Picking Up and Laying Down

I don't think I will ever forget this conversation I had with my husband when I was in my final trimester of my first pregnancy.  We were at our home, probably eating a slow-paced meal or reading books or one of the other leisurely activities we enjoyed Before Kids.  My husband gazed at the ever-growing basketball under my shirt and said, "Do you know, when I go to work sometimes I forget we're having a baby?"  He said it in a voice of bemused wonder, so casual.  And inside my hormone-fueled, aching body, my blood boiled.

My son was almost born fatherless.

I entertained the thought of murdering my husband for a moment before deciding instead to yell at him.  (I'm not sure he ever got used to Pregnant Rachel.  He never could seem to tell what would make me angry, make me cry, or what I would shrug off or ignore.)  "It must be nice to walk out the door and completely forget about this baby," I shouted.  "It must be nice to get busy with something and have it just fall out of your head.  It must be nice to focus on something else, anything else, because the evidence of this kid's impending birth is not sitting on your bladder."

My husband had the privilege of forgetting what was going on inside my body.  I did not.  Even before I took the test that confirmed we were having a baby, my body was under assault.  I was exhausted, nauseous, flatulent, clumsy, then ravenously hungry, constipated, achy, emotional, and sometimes I was terrified, manically cleaning, wishing I could undo what was happening and go back to my old life.  I never got a break from my experience, from my feelings, from the
knowledge that my life was changing and would never be the same.

Now, let's all agree on one thing:  when a man and woman who love each other get pregnant and have a beautiful baby that they raise together, this is a good thing.  Although pregnancy is not fun in many ways, the outcome is amazing.  It's why I did it again, why I would do it again tomorrow if I could.  But there are many experiences and feelings that are not great, that we would love to be able to put an end-date on.  Like racism.  I'll bet black people in America, if they were told that yes, your lives are hard right now, and this is a difficult thing you all are going through, but in nine months you will be able to shed the burden of hundreds of years of judgment and oppression and experience true equality in every area of life...well, I'll bet they would take a collective deep breath and get through the next nine months.

Except there is no expiration date.  Muslims will still be Muslims next year, provided they don't get murdered by ignorant nationalist jerks.  Black men will still look like scary big dudes to people who see a threat where there isn't one.  Mexicans (and really, all people of Latin descent, whose skin is just a shade too brown) will still get told to go back where they came from, even if here is where they came from.  The others, the minorities, the different looking will never get a break from discrimination, which can be as simple as being followed around a convenience store or being placed in remedial classes at school, all the way to being shot while standing unarmed next to their broken down car.  I get why people are angry.

And, while I mourn with those who mourn, and I long to see change in our country, I cannot deny that I get the privilege daily to decide how much to care.  I can choose to pick up my grief, to offer words of comfort and compassion, to walk with protesters and write a blog post and rant at whoever will listen that This is not right.  Or I can sit with my kids and read Pete the Cat and sigh about how messy their rooms are and feel disappointed that I have to drink water because someone else drank my Coke and get excited about a new episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.  I can look around at all that I have:  a house, three healthy children, a good husband, enough money to keep the lights on and food on the table, a big yard to play in, schools where my kids are learning and thriving.  I can see a police car and only feel worried if my speedometer says I'm going too fast, I can let my kids run around the playground and ride their bikes and my biggest concern is that they'll be kind to others.  The people in government and starring in movies and advertising shampoo look like me.  I don't feel judged at my bank or when I apply for jobs or when I walk in somewhere unfamiliar.

In many ways, the world is a safe place for me.  Does that mean that it's a safe place for everyone?  Absolutely not.  In fact, my own experiences as a vulnerable child tell me that this world is not a good place to be isolated and defenseless.  It is only the powerful and the privileged who will thrive here.  My white skin and my suburban address cushion me from the harsh experiences of the larger world.  I don't have to think about it if I don't want to.  I can shut my door and forget about all of it.

