to think about? I’m not a good mom, or, I don’t know, but I’ve learned that my time is so much better spent at home kind of being the orchestrator of things here than it is sitting in office and not doing anything, or trying to cram in a few errands or whatever that is like my time is much better spent here. So

Unknown Speaker 33:51
that’s just wow, I had never honestly thought of that. I’m just I’m sitting here and like all this time is flashing before my eyes and I’m thinking of how many times I’ve set and those exact offices and how long it took and how I didn’t have time in the week for other things and wow, that’s that’s a wildly interesting idea.

Laura Hernandez 34:12
Yeah, and the babysitters don’t mind it so much because they can sit and read or do homework or whatever they’re doing but they’re getting paid for it right so they’re just sitting there working away and they heard your child

Unknown Speaker 34:27
sounds so something you may have opened up so many things for me just

Laura Hernandez 34:32
hope so

Unknown Speaker 34:33
like wow yeah, we

Jason Palmer 34:37
that one seems really obvious that we should all figure that out by now. But

Unknown Speaker 34:42
no, like vacation. I mean, honestly, listen, I mean, that’s almost like one of the jackpot.

Laura Hernandez 34:52
It is cuz you’re just at home and can continue to keep things moving and dinner, what would happen was I would go pick them up from school and then I would go sit in the waiting room until dinnertime, I’d come home and like presently put something together, or like, try to pull something off.

Unknown Speaker 35:09
Yeah. And then we jump pizza because we were so late for this or that. And

Laura Hernandez 35:14
yes, and during that time I’m at the office, all the other children are destroying the home. Or if another babysitter has been here, the babysitter is not running the home like I you know, they’re all watching TV, the house is still massive, whatever that that looks like. And so then I come home and be so frustrated that

Unknown Speaker 35:31
I would be so frustrated that nothing got done, and people haven’t done their jobs and all these things. So it’s just really a win win. Absolutely. No, that’s Yeah, cuz there’s plenty of days and weeks that I just feel like the human mom taxicab.

Jason Palmer 35:48
Yeah, it’s not so much right now in the middle of COVID. A lot of those appointments have kind of kind of quieted down a little bit, but God knows this is all gonna go away. And they’re gonna want to bring us back in the office and charge full price again soon.

Unknown Speaker 36:02
On all the sports with all the kids and stuff. Yeah, I mean, can you cram one more thing into an already packed schedule?

Jason Palmer 36:13
I see on the sign the board behind you, you’ve got the sign for mama systems. And talking with you before you said you’ve really learned to work a lot of things out and that that’s part of what you help coach people through. Talking about that a little bit.

Laura Hernandez 36:29
Yeah, so I, from all of my searching for answers for our family, when I felt like we just watched a nuclear bomb go off. I, I would search and search, I didn’t know anybody who had our family. like nobody had 10 Kids three adopted, those three were in public school, so the bus was coming, we homeschool the rest. And I’d read books. And they, if they’re about giving out kids tasks, or large families, most of them homeschool, they didn’t talk about therapists coming in and out of the home all day, or driving people to therapy or to school like we I just felt like we were just so unique. What I’ve learned is that every family is so unique. With each kit, every kit is so unique, and every family is so unique. And with that no book or blog or podcast, no idea is going to work perfectly for your family, there’s gonna have to be some tweaking, there’s gonna have to be some customization there for things to really go as planned. And so I get to help moms kind of work through all of their, their hot button issues. So one of the things I do at the very beginning, I sent out a questionnaire of like, hey, what feels most overwhelming to you. And a lot of times it’s laundry, feeding people, keeping the house clean, just things like that. And so we come up with systems that help delegate things out to kids, help delegate things out to other people eliminate things altogether, like things you don’t need to be doing, and then getting automations in place. So your house can run smoother and be more productive and more peaceful. And so once we can have all that done, we then go down and make sure we’re prioritizing the things that we want to be prioritizing. Because truthfully, truthfully, so many of the things I want to instill in my children, like you could ask me that question. And I would have been like, well, I want them to learn Bible verses, and I want them to learn good character, and all these things, but I wasn’t prioritizing that at all, like I didn’t have a game plan for that to make that happen. And so I really had to sit down and create a plan in our day in our schedule to prioritize those things. And so none of this is like rocket science or anything, it’s very simple. It’s just having to sit down and do it, and knowing how to do it efficiently, where you’re gonna be able to follow through with it. Does that make sense?

