November is National Adoption Month! And, according to Wikipedia, also Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month, National Write A Novel Month, National Pomegranate Month, and International Drum Month. Hmm. I know a little about some of those other things, but right now, I am living adoption. Literally have a stack of papers on my counter to further our adoption, packets of information gathered by our wonderful caseworker, and just had two home visits last week. In honor of this special month, and the process going on in our own home, I wanted to post some blogs about our experience. I am therefore (very ambitiously) calling this Part One, which I know will cause you to expect AT LEAST a part 2, and possibly a part 3. I hope to live up to your expectations, but really, don't expect a part 4, I don't think I have it in me.
Every adoption story is as unique as the child and family involved. As we have had just one placement and are currently working through our first adoption, my experience is fairly limited. But I thought I would start with what I've learned about Birth Parents. To be honest, I didn't consider the adults involved in foster/adopt cases until we had already decided to go through with it. We attended an information meeting at Children Services that gave an overview of the licensing process and answered questions about foster care and adoption through their agency. The first question was this: Will the birth parents know where I live? Oh. Every head turned from the questioner to the very perky social worker leading the meeting. Her answer: We will not give out your personal information to birth families. But their children will. You'll show up at your first family visit, and the children will proclaim, "We live in the orange house on Main Street!" Next question: What do we do if the birth parents show up at our house?! Her answer: This won't happen. The crowd begs to differ. Again, she emphasizes: Birth parents don't show up at the foster home. I've been here 30 years. Its NEVER happened. But but but, we protest. Okay, she says. If birth parents come to your house (but they won't), call the police and let them know you're a licensed foster parent with a birth parent on your lawn. Then yell through the door what you've done. If they were stupid enough to come to your house, they'll realize at this point the error of their ways and high tail it out of there before the cops show up. The conversation eventually shifts to other subjects: If I have a drug arrest from high school, can I still get licensed? etc. but my mind is buzzing with this never-before-thought-of possible danger in what we are planning. We move forward in the process and attend the state's required 36 hours of training. The subject comes up again, and again, and again. If there is one universal concern for potential foster parents, it is The Birth Parents. After all, we are (mostly) straight-laced, rule-following, mentally sound (again, mostly) competent adults. People who lose custody of their children are criminals, drug addicts, mentally unstable...and that's before the cops forcibly remove a 2 year old from the home! They are capable of anything!! Again, the social worker teaching our class, who also has 30+ years of experience, dismisses the concern. She explains further: birth parents are mad at their worker, they are mad the judge, they are mad at almost everyone involved in the removal of their child. They are NOT mad at you. You are taking care of their child. And if they want their kid back, showing up places they are not allowed, like the foster home, will only get them back in court, back in jail, further behind in working their case plan. DON'T WORRY. I try to believe her, and remind myself that I can always call the cops.
There is so much information to take in, so many forms to fill out, that over the next several months as we are completing our home study, I forget about these concerns. Then the day comes...RIIIIINNNGGG! We have a child for you! I spend a day preparing the house, the nursery, the car. The caseworker calls to tell me that she is heading to the hospital to "serve the mom"...the woman who just gave birth. She is about to be told that her baby will not go with her when she is discharged. OH. Now I am thinking about The Birth Parents, but now they are real people. I try to imagine what they look like. I try to imagine what they are thinking, feeling. I realize that I have no idea. The next day, after signing the official custody papers, I head to the hospital to meet the baby and find out if there is a firm discharge date. I am nervous about doing something for the first time, meeting a child I didn't give birth to, but am now expected to care for and raise just like my own boys. I enter the building behind a short woman with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. We get on the same elevator, and I realize she is also heading up to the nursery. She has the belly of a woman who has recently given birth...and I wonder, what if she's the Birth Mom? My heart starts hammering in my chest, my palms are sweating, and I feel light-headed. I have no idea what I am supposed to say to her, or even how this custody thing works while the child is still in the hospital (foster parent lesson #1: neither does the hospital staff!). The woman walks to the nursery and notifies them that she is there to see baby -----, the same name listed on my pink custody papers. So yeah, its HER. I wait an endless minute while she heads back to see her baby (after all, its still HER baby. I haven't even laid eyes on him, and she gave birth to him!), then inform the nurse that I am also here to see baby -----, I am the foster mom, and yes, I'm aware the birth mother just went back, what should I do? The nurses decide they don't know how the mom will react, and they don't want a fight to break out, or even have yelling or ugly name-calling, so I have to sit in the hall and wait for a nurse to come out and explain baby's situation. Although I am the one with custody, for now, I am not welcome while the Mom is bonding with her child. This changes in a few days, when the caseworker calls and explains that the foster parents need to meet the child, learn about his situation and prepare to take him home. So the Birth Parents are given a specific time of day when they can visit, and I am welcome to come after and stay as long as I like, to learn how to give baby his medicine and bottle and to hold him and get to know him.
We had so little information about The Birth Parents in those early days of our placement. The caseworker shared only what we needed to know, which was not much. Starting the day baby came home from the hospital, I became hyper-vigilant about locking doors and closing the garage and not leaving keys in the locks. I was certain the parents would come by, looking for their baby. The less I knew about them, the wilder my imagination got. When we started bringing the baby for visits, I was a mess of nerves and had no idea what to say or how to act. Then I worried that I was coming off as rude. Eventually, after talking with the caseworker and telling myself to JUST CALM DOWN, I came to realize that they were just as nervous as I was. I'm sure they have no idea how much (or little) information the caseworker shared with me, and the general feelings among Birth Parents are shame and embarrassment that their bad choices have gotten them to this point. What I noticed when I finally stopped looking at the ground and leaving quickly, is that they were looking at the ground and leaving quickly too. When we showed up one week with a toy dangling from the baby's carrier, the mom nodded and said she thought that was a good idea, and another week she sat next to me and we talked about how he was doing. All the while, I was trying to make the person in front of me fit with my preconceived notions of Birth Parents, but I couldn't. She wasn't a crazed low-life or a character from Law & Order. She was just a mom, just like me, whose life had gone a different way. In that moment, I was able to release my fear and open my heart, to love her for who she is. I realized the risk of people showing up at my house was pretty low when they didn't even have their own car. With all the struggles they were already facing, tracking us down was never high on their list. Eventually, they stopped coming even to the visits, and now they have lost custody. Now all we have of them is a binder, a medical history, a case history. I know all about them, yet I wish I had the opportunity to really KNOW them. I wish things had worked out differently, that they could be reunited with their child and be daily witnesses to the wonder and beauty that he is.
So here is my little kernel of wisdom: Birth Parents are people too. They are not as bad as you can imagine them to be, nor as good as they would like to be. They have issues, struggles, obstacles to overcome. They may not be able to, but this in no way diminishes their humanity. And because I acknowledge these things, when a stranger tells my son that, "He looks like his mommy," I can smile and agree and know that he is beautiful.
Beautiful.
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