34
It was two and a half years ago when Josh and I attended an
informational meeting about foster care. During the meeting, I scratched a note
to him on a handout they had given us.
We are supposed to do
this.
He nodded his head. He knew. I knew. I remember the
excitement I felt when we left that meeting. I was ready to go save the world,
one child at a time.
Entering into this, we were always on the same page about our "plan." We knew
we were called to foster but neither of us was sure that we would ever adopt.
That was our stance from the beginning. Our token response was that we were open
to adoption but not planning on it. When we were going through the licensing
process and people would mistakenly ask us how our adoption stuff was going, we
were very quick to correct them that we were planning to foster, not adopt.
But last week we signed adoption agreements. And in the next few
days we will find out the court date where this becomes final and forever.
After I shared the news recently with a good friend of mine, she left me a tear-filled message of celebration and told me, Natalie, you have to share this story
someday.
I have blogged (very infrequently) since the beginning of
our foster care journey, and documented our happy, sad, and funny stories via
Facebook and Instagram. People who have watched us through social media know
that it hasn’t always been easy and I think for the most part, I’ve given a
snapshot of our real and haven’t painted it to be all happy or all sad. But for
a variety of reasons I have needed to stay pretty vague and generic. And what my
friend was referring to is the 180 degree change that has happened in my heart
and in our home over the course of the last year that most people aren't aware of.
Sometime in the next month we will celebrate the end of
foster care and the beginning of forever. It will be a happy and life-changing
day. But before we celebrate the beautiful side, I want to take this
opportunity to show the other side of adoption. I have told parts of the story
even on this blog, but now is the right time to share the whole of it.
When we first got the call about L, we knew that she was a
child whose parental rights would likely be terminated. In fact, the initial
TPR hearing happened within three weeks of her coming to live with us. We also
knew that she had a very layered and difficult case and that our family was
probably not going to be the best fit for her forever family.
We were “confident” that it was not supposed to be us for a
variety reasons. Adoption is complicated, but when a child is old enough to remember
her history and her family and she is the same age as two of your biological
children (the boys are 18 months apart and she is in the middle of them), then
it basically defies all logic and teaching about what is best for the adopted
child and the biological children. The books say not to disrupt birth order.
The people say not to bring kids from hard places into your home when your
children are still so young. The caseworkers even told us that children from
certain trauma backgrounds should be a “no way” for our family. Our situation goes
against everything that they teach you about what is best for all of the
children living in a home.
During our hardest days, the fact that we could never be the
forever family was what got me through. I knew we could do it for a season and
help her have stability until the right family was found for her. I felt like I
could manage all of this for a time and then celebrate when she went to be with
the mother who was better equipped than I was to meet her long-term needs.
I thought that if she was supposed to be ours that we would
just “know.” I didn’t feel like adoption was supposed to be some kind of
test-drive where you tried a child out to see if you liked her enough to say
yes. We loved her and have always been for her long-term good, but the maternal
bond was not the same with her as it was with my other children. In fact, in
moments when she would discuss hard things about her past, my instinct was to
protect the innocence of my biological children before it was to give her a
safe place to discuss those hard things.
Her parental rights were terminated very early on, but
everything out there suggested that she would be better off for the long-term
with a different family. We had a handful of days that were so hard that it
just cemented in my mind that I would never be able to parent all of the
children in our family well. How could I protect the innocence of my children
while not creating shame in her by telling her to be quiet about her past? It
didn’t seem possible. I have always wanted and prayed for her to be whole and
healed, but that task felt so tremendous that I didn’t believe I could be a
part of that without neglecting the children that were mine first.
The bond was not the same, and at times it is has been
difficult. A whole lot of maternal figures in her life have failed her. A
handful of therapists and caseworkers have come in and out of her life. And as
such, most of her anger about that is deflected towards me. A psychiatrist once
told me that it was a good thing that she was able to defer that anger to me
because I am safe, but it has certainly never felt good.
We went through a difficult season of behavior and a lot of
mistrust on her part. When I was bearing a stress load at home that was at an
all-time high, the voices of people outside of our home were telling us how
lucky we were to have such a cute little girl. I got lots and lots of questions
about adoption and whether or not we would “get to keep her.” And I grew
frustrated and angry. I was angry at the lack of understanding, frustrated at
the stress in my home, sad about what I felt like I was losing with the other
kids, and tired of being the sole recipient of the all of the negative expressions
of her trauma.
My heart grew hard in the process. I was tired. I didn’t
like the “me” that was starting to be exposed. I had the information to
correctly handle her fears and emotions, but I never had the patience or energy
to do it well.
In fact, it was almost exactly a year ago when we had a conversation
with the adoption worker and asked her to speed up the process of seeking a
forever family for L. We were adamant that she not be moved to a temporary
place, yet 100% sure that we were not equipped to meet her needs for the long
haul. We continued to parent her while we waited and prayed for the agency to
find that family. We asked people to pray that the perfect family would be
found before she started kindergarten, because we felt like that was a
significant transition.
While we were waiting, we were informed that the first
adoption worker was no longer with the agency, and that L had actually not
yet been placed on adoption recruitment. The new worker told us that she would
get started working on it but that it was not possible for her to be in a new
home before the start of the school year. Our initial response was one of frustration. Was God not hearing our prayers?