So, people who look like me, people who have this privilege of ignoring the experiences and hardships of others, what choice will you make today?  How will you choose to see the world tomorrow?  What are you going to do about the outcry across our country that there is not freedom and justice for all?

It is time to pick up the burden.  It is time to care about our brothers and sisters who are dying while we go to Target and soccer practice and remodel our kitchens.  It is time to change the system from the inside out, and it is time that we all feel uncomfortable about what is happening in our streets.

It is time to mourn.

Adoption: Love is all you Need

I remember so vividly the scene in 16 & Pregnant when Tyler and Caitlin told their parents they were giving their baby up for adoption.  When they listed all that they couldn't provide for their child.  And Tyler's father's response was "Love is all you need."  And I was dumbfounded when this 17 year old boy responded, "No, you need more than love.  You need diapers, you need food, you need a job!"  How telling that this kid realized that you need more than feelings (or Beatles' lyrics) to raise a child.

Some children are adopted because they come from poverty or young parents, like Tyler and Caitlin.  And some kids are adopted because someone intervened to protect them from abuse or neglect.  Either way, children who leave their birth parents experience a huge loss.  As I have traveled on this road of adoption as a foster mother and adoptive mother, I have learned more and more about the deep wound of separation and loss.

Hearing adopted people talk about their grief makes my heart constrict.  Partly it hurts me to watch people experience this level of trauma.  After all, it was the deep love and compassion in me that led me to fill out all the papers and make a place for this child in my home and in my family.  I don't want him to hurt, to grieve.  My greatest desire for all my children is wholeness.  But part of me is selfish.  Part of the pain I feel centers on my wish to be enough.  I want to be the only mom some days.  I want to fill all the empty places in my child's heart.  The reality is that I can't.  I can't be the cure.  I can't erase the past.  I can only love enough to fill one piece of my son's heart; that love can't fix everything.

As adoptive parents, we have two choices.  We can stick our fingers in our ears and hum "La La La" as loudly as necessary to drown out the voices telling us that adoption is painful, or we can surrender our pride and accept that our children need more than our love to come into adulthood with healthy, intact hearts.

Brother and Sister 2014

For me, this means doing all I can to maintain relationships with members of my son's first family.  We are not necessarily close or in daily contact, but we are able to get together once or twice a year and celebrate this boy that we all love.  It means letting another woman share the title of "Mom", of stepping aside so she can bond with our son.  It means sharing my weaknesses and frustrations and selfishness with my husband behind closed doors, and not making a child responsible for my happiness.  It means learning and researching adoption issues and preparing myself for future conversations.  It means pointing out people who have already walked this road, whether they are friends and neighbors or Buddy the Elf.  It means parenting without a map.  It means delving into the Beatles' catalog and choosing to quote from the song "Help!" when discussing parenting and adoption.  It means I need more than love; I need openness, grace, and support to keep going.

Two mommies

Even When Your Heart is Breaking...

Tonight, I'm nursing a broken heart.  It's happened before, of course, when the boy that I liked didn't feel the same way, when the person I loved, a fixture in my life, passed on.  I felt that shattering inside, cried those nonstop tears, wondered how I would ever get through it.  But this is a brand new heartbreak, because today the social worker called.  Instead of vague ideas and hypotheticals, she called to give me a date.  Two weeks.  In two weeks, our little girl will be moving back home with her family.  All I could say was, "Oh," as the lump formed in my throat.  Because we knew this was coming.  We had been told this was the plan.  This is what we signed up for.  And yes, I can think of a hundred different reasons why this is going to be good for everyone, how this is the best plan given the messed up nature of the world we live in, where parents aren't always the best people to raise their children, where a flawed but well-meaning foster care system is necessary.  I won't have to worry about that hair anymore.  She won't talk back to me when I speak.  Our next holiday celebration isn't going to be hijacked by her behavior.  She won't be able to teach my sons anymore bad habits, and maybe the ones they've learned over the past eight months will die out over time.  She'll be with the people who look like her.  She'll be able to see her mom more.  She'll be someone else's responsibility, which would mean I can finally relax.

