How I became Mummy of 7

Photo was taken a 3 years ago on our first and only family holiday all together. It is hard to get photos of them all together.

Hello everyone , My name is Lisa as you may know already but some of you do not know that I am a mum of 7.

I have always wanted a big family and it all stems from being very young from being a foster child .
I was fostered at a young age and apart form my foster family who are the only family I have ever known and infact were my aunt,uncle and cousins, I never really had anyone else. I know some children do not get to stay with close family and I am very grateful that the system agreed with this decision. 
I have called them mum, dad, sister and brothers for as long as I can remember now. Sadly my mum passed away shortly after I had my first child who is now coming up 10 years old from cancer and I miss her deeply everyday . We all go through grief but I think the bond between me and her were strong because I know how much she dedicated herself to loving and taking care of me . 

I was a difficult child and often running away, getting into alsorts of trouble , smashing things up and basically hated the world. I seemed to take it out on everyone who tried to get close . I always said that if someone got close to me they would either leave me or hate me. I was only 7 and I had alot of hurt inside. 

Social services were also another big part of my life because of the neglect and abuse I had gone through before I was fostered.
I do not want to go through the details as you may understand but if you do have any questions then please do ask as I have learnt to deal with them all in my own little way .
Social services seemed to be my cause of a lot of problems and although I understand they are meant to be there to help families who need support they tore my family apart and I have hated them ever since. 

They were nice at first , sending me on weekends away (family respite) as they called it . This was to give me and my new family a break from all the drastic changes but there was one respite I never returned home from!

When I was 10 year old ,(my brother the eldest son of my new family) was away working in the army and had been in a terrible car accident, he lost his life and I walked in from swimming one sunday morning to find out the terrible news . 

Social services were there with in a day or two and assured my mum and dad that they would take me to another aunts for a few weeks to let them grieve and after the funeral I would be returned. 
This never happened, the social services had me and my dad in the offices with all the team that decides what should happen to me and it turned into the most distressing part of my life as a child. 
It did not seem anything like being torn away from my real parents this time it hurt because they actually loved me and I loved them back. The thought of being taken to somewhere I did not want to be was devestating to me and this is where I always had the thought when people got close to me they left or I was taken away. It was hard for many years to learn to love and trust others .
Me and my dad screamed at them , poured our eyes out begging them not too but they had already made their minds up and I was sent away to never see them again for years.

To this day me and my dad still cry at the thought or mention of that moment, the vivid memory of hurt and hate that social services caused our family in a time we should have been left to grieve as a family,my brother had not even been buried and layed at rest , not even a week had gone since his death.

My dad always says 

''I did not just lose a son that week but I lost a daughter too''

It has been the most traumatising part of our lives and one that made us never want social services to ever put a foot near us since.

I was taken to another aunts home where my real sibling younger than me was and enjoyed seeing her but we were always told that we could not live together , the rivalry and events we had gone through had broken our relationship as sisters and to this day we still unfortunately do not get along, we are  2 different people with too much behind us that we can no longer move on without bringing up our hurtful past. It just seems easier to forget and leave it alone.

I never returned to mum and dad and sister and brother , the family I had missed soo much till I ran away back to them when I was old enough at the age of 16 years old. I had just left school, signed up for the army (I always wanted to make them as proud as they were of their son they had lost and thought it would be my way of showing them I loved them and missed him too). 
I felt back at home and was finally grateful that they still missed, loved and wanted me. 

Last August the memories all came flooding back one weekend when my husbands children came to see us as they always did every weekend. They were dropped of by their mother and it was the last time we ever saw her again. My mum and dad (aunt and uncle) made me realise alot in life and today I am being tested to understand how they felt in a very familiar way.

As soon as we took the children in , took of their coats and sat them down we noticed brusies on the 4year olds face. It had not been the first time but we phoned the police and social services as we had done every week beforehand for the past 4 years , we had put soo many concerns and reports like it previously and explained what we had found. We had been to court previously and had concerns brought to them soo many times we honestly thought that we would have to send them back again like they told us every other week but this time social services and the police were on the childrens side and realised they were best to stay and live with us where it was safe .

This is where my story begins and where you are going to read about my ups and downs of being a mum to three but also what it is like to have 3 step children coming into my home that have serious issues behind them just as I did at their age. 
I am learning to deal with it each day and the past has well and truly been brought back to me in ways I wish they had not but I truly believe my mum is looking over me and has sent them to me. 
She always liked my husband as she had met him when we were in our late teens and said we should be together, unfortunately she died before we did but I truly believe this new beginning is her way of saying 

''I done it for you and I want you to go through it and help others who have been through it too''.

The difficulties of having children and bringing them up as your own even though they are not truly yours is hard but we all deserve to be loved and kept safe and I have been given the chance to give these gorgeous innocent  children a life of happiness and love and a childhood they deserve.
All I want to do is keep them safe and give them good memories in hope they grow to forget the hurt they have gone through.

I understand you may be thinking I have forgotten a child ,we have 6 at home full time , 3 of my own and the other 3 are step children from my husbands previous relationship, but the 7th (also previous of the husband) lives with his mum and visits on weekends.


Here is our family 

Kaiden-4yrs (ours)
Leon-5yrs (husbands previous)
Libby-7yrs (husbands previous)
Drew-7yrs (mine from previous)
Sian-9yrs (mine from previous)
Philip-12yrs (husbands previous)
Jordan-10yrs (also from previous of husband lives with his mum)