The first time I met my sons’ birth
mother I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I’m not one prone to
hyperventilation but I found it necessary to excuse myself to the bathroom,
brace myself and take many deep breaths before I could continue.
I never anticipated meeting her at
all. When our first foster son E came to us, he was two and a half months old
and had been living in the hospital nursery since he was born. His birth
mother’s whereabouts were unknown. I gathered as much information about her as
I could; not an easy task since the state only had limited information and a
lot of what they had was incorrect. I managed to get in touch with the family
that adopted most of E’s older siblings. When the oldest of those kids were
young, they had contact with their grandfather and through that connection I
knew these things about B: she was tall. She was beautiful. She was smart, but left high school to try to
find her own mother. She found the streets instead.
I longed for a photograph of her to
give to him one day. I scoured the papers we got and found a photocopy of her
signature from the hospital. I thought this would be all he’d ever have.
Then right before he turned two, she
resurfaced, having given birth to another boy, Z. We picked him up from the
hospital, brought him home, and assumed it’d be another long wait for adoption
with no contact in between. To my utter surprise, we got a phone call two weeks
later saying the baby would need to start visits with his mom and dad and I’d
have to drive him to the local office.
I didn’t think they’d show, but I
didn’t bring 2-year-old E just in case. After all this wishing for contact, I
wasn’t exactly ready for them to meet. I walked into the local children and
family services offices and there they were, waiting. “THAT’S the beautiful woman???” I thought. B
was using heavily at the time and she looked awful. Hair, skin, eyes, every
part of her body screaming out from the abuse. I had to hand the infant over to
her and excuse myself to the bathroom.
I tried to embrace the two hours
alone as “me” time (besides the 2 year old and infant, we also had two
biological children, a girl and boy ages 7 and 6 at the time). I got some exercise and errands done and had
a good cry in the car.
The visits continued every other week
and became easier over time. I eventually grew comfortable enough to let them
meet E, after his adoption was finalized and their rehab was underway. Visits became a relaxing time. I’d have
photos and stories from the past two weeks; they’d buy a little bag of pretzels
or a small toy to give to the boys. They completed their rehab stint (and the
beautiful woman reemerged). They were doing well with outpatient rehab, working
on a GED (for B), looking for jobs (for Dad R), getting engaged.
Here’s the rub of being a foster
parent: with each success and joy for them I also worried what this meant for
my future with baby Z. I cried at least once a month over the situation. When
he turned 2, we had a mediation at the courthouse. Mediation is normally held
before the trial in which a judge would grant TPR (termination of parental
rights), freeing the child to be adopted. At mediation, the birth parents might
opt to surrender their rights instead. I
wondered if they might, my husband said he had no expectations whatsoever. In the busy urban county courthouse we
waited in the hallway. We saw the birth parents, the lawyers and caseworkers
and strangers. Eventually some of the workers came up and told us very
nonchalantly, “The parents are going to surrender so now the mediation will
really just be a chance for the four of you to sit down and talk with the
mediator for awhile.”
We were surprised they’d inform us
like that, so matter-of-factly when it was really life-changing information. Our
surprise didn’t end there. They ushered us into a meeting room. It was birth
mom and dad, my husband and me, the mediator…and some random courthouse worker
using the copy machine. Four adults were sitting quietly at a table, crying in
anticipation of what was about to happen, and we had to wait for some lady to
finish her hundreds of copies. It may very well have been the most inhumane
moment I’ve ever experienced.
Finally she was done and the
mediator found the common sense and compassion to not allow the next person in
that wanted to use the copier. B and R told us how much they loved baby Z but
knew they still wouldn’t be able to take care of him. They knew that we loved
him, too. We promised to stay in touch. I wondered if she was pregnant again
but decided that she wasn’t.
The next few months passed
uneventfully. We mailed some letters and made plans to meet up at a park in
their town. Then I got a call from the caseworker telling me that my suspicions
were correct, mom just had a baby girl and would we please come get her? I
didn’t know why baby A couldn’t go home with her birth parents…mom and dad had
done so much work to stay clean and try to create a stable lifestyle.