But every time I think of it, the actual date, packing up the dolls and hair products and clothes and shoes that have drifted to every corner of our house, I just keep crying those non stop heartbreak tears.  Because we are her family, and I am her mother except in the one way that matters to a judge.  After living with us for eight months, she has become my daughter, and I love her.  I just hung our new family photo yesterday, the one with Chris and I surrounded by daffodils, with four kids spread across our laps, 3 blonde boys and one brown girl.  That is my family, but in two weeks, it won't be.  Instead of listing all the ways she bugs me, I keep thinking how much I'll miss her.  I'll miss seeing her grow up.  I'll miss all the development that will happen after this point, won't see the final result of all that we've poured into her.  I won't know for sure that she is safe, that she is being fed, read to, hugged, given appropriate boundaries.  Maybe her (other) family will still call and invite us to see her, but it's not guaranteed. 

We knew this was going to happen, theoretically when we signed up to be foster parents, and practically, when her social worker told us she would be moved sometime this summer.  And I've said myself that I just can't see us adopting her, signing up for another 15 years of being exclusively responsible for her, making her a permanent member of our family.  Right now, I wish I could be more calculating, more rational about all of this.  I wish....I don't know.  That I wasn't human?  That the very act of caring for someone day in and day out didn't forge a deep and lasting connection between two people?  That I could just smile and wave and tell her goodbye and never think of her again?  I honestly kept thinking that when it was time for her to go, we would just go back to our regular lives.  But now I see the flaw in that thinking, because there is no going back, there is no life previously in progress that has just been waiting, static.  We are all different than we were 8 months ago, both because the boys are young and that is just the nature of early childhood, but also because this girl came into our house and she infiltrated every one of  us.  How are my boys going to react to losing the person they have started calling their sister?  Part of me thinks there will be some relief, a welcome quiet in the mornings and in the car and all day long,  Probably they will notice and appreciate that there is one less person to share with, one less person to occupy their mother's time and her lap.  But at the same time, I think they'll miss playing with her.  I think they'll miss her nonstop energy, her whole-hearted joining in of whatever game they devised.  We've laid the groundwork to answer their questions, of course.  They know she has another mommy, another home.  We've said she's just here for a while, but they will never have to go.  I've whispered that this is their forever home and I am their forever mommy in the quiet minutes before they fall asleep.

I keep thinking back to a conversation that Chris and I had at Friendly's (because, of course it was at Friendly's, where every pivotal moment in our relationship has happened, every deep conversation, every big decision) a few years ago.  Michael was just a baby, only a few months old and just coming out of the infant drug addiction that brought him to our family.  His social worker had informed us that she was contacting family members, looking for a kinship placement for him.  We sat across from each other, the little guy fast asleep next to me, and Chris said, "I think we should have another baby."  I shook my head.  No.  I didn't want to be pregnant again.  I was no longer interested in growing our family biologically.  And besides, I knew the real reason he wanted me to get pregnant was to salve his heart as he faced the loss of Michael.  He wanted to make a baby that they wouldn't be able to take from us, because there would be no conflicting loyalties, no one standing before the king and asking to cut him in half.  Another baby would be all ours.  But that wasn't the solution to losing Michael, and I told him that.  Chris was disappointed, but he knew I was right.  I wish I could summon that calm person right now.  Because I just keep thinking about how nice it would be to get pregnant, to have a new child to look forward to while I am losing this one that I love.  It won't happen, because we took that option off the table about a year ago.  There are always more foster kids though.  More babies and toddlers and preschoolers who need a home, a safe adult to look out for them.  As much as I want to call Children's Services and ask them to send me another, I know that I need a break, at least for a few months.  I need to let myself grieve.  I need to feel what I'm feeling, because there is no "fix" for this.