Jason Palmer 38:42
Absolutely. Because as a dad, a lot of those same things come to mind, you know, taking care of these kids and making sure they have some character qualities that that you’re proud to pass on. But I can’t say that I have a long term plan in place that necessarily always meets that. You want to get it done. But I don’t have a plan.

Laura Hernandez 39:05
Yeah. And I think that, that most people are just so like, you’re just going through the day, right? We got to eat breakfast, we got to get to school, we got to do XYZ, that we don’t, we don’t ever create that space in our day for that. And we don’t create the space to actually plan it. And so

Jason Palmer 39:22
we feel like we’re too busy to plan it. And then we’re so busy not planning that we don’t get anything done.

Laura Hernandez 39:29
Yeah, so with my coaching and then also in my online courses, I focus a lot on just like, let’s just take a minute because if we do the work up front, like that’s the hardest part. And then once we get these systems in play, you’re like rocket and ready to go.

Jason Palmer 39:44
That’s awesome. I’m still got my mind blown by the fact that I never thought you could send a kid with a babysitter to a

Unknown Speaker 39:55
colony that was like Mind blown for the day. The little things in life when you’re a mom, but that was just like, white bomb, I love it. I’m certain that you have a lot more tips like that.

Jason Palmer 40:10
Now I know that anybody listening who’s interested who wants to get a hold of Laura, you can find her at Mama systems.net. And I’ll have all the links to her social media and our website and everything in the show notes. And like I mentioned before, Apple podcasts for whatever reason is doing weird stuff with links. And it just shows up as text instead of a link. So if you can’t find it there, just go to foster care. nation.com hit the blog, the blog, I’ll give it straight. At foster care nation calm hit the the podcast blog button who English is leaving me today. And I still have a couple hours left to do this today. Yeah. But if you hit the the podcast blog button, you’ll be able to find the episode there, click on that everything will be in the shownotes under there. I think there’s a show notes tab on there as well. So you’ll be able to find it for sure. And the links will work there. I’ll make sure that they’re all active there. You one thing I wanted to kind of bring this back to Laura, because this is something that that a lot of people resonate with. And some people totally don’t understand at all. A lot of your journey seems to be motivated to your own spirituality and your families, your family’s connection through to God and in the spiritual connection. And how has that played out for you guys in your journey? How’s that, that helped you and put you on that pathway? As opposed to you know what most people just assume? Again, you’re just doing it for the money.

Laura Hernandez 41:37
I just can’t roll my eyes big enough for that. Jason, I think that almost every day. I keep that in mind. And often when people ask me, like, Do you regret adopting them? Because they’re, they’re really hard. I mean, they’re just really hard. Like, we didn’t sign up for an easy journey here on the foster care thing. And knowing, like, we don’t have them, just until they’re 18, like, they’re probably going to be living with us forever. And it’s just, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of grief along with that. And so people often ask, like, are you? Do you regret it? Are you sad that you did this? And I mean, answer just always comes down to like, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were called to do this. And we were being obedient. And one day, I’m going to be standing before my Savior, and I’m going to be able to say, Yes, I was obedient. And that’s all that matters. And if I don’t do that, then I’m not doing it right. So I’m sorry, I’m crying. But that’s just something I have to lead to every day because it’s so hard. It’s so hard. And I realized that it keeps in that same sense over and again, but I like I knew it was going to be hard when we signed up. I don’t think I knew kinda we didn’t go into it with rose colored glasses, like I knew that there’d be issues, it’d be things and I didn’t know how my body would play out it all of Alec with all my thoughts and feelings and emotions. And like I had all the the right answers for attachment. And like what we’re supposed to do, and I just I didn’t know how all of me would respond to that. Does that make sense? Like I had the knowledge, but I didn’t have everything else in order. And so and not that you ever can’t have all that in order. It’s a daily walk you through and refining. But

Unknown Speaker 43:27
Oh, yes. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 43:31
Your Passion is just very amazing. I know that you, you apologize for crying, but there’s definitely no need for that. But your passion is very inspiring.

Unknown Speaker 43:41
Thank you.

Jason Palmer 43:43
You know, Laura, I oftentimes ask people in an interview what their their will, what is it? What sets your soul on fire? And it’s, I don’t think that’s a question that I need to ask you. Because we can see what sets your soul on fire. You know, we, those of us who, you know, most of us who have been in this journey very long understand, you know, I could because I was raised in a church, right. And that’s one of the things that I always thought about, as I got a little bit older was there was those references and what is it James 127 reference about taking care of the widows and the orphans. And I looked at it and went, Wow, this one is kind of like get swept under the rug people like

Unknown Speaker 44:26
Well,

Jason Palmer 44:27
yeah, except that I can’t handle kids with special needs. Yeah. And here you guys are with 10 kids, three of them with special needs. I mean, you’re walking a hard road.

