(Small fist-pumping self-congratulatory moment...I made it to part 2! I can actually accomplish things!)
I'm reflecting more and more on how this whole thing got started, now that the legal-paperwork-official aspects of our adoption are getting close to an end. I am remembering fondly the manic month of squeezing twelve 3 hour classes into 4 weekends, although at the time I know it was stressful and exhausting. I am thinking of our teacher, Ms. Jan, who reminded me of a blond pitbull in a gray sweater, and all of the valuable lessons she imparted, which have helpfully come to mind in our 14 months of being foster parents. We learned about the factors that lead to bad parenting decisions, like poverty, cycles of dysfunction and abuse, and we learned what children need to help them deal with and recover from the terrible things that have happened to them. I mentioned in Part 1 the curiosity about The Birth Parents that wasn't really part of the curriculum, and it made me think about the other question that kept coming up in training: How are we supposed to give the kids back?
I still don't have an answer to this one; thankfully, no one has ever given me a child and then come back a few weeks or months later to take that child to live somewhere else. But that's the whole point in the first place, to temporarily have custody, with the hope that the parents will get what they need (education, sobriety, stable housing) so that the kids can go back and the family can go forward together. In the event that the parents can't or don't complete their case plan, the agency tries to find blood relatives to try to minimize the disruption to the child's life, and after exhausting that avenue, they turn to the licensed foster families. My husband loves to say that we are all crazy in the same way, that we knowingly open our hearts and our homes to these kids, when most likely they will go from our lives and maybe never be heard from again. So sometime in our first training class, after Ms. Jan has patiently answered the Birth Parent question, another person asks, "How?" How do you love a child with only part of your heart? How do you care for someone you know will leave? And how do you do it a second, third, tenth time? Ms. Jan squares her shoulders, a tic she seems to have whenever she is conveying her personal recollections, and tells us about the year her family hosted a foreign exchange student. We heard plenty about Jan's family over the course of our training, what it was like to be the white spouse in an interracial marriage, the birth of her "beige" kids, and the presence of her husband's "brown" kids from his previous marriage, her grandson who plays college football, and her struggle to keep up with everyone "out there on the internet". But this story was about the Australian teenager who lived with them for 10 months, and how she woke up every day, looked in the mirror, and told herself that it was temporary. Of course you fall in love, she said. Of course they start to call you Mom and Dad. Of course you can probably provide for them better than the Birth Parents. But you know what you are signing up for. You know that it is temporary. And the worst thing you can do is play with the emotions of a child who has already been through so much. So remember your place. You have no legal rights. You have to honor the parents' choices about religion and hairstyles and dietary restrictions. And you have to give the kid back when the agency says so, without the promise of continuing your relationship.
Fast forward to our placement (RIIIIINNNGGG, we have a baby for you!) and the first time I was allowed to see and hold this amazing child, so small and so peaceful. Here is the truth: I fell in love before I even held him. I was probably already in love with him before he was even born. But I looked at him there in his bassinet, and I felt my heart contract to make a spot for him. When I held him in my arms moments later, I thought about adoption. I really did. I thought about What if... and even decided what names I would put on his new birth certificate. I would keep his first name, because he shared that with his dad. I would replace his middle name with his mother's last name. And then I would give him my last name, so that he would take a piece of each of us with him in his life. Seconds later, I remembered Jan's advice, and I thought, Oh boy, I'm in trouble. Because at that time, his parents were very much in the picture. They were taking steps to complete their case plan. And foster parent lesson #2: everybody wants a baby. If the Birth Parents couldn't do it, a relative was sure to step in and thank us for the few months that we cared for the little guy, then hastily scramble out the door, celebrating their good fortune. So I pushed the thoughts back. I told myself This is temporary. We brought him to his visits on time, we printed photos to give the parents so they could see how well he was doing and how happy he was, I even signed him up for WIC because the social worker told me that the coupons could be transferred once the parents got custody back, and it would be a big help to them to have that already established (it turned out to be a big help to us too, his appetite growing as he did, and DANG is formula expensive!). I took photos of the baby with his parents at a family visit and printed copies for him to look at while with us, and copies for them to show to the rest of their family. Our family worker gave us an "inventory" of the child's possessions, which I guess helps them determine if he needs more clothes, but also helps keep track of what needs to go with him to his next placement, and when I filled it out, in my mind I pictured putting his things, his blankets and toys and clothes, in a bag and loading him in the social worker's car. It was by no means as fun a fantasy as the adoption one, but it was necessary.
Then the parents fell off the wagon...and the earth, apparently. They stopped coming to visits, stopped contacting the caseworker, and I began to hope. Vicki, the worker, was completely transparent as she explained that she was contacting all the relatives she could find to see if anyone would take him. I kept picturing the suitcase and the goodbye. One day, she called to tell me she had located an uncle who lived an hour away and might be interested in taking custody. He and his wife were still talking it over, but they thought they should meet the little guy. My heart sank. I knew once they set eyes on him, with his chubby cheeks and easy smile, his big blue eyes and tiny hands, they would fall for him as quickly as I had, and it would be over for us. I remembered Jan, and her marching orders. So I helped Vicki decide where would be a good meeting place in our area, and prepared to tell my husband. I knew better than to call him at work, as he might not be able to finish the day or focus enough to drive home. Instead, I prayed. I thanked God for the time we got to have, for the life we were able to foster, and I prayed that what happened would be what was best for HIM, not for us. Reminded myself that a kinship placement would more likely allow him to know his birth parents and extended family better than he would with us. For 24 hours, I stomped on the little hope that had grown. Then the social worker called again to say the relatives spent all night talking about the situation, and after asking her about us, the family who had taken him in, and if he was bonded to us, decided that it would be best to not even see him, because they didn't want to disrupt the life he had already established. And then she said, I'm so glad he gets to stay with you! That was the last relative, the last person with more rights to him than we had. The hope shot through me, more thoroughly than before, until I could no longer deny the simple fact that I WANT HIM. Its already been 8 months since then, and its still not official on paper, but its been official in our hearts. He is so fully integrated into our family that I think he'll be shocked to realize he wasn't born into it.
Now we have to ask the question, how do we do this again? And I don't think Ms. Jan has the answer to that one.
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