Time heals all wounds.  Right?  So if I can just give it time, maybe I can stop crying.  If I just think about all that she has learned and experienced while in our care, maybe I can tell myself that we did what we could, what she needed, and release her.  Maybe if I can quiet this internal storm, I can hear the voice that reminds me that He loves all His children, that she will always be in His care, that His love is big enough and deep enough and transforming enough that we'll all be able to get through this.  And I need to remember the look on her face, the huge smile that broke out when I finally dried my eyes long enough to tell her that she was going to see her grandma, that she gets to have a sleepover this weekend.  She knows who her family is, every last one of us, and she belongs with them as much as she belongs here.

It's OK to miss your mama

As a foster parent, I've spent quite a bit of time in class over the past three years.  We took 36 hours (12-3 hour classes) just to get licensed, and we take 20 hours each subsequent year.  Sometimes the classes are really helpful, the teacher is passionate and I'm in the right mood to learn.  Other times, the teacher has trouble with the Power Point (or DVD player, or projector, really these teachers need to take a class on using technology before being released to instruct others), or I'm tired and have trouble concentrating, or another parent hijacks the class to air their grievances or get help specific to their situation.  Usually in the course of 3 hours, I can get at least one thing to take home and apply.  Especially in the beginning, I had to save these lessons for future use.  Now that we are in the thick of it, I find that I remember the words of my teachers more and more.  One thing that stood out to me, in a class about maintaining information about birth families, was the instructor's explanation that just because your kid isn't talking about something, doesn't mean he isn't thinking about it.  If a child is separated from siblings, or parents, or another close relative, odds are their thoughts are never far from that person.  She said foster parents have to open the dialogue, and let the kids know that it's OKAY to talk, it's okay to say you wish you were back home, that you miss your family, even that parent that beat you black and blue.  That really resonated with me; after all, I kept in almost everything that I thought about as a child.  I've been thinking lately that I really should have spoken up to my parents about many things that I kept secret, because they probably could have made things better, helped me.

So when a child comes to my home to live, under confusing and possibly scary circumstances, I have no doubt that they are thinking way more than they are saying.  Foster kids learn to say whatever they think the other person wants to hear; they don't know when they will see their biological family again, what the new rules are, where they fit in this new family.  While fostering is definitely similar to more traditional parenting, with the preparation of meals and the wiping of noses, the bedtime stories and trips to the park, there is an added component of nurture that these classes are meant to teach.  The most important part of foster care is the healing, taking in a broken child with no foundation, no structure, no good examples, and transforming them into a whole person, someone who knows his worth, who knows there is another way to live than what he's seen first-hand.  Sometimes these conversations are difficult to start, but if I don't help my kids heal, then what am I doing?

Our current placement is a young girl.  She came to us on a Friday afternoon.  We didn't know much about her, except that she is an only child.  She really enjoyed the experience of having other kids to play with, and jumped right in with our boys, rolling in the leaves and driving trucks across the living room.  But at night, she would cry.  She would ask me to take her home, to her mom.  And I would feel so helpless when I told her no, that she would stay with us until her worker said different.  It's a complicated situation to explain, and I've tried many different ways of phrasing.  We talk about this several times a week.  We've also gone to the library and perused books about parents and children who are separated.  I found one picture book called "I Miss You Everyday", which I believe was written for children whose parents divorce and one lives far away.  In it, the narrator mails herself across the country to see her dad.  Another one, "Llama Llama Misses Mama", is about a little Llama who starts school and has trouble when his mom leaves for the day.  This has actually become a favorite of all our kids, since three of them are in school and have experienced this kind of separation.  But our foster daughter loves it most, and these days, she asks to read it at bedtime instead of crying for her mom.  In the middle of the story, it all becomes too much for the Llama, and he cries out, "Llama Llama misses Mama!"  His teacher rushes over to comfort him, and our Girl burrows deeper into my side.  "Don't cry little Llama, it's okay to miss your mama!" I read.  Then the Llama warms up to school and actually starts to have fun, just as the words "Mama Llama, you came back!" appear with a picture of the Mama coming to pick up her son.  Although our girl can't read, she excitedly says the words at just the right time, and her face lights up in a smile.  I smile too, picturing with her the day when her mama comes to get her.  When she no longer has to miss her mama.