But something happened that day when the caseworker left our house. The thought was so real that it was almost audible. My heart was pricked, and I wondered if maybe our prayer was being answered differently than we expected. Maybe she would be
with her forever family before kindergarten, because maybe we were it.
And my heart cried NO.
I am not equipped for this. I can’t do the hard forever. I could never live
with the guilt that I didn’t always like her. I didn’t know how to love all of
these children well.She deserved something
beautiful, and this wasn’t beautiful – it was hard and messy and lacking joy
most days.
I asked Josh the morning after our visit with the new worker
if he thought our “no” was more about fear than about God. He wasn’t sure, but
he knew why I was having doubts. We were both beginning to acknowledge that we
could be wrong. And so we made a decision to stop rationalizing the reasons that we couldn't, and just ask God to show us his plan for her and for us.
I wrestled with it for a long time. I had a lot of sleepless
nights and a lot of hard days. The transition into the school year brought
three new caseworkers and a new classroom, which led to many dysregulated days
for her and a lot of anger directed towards me. I knew God was tugging at my heart but
I didn’t think I was capable of fully loving a child who may never be able to
fully love me back. I didn’t think I had the capacity to show a mother’s love
to someone who might show more anger than appreciation toward me.
Despite all of my fears, God continued to press on my heart.
I fought it for a while. Josh and I talked about it a lot. I confided in some
trusted people. I talked with therapists and sought their opinion.
But I knew.
It was the same knowing that I had at that initial foster
care meeting, only the excitement didn’t come with it. My yes came from a place of obedience long before there was a happy
feeling to accompany it.
It was never that we didn’t love her. It just felt like her
story was so traumatic and that she deserved more than we could give.
But sometimes God writes stories that are different than our
own and grows love in our hearts that is bigger than what we thought we had the
capacity for. And sometimes we are called to do those things that we never felt
like we could do.
Unfortunately, the days that followed our confident yes and
commitment to adopt weren’t full of warm fuzzy feelings and a suddenly obedient
and appreciative child. The months after were actually some of the hardest of
my life. Because of other changes that were going on in our lives, I started to
withdraw. I lost a lot of joy. I talked to a doctor about my feelings. I
dropped the ball on a lot of my responsibilities and did a poor job of loving
my closest family and friends well. A tear-filled prayer request to some women in
my church led to someone suggesting that I see a counselor. My affect was
different and those closest to me started to notice. I was disappointed in who
I was becoming. I felt guilty that I didn’t have more excitement.
Yet in the midst of all of the hard, God was still God. He
was changing my heart. I asked him to give me a mother’s love for this child
that was to be ours forever, and my heart started to soften – not just in an
obedient way, but in a deep feelings of love kind of way. He started to bless
the yeses that we said before we knew
this was a forever thing. We joined a foster & adopt support group and
transitioned our license to therapeutic care. The training we received from
these things gave us hope and made us realize that we were not alone. He placed
new people in my life that were able to say “I see you and I get it” on the deepest,
most heartfelt levels. He gave loads of grace to the people in my innermost
circle and helped me to understand that I was not loved for my ability to be inspirational
or always have a cheerful disposition or mark everything off of my to do list
with perfection.
While I was learning how to love her well, I was learning to
allow myself to be loved well. As I grew a mother’s love for this child,
I grew in my understanding of the love my Father has for me.
Last week I sat in my living room as her entire case history
was read to us. It was one of the most painful things I have ever had to sit
through. I grieved a lot in the days after, because this child, my child, has been through so much. But
the heartache I felt is evidence of the heart change in me – because my
response wasn’t one of doubt or fear, it was one of love. Our relationship is
in process and my knowledge of how to love her and the feelings of love I
instinctively have towards her are growing daily, by the grace of God.
So why do I share this? Why not just let the smiling
pictures be enough and only show the happy side? Why be so vulnerable and not just keep the difficult
part to myself?
Because that’s not reality.
Because there are adoptive mamas out there who can relate to
the feelings of loneliness, the moments that bring you to your knees, the loss
of joy, the lack of warm and tender feelings, and the questions about why a
sweet child would cause you to question so much about yourself. Those mamas need
to know that they are not alone.
Because the Church, the friends, and the families of people in my shoes can't support their loved ones if they only see it from the perspective of a child that now has a happy ending.
Because disrupted and dissolved adoptions happen all the
time and I believe that these are a result of people being ill-equipped and
uniformed about the effects of trauma on attachment with an adoptive family. Philanthropic
reasons and a “big heart” won’t take you very far down this hard road if you
aren’t prepared for what’s ahead.
Because my family’s day of celebration is coming, and I want
people to know that we are celebrating so much more than the chance to show her
cute little face.
Because the brokenness of our story, the difficulty of the
journey, the parts that are hard to share and don’t paint me in a great light,
and the change that has taken place in my heart are actually what make this beautiful.
The fractured pieces on both sides are why this is a picture of
redemption.
Because the story God is writing here is a lot deeper than
what is seen from a distance and I believe that’s the one worth telling.