Laura Hernandez 44:42
And mind you don’t they all had special needs and the severity of this. I don’t know if I would still be in the same like, I don’t know if we would walk that journey. But clearly the Lord knew what he’s given us. Great screech day for that. So

Jason Palmer 44:55
you know that I referenced this a lot as well. There’s this Song, I love the line. And it’s an old Van Zandt song that says, if you don’t sing or you know, I’m not gonna sing, don’t worry, I don’t need to break anything. You don’t have to plug your ears. But the line is if you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans.

You think you know what’s best you think you know what you’re getting into, but, but there’s a different set of plans and yours might not read the the ultimate winner here.

Laura Hernandez 45:28
Always.

Jason Palmer 45:29
And I find that when we follow those moments of, of where we felt LED, those are the moments that end up being the most rewarding in the long term. But But oftentimes the hardest in the short term.

Unknown Speaker 45:42
Yeah.

Jason Palmer 45:44
You know, Amanda and I, we got into it, because after our second son was born, we couldn’t have kids anymore. And and we had looked at adoption, and we’d looked at adoption through through like a international adoption stuff and decided we couldn’t do it. And and that’s kind of what what, we looked at foster care for just a moment natural, like, I don’t know, a 10 minute conversation. We both felt like all of a sudden, we were like, Ah, this, this feels right. We just felt led in that direction. And we’re not a highly spiritual family. We You know, I’m not going to give you the name of the nomination, you have to go follow that to be right, like us or any of that, but we just really felt led in that direction. And I’m so glad that we we followed that leading because, yeah, it’s been challenging. It’s been challenging for sure. But, but at the same time, I don’t think we would be near the people we are today if we hadn’t chosen to to follow that lead.

Laura Hernandez 46:46
I agree. It’s definitely been a ton of times of refining on my end as well.

Jason Palmer 46:55
It’s funny, though, that refining always takes place in some sort of heat, right?

Laura Hernandez 46:59
Yes, we walk the

Jason Palmer 47:01
fire and come out better off for it. So you and your husband are looking at this journey as today. And what do you see in the future for your, for your family? Oh,

Laura Hernandez 47:16
that’s a loaded question.

Jason Palmer 47:19
You got a lot of tough years coming up for sure. I mean, you got it. You got a lot of kids to walk through teen years and all that. But do you guys have a vision for what that’s gonna look like? Um,

Laura Hernandez 47:34
I feel like this is a loaded question right now. Because right now we’re Andrew has kind of started. He’s 10. And he’s kind of started on the site entering puberty yet, but he’s feel like there’s just some of those preteen?

Unknown Speaker 47:49
Yeah, pre puberty

Laura Hernandez 47:50
was hormones are changing in him, right. So last week, we had two different occasions, he has, he can have a lot of anger. He’s been known to throw things and yell and hit people, whatever. Right? I feel like that’s normal. We expected that. Last week, he had to, like rage, outrageous. And it really scared us. Like, it was just really, it was really scary. He put his fist through a window. I mean, it was just really scary. So we’re trying to just figure out right now, like our house, our house is not built for. I mean, it’s gonna be destroyed period, but it’s not built for being destroyed while keeping other safe, right. And so we haven’t, we haven’t had to create a space for him yet. That’s like, keeping him safe, where he can get angry and rage, and then also for our other kids to be safe. Because he was also throwing things at other kids and trying to knock over furniture and throwing furniture. And I mean, it’s just he could create a lot of damage when he’s in us. And so I feel like you’re asking a bigger picture. But all I can think of is like the next several years where we have young ones and he’s going through teen years like that feels that most overwhelming right now. Because again, nobody’s nobody’s written manual on this that I know of, and, like how to create a safe space and how to how to build a room just for him where it’s like, has the gym padding on it. And I don’t know. So that’s, I don’t know if that’s what you asked. I don’t think it’s what you asked, but that’s where my mind went. When

Jason Palmer 49:28
you ask that question. Well, here in about five or six years, I expect a book to come out. It’s gonna have your name on it. Because if nobody’s written the book yet, Lord knows you should be able to watch

Laura Hernandez 49:44
our guys so hard.

Jason Palmer 49:47
I feel Yeah, you know, we’ve had kids come to us with traumas that we didn’t really fully understand and, and deal with that it’s hard. For sure. Do you and your husband have have any any real help set up for you guys as well. I mean, you know, about one five years ago, now, we lost our oldest daughter and we started. We started therapy with a guy. It’s been several years.