The Things that Were Taken

It was bedtime, and our Girl wouldn't put down her toys.  She wouldn't put them away, so they were taken away, downstairs with the other toys for the night.  I rubbed the cocoa butter lotion on her skin and helped her dress in the pink and white pajamas and wrapped her hair in her purple scarf and covered her with her blankets.  But she wasn't happy about it.  "Mommy," she said, "I want the things back that were taken from me."  I know she meant the Monster toys that were downstairs, so I said, "In the morning, you can play with them again.  Now its time to sleep."  But as I walked across the hall to my own quiet room, her words echoed with me, and I heard a new meaning.  I thought about all the things that were taken from her, and I knew that the rising sun wouldn't begin to help restore those Things.

We are born into families, homes, cities that are varied and much of our early years is determined by the things we are given by our parents, what is culturally acceptable, what choices the big people around us make.  When I had my first baby, I had a job, a college degree, a loving husband, a home in a two-bedroom duplex on a quiet street in the suburbs.  I had a car and parents nearby who were excited to be grandparents for the first time.  I had a room full of gifts from friends and family, a brand-new crib, a dresser full of clothes, gender-neutral blankets, diapers and wipes that would last for five months.  All of this affected how James was raised, how he was loved and cared for and what he learned about family and his place in this world.  Even when, a few years later, we learned that he was different, that he would face challenges we had never known, it didn't change the fact that he was precious to us, that he was safe and loved. (Really it helped, because it gave us a better idea of how to love him, how to structure things to make life easier for him.)  But this Girl?  Even though she was born in the same city, she didn't have much of that.  For her, and too many other children in our country, in our world, she didn't learn from day one that she was precious.  She didn't see healthy, appropriate adult relationships.  Her development and interests were not the number one priority of her primary caregivers.  And when it was determined that she was a little different, that she would face challenges her mother had never known, it only made things harder.  She wasn't given the care she needed to thrive, and ultimately the state had to get involved.

What happened next...another Thing.  She was taken.  Sitting in a police car watching her mom yell and protest, and then someone brought her to our house.  New people, new rules, different food, different schedule.  Those first weeks with us, she asked so many questions.  She didn't understand how we related to each other.  One time, when she was in time-out for hitting one of the boys, she said, "My mom just whoops me."  Even the punishments are different here.  I don't know if she has figured it out yet, that even though she is one of four here, that her health and her safety are the number one priority.  That she is precious and loved, not because of what she does or how cute she is, but because she exists.  Because she is a child.  And I don't know how to explain that some things she will never get back.  She can never unsee those things.  She can never unfeel those hurts.  She can never get back these months that she has been apart from her Mama.  I know.  I've tried to pretend that I was someone else, someone who didn't lose her innocence too young.  But it happened, and I can't get it back.  How do I tell her that she has other things now, that life will replace those Things that were taken, that, although she is now marked by the system, that doesn't have to be a bad Thing?  That, hopefully, this experience has changed the home she came from into a safe place for her to live; that someday, when she's ready, she can talk about everything that has happened and find peace; that her heart has been shaped to break when she hears about other children just like her.  That she doesn't have to repeat the life of her mother or father, that she can find something new.

I wish I could wave my Foster Mom wand over her while she sleeps and make her understand these things when she wakes up.  But I don't have a wand, all I have is a warm bed for her tonight, hugs and kisses in the morning, and a mouth to pray for her future.  Won't you join me?