Initially the hospital wouldn’t let
the baby go with B because they still had an open case with children &
family services (since Z’s adoption wasn’t finalized yet). A judge would weigh in within a few days but
until then baby A needed a place to stay.
When we first started foster care, we only wanted
to adopt. I had seen my kids cry when throwing a Sponge Bob tissue box away, I
couldn’t imagine what losing a foster sibling would do to them. But we couldn’t
say no to A, she was our boys’ biological sister and if we didn’t take her
someone else would…and then what if her case ended up going to adoption? We
decided we had to take the chance, let our boys meet their sister and love her
as long as we could. So we scurried to
borrow a car seat and some clothes and picked her up from the hospital.
Some people have surprise pregnancies; we have
surprise babies. We were thrown right back in to the overnight wakings and lots
of diapers without months of preparation. It only lasted a few days though; the
Judge said A could go live with B as long as they stayed at her Grandmother’s
apartment. We went to Wal-Mart and bought one of those large storage boxes and
filled with clothes of various sizes, books, diapers, bottles, pacifiers and
more. When we handed A back over to her mother, we gave her the box of
supplies. It was sad but it felt right. I had told B ever since the baby’s
birth, “This is YOUR baby and we are a team.” I believed it and I didn’t think
3 days of having her would impact my kids or me as much as it did. My oldest
daughter, nine years old at the time, sobbed that night for the loss of the
sister she never got to really have.
The next few days were a bit of foggy haze for me
and I decided I needed to give back all the borrowed baby stuff as soon as
possible. As I was in my parents’ driveway to return the cradle, my cell phone
rang. Could I come pick up the baby?
I asked my Dad to put the cradle back in the trunk.
Another year of weekly visits began.
They were consistent in showing up; they stayed clean. R secured a job. We
navigated our relationship with no guides. B deferred to me on what the baby
should or shouldn’t eat. I encouraged the children to go to B and R, to talk to
them, to play with them, to share with them. The baby was the only one that
stayed for the visit but drop off and pick up would take 10-30 minutes. I found
myself once again publicly rejoicing their advances and privately crying for
what that might mean to me.
Then after a year, the visits
abruptly stopped. I managed to have a long conversation via text message one
day with B, she told me her relationship with R was falling apart. She alluded
to using again, I couldn’t determine if she meant she was or not. Time passed
and we lost all contact with them. I experienced the flip side of the coin,
relieved that the baby would probably stay with us and devastated at the
thought that B and R were using again and on the streets. I didn’t even know
they were alive and would scroll the online obituaries looking for their names
until it occurred to me that if they did happen to die, I’m not sure anyone
would write an obituary for them.
The state called for another
mediation, they didn’t show. So we went to trial and the Judge granted TPR. The
past two times that we were cleared to adopt our foster children, we already
had another foster baby at home. I spent a lot of time wondering if we’d get
another call about a surprise baby; I spent a lot of time debating if I could
handle another child or not.
I also spent a lot of time wondering about B’s
Grandmother, the one that let B and baby A live with her for a few days. I wondered
how much she knew about us and if she’d like to know more. The state wasn’t
allowed to give me her name and address but they were allowed to send her a
letter for me. So I wrote one and put photos of the kids in it and trusted that
the worker would remember to address it and send it to her. Shortly before A’s
second birthday, she called me. She was incredibly grateful for the letter, the
photos, and the chance to meet her great-grandchildren. She had prayed for
years for their well-being and for the chance to meet them before she died. We
made it happen within a few days of her calling.
She told me that she had sporadic contact with B and only
when B initiated the contact. Amazingly, B did call her and found about our
impending visit and showed up at her Grandmother’s house to see us there. We
hadn’t seen her in a year. There was so much I wanted to say to her, to ask her
where she’d been. She said she had Christmas presents for the kids (it was
June) and they were happy to open them but inside I was screaming, “So why
didn’t you get in touch in December??”
But I remembered that time not so long ago when I clung
to a photocopied signature thinking it’d be the only link my children had to
their biological family. So I stayed silent and sat with their biological
great-grandmother on her couch, looking at family photographs and watching them
play with belated Christmas presents from their birthmother. I still have no
guides to navigating this relationship but at least for now, I think we’re
doing alright forging our own path.
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