Unknown Speaker 50:13
Yeah, Tom.

Jason Palmer 50:14
Yeah. And Dr. Tom, by the way, I don’t think he listens to our podcast, but if he did, he should know he’s awesome. But he’s not the first guy, we went to write the first guy. I went and found him when not not him, right, when we found a guy to help us walk through some of our own struggles, you know, because, you know, our, our childhoods were different from each other. But we had our own our own places of trauma to come that we brought into this into this situation. And so these kids were young parents, I mean, we

Unknown Speaker 50:43
we had a lot of odds stacked stacked against us.

Jason Palmer 50:46
And so we’ve had to find somebody who can help us walk through that, and do it to the best of our ability. And have you and your husband found anything like that to help you guys struggle through it?

Laura Hernandez 50:57
Yes, I’m also a big believer in that our trauma comes out immensely when they’re, when they’re acting out their traumas coming on. That’s when I’m at my finest you know, so I

Unknown Speaker 51:10
feel your mama.

Laura Hernandez 51:11
Yeah, like I couldn’t do without my counselor, she is amazing, and wonderful, and has been such a help in me processing through my childhood stuff, and knowing how to respond to these buddies and kind of working through what’s really going on there. knowing what’s really going on there and not taking it out on them, because of my crap. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 51:35
There are so many times that my children have triggered things from my past my traumas, you know, it, it happens. And when that happens, we’re not at our finest. Yeah, there’s, there’s been plenty of times that I’ve had to go back to my children and say, Hey, I acted in a way that I’m not proud of, you know, can you please, please forgive me? You know, I shouldn’t have said that, or I shouldn’t have acted this way. You know, and that’s one thing we’re, we’re age appropriately open with our children. I love that. So.

Jason Palmer 52:12
Yeah. Yeah, it’s such a tough thing. If you’re you and your husband are walking through this, like, like there’s a marriage there that the plants on surviving, I assume? So how does that? How does that look for you guys to work through that?

Laura Hernandez 52:30
Yeah, well, we, we’ve prioritized a weekly date night. And just to make sure that we’re connecting every week, and that we know what’s going on in each other’s lives. And we can just touch base on all things. Because so many times I mean, like, I’ll see he works from home. So I see him all day long. And so it doesn’t feel like something that I need to like put on the calendar or prioritize. But I feel like our living together all day long, doesn’t really mean anything. Looks. We have small talk, but we don’t really sit down and connect. And so we’ve prioritized that. Thursday Night is our date night. That’s what we do. So

Jason Palmer 53:04
I assume you put that on the calendar, right?

Unknown Speaker 53:07
What’s on the calendar?

Laura Hernandez 53:10
complain anything?

Jason Palmer 53:13
I have a friend of mine who says the things, the things that get scheduled get done. And I’m like, Yeah, yeah, you’re right, because we might plan a date night, but if we don’t put it on the calendar, it can get overrun by something else.

Unknown Speaker 53:24
Really. And it does.

Jason Palmer 53:28
Laura, you guys have an amazing story. And and a lot of struggles that you found your waste your way through and a lot of struggles that you’re still working through. And just coming on here and being open and honest and vulnerable. And letting everybody else understand that you have struggles, because people want to look at us sometimes and kind of lionize this as this as this saint. And by God, my sainthood is his bill, the verdict is out. We’ll just say that.

Unknown Speaker 53:57
Your Halo,

Jason Palmer 53:58
something does. I think it’s a little one on either side. You just can’t see him very well. But yeah, so just coming in and talking about that, as has been something that hopefully the listeners can understand. This is a tough journey. And it’s worth it at the same time.

Laura Hernandez 54:12
Yes, amen.

Jason Palmer 54:15
So we really appreciate your time here today for sure. Thank you so much

Laura Hernandez 54:18
for having us.

Jason Palmer 54:25
Okay, foster care nation. Thanks for listening to Laura’s story. Now take her knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and community. And be sure to come back next week. We have a new episode every Tuesday. If you’d like to share your story as a guest, you can reach us at foster care uj@gmail.com you can connect with other like minded people on facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care uj. And don’t forget we have a Patreon where you can support our mission for as little as $5 a month. It’s at patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to Everything are in the show notes on your podcast player or foster care nation.com. And as always,

Unknown Speaker 55:06
you are so super awesome.

Unknown Speaker 55:08
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 55:11
Thank you. Thank thanks