Our Adoption Story—Part 5

Well, we moved on with life after the kids left but it just wasn’t the same. We had gotten used to having a household of five. It seemed so quiet-and our daughter seemed lonely. The kids went on to live with a great family just down the road from us-another kinship placement of sorts. Then they went back to the parents, then back to the great family, then back to the parents. The first time we saw them after they left our home, they were on an unsupervised visit with the parents. When the girl saw me, she came to me and said, “pick me up Mommy”. (We were always so amazed at the way that we were “Mommy and Daddy” and the parents were “Mom and Dad” and they kept it straight.) I picked her up and just held her tight. Her mom got so mad that she had to go to another room. We saw them ever so often but over time they forgot who I was. I told my husband that I’d rather not see them anymore because it was too painful-they remembered him and had no problem playing with our daughter (I think it was a spite thing with the parents as to why they didn’t act as if I were there and still knew my husband’s name).

A year and a half went by. We prayed for the kids’ safety because we knew that they had been back and forth with the parents and knew that it wasn’t the best of situations. I don’t even remember what day of the week it was or anything when it happened; I just remember that I had been going to walk around the high school track with a friend each evening and I was getting ready to leave. My husband was at work; he called home to tell me what was going on—the parents had been caught in a drug buy and the kids were with them. (That’s all I really say about that.) DSS wanted to know if we would take them back. I immediately said yes. This was the answer to our prayers—this is the way that God was telling us that the kids would be okay. I talked to the social worker on the phone and within 30 minutes the kids were at our home.

We were in a much better shape to take them this time. We owned our home by this time—a bigger place than the tiny two bedroom apartment we lived in when they had been with us the first time. We had a big yard to play in. I worked in the county where we lived—just a couple of minutes from home, too. We were also older and knew how things worked with DSS a little better.

The kids broke my heart when they came in the house. They were filthy and stank. Their clothes were in awful shape. They had been at daycare that day and I knew from experience that kids who have been at daycare all day aren’t going to be the cleanest kids—they’ve played all day-- but this was ridiculous! Their faces were filthy too. The trash bag full of clothes that the social worker brought stank and had to immediately be washed and gone through. They were torn and stained and mostly didn’t match. That first night, after supper and baths, the kids had a little sleepover in our daughter’s bedroom. We didn’t have enough beds for everyone. I remember staying up late washing clothes and trying to find some that matched.

We didn’t know how long the kids would be with us this time but we were ready for the journey.

 

The previous parts of this story can be found in archives.

Our Adoption Story—Part 4

Well, about a month after the first supervised visit, the children went for another visit with their parents. This turned into sporadic supervised visits. There was no rhyme or reason to when the visits occurred-the social worker would contact my husband, who would play phone tag with me because the children and I were in a completely different county and it was up to me to bring them back in time for a visit. We begged for a schedule since most of the visits were coordinated on the day that they were to occur. Our requests were ignored.

During this time, our family went through a whole range of emotions. Our daughter thought that her cousins were going back home each and every they went for a visit. She would get upset. We would get upset because we didn’t really know what to tell her or really what was going on ourselves. It is DSS’s role to preserve the family. We wanted the parents to step up and take responsibility but at the same time, we had learned a lot about the situation and really didn’t want them to go back. It was an agonizing time. Stressful doesn’t even begin to describe it. My husband was in school completing certification for his job during this time, we had just moved into an apartment, I worked in a different county as a teacher, I drove the children to and from daycare on a long commute each day, and it was pretty much just me at home with the kids each evening, Monday thru Thursday because of my husband being in school. To top it off, our social worker was very unsympathetic to any of our requests. It felt like nothing we said or did meant anything. We felt helpless to take care of these children and then watch them be put right back into the same situation.

We wanted so much to be strong and do the “right thing”, but when I started having excruciating headaches that wouldn’t go away and was having to go to the ER, it was all clearly too much. Our three-year-old daughter knew what DSS was and that they could take you away from your parents. We did what we thought was the right thing to do for our family (us and our daughter)-we made the call to the social worker and had the children moved from our home. If was the hardest thing we have ever done as husband and wife. We felt awful for it, but we knew that we couldn’t continue to jeopardize my health and our daughter’s emotional well-being. I’d like to say that we prayed about our decision, but I honestly don’t remember doing it. We did pray after they left-a lot-for their safety.

 

The previous parts to this story can be found in the archives.

Our Adoption Story—Part 3

Well, after the kids had lived with us for about three weeks it just seemed like they had been with us from the beginning. Everyone got along fairly well. We had put a (temporary) end to the “fit pitching” that the little girl did. The little boy had been forever squealing at the top of his lungs—not a good thing when you have a commute! He had finally stopped that. Everything was going well. I should say here that the kids came to us the day before Halloween of that year. Yes, we even took them trick-or-treating! Everything was going swimmingly at the Brooks household until right before Christmas—we were informed that the parents wanted a visitation. We really did not know what to think about this. They were family—but they were the kids’ parents. It was all very awkward.

The first visitation was Christmas Eve. It was supervised—not by us. When we dropped them off the little boy was very hesitant to go to his parents. He cried. The little girl was somewhat hesitant at first, then fine. They got some small presents and a lot of junk food. We had sent them in new outfits (we learned our lesson!) and they came back filthy. We noticed a change in behavior right after the visit. The little boy was very clingy and whiny.

The next visit was nearly a month later. I don’t understand why. Anyway, it was the beginning of a lot of pain for us and the children—our daughter included!

 

The previous parts to this story can be viewed by going to archives.

Our Adoption Story-Part 2

I should go back a little now and tell explain that by the time these two children came to live with us, we already had our daughter-dd8. She was three at the time. My husband and I were both 24. (The girl was 2 and the boy was 14 months old.) Neither of us had ever dealt with the Department of Social Services, nor were we prepared for any other children. Sure, we had discussed becoming foster parents and how there were so many children who needed people to care about them, but we figured that would be YEARS down the road—like when our daughter was grown!

…..Ok, so after the children came to live with us, I took a day off of work to get them settled. Our daughter had a great daycare that she went to and it was also where we wanted these two children to go to because the staff were so good to our daughter and our family and they knew us—not to mention I could not add another stop to my morning commute because of time. After all the odds and ends were taken care of, we tried to go back to our daily routine—with two extra kids and a new apartment! When the kids came to live with us they had very little in the way of belongings. Most of what they did have had been purchased while they had been living with the other family member. Their car seats were atrocious! I was terrified to put them in my car—the straps were loose and could not be adjusted at all. We live in such a rural area we could not go right then and replace them-nor did we have the money to. At the time I was fortunate to work in a wonderful school full of compassionate people. They threw me a baby shower and provided lots of clothes, diapers, gift cards, and lots of other things that we needed. We used the gift cards that week to purchase the new car seats and immediately threw the other ones away!!

The day we replaced the car seats we dressed the children in a new outfit and headed out the door—we thought. The little girl got mad about something—I don’t remember what. The next thing we knew she flung herself backwards and started doing a variation of the crab walk with her hair sweeping the floor of the porch! Wow! I had never seen such a fit. I picked her up and put her into her crib. I told her she wasn’t coming out until she calmed down. I sat down with her and waited….About ten minutes later we immerged, ready to get into the car. Little did we know that was just the beginning of the “fits”…

Our Adoption Story-Part 1

I am just really not sure how many parts this story will be yet…I guess til I have it told . I really feel like by telling our story maybe we will be helping someone else.

 

I will never forget that day as long as I live. It was a Wednesday. At the school I was working at the secretary called on the intercom and told me I had a phone call. I told her I didn’t have any other adults in the room at the time and couldn’t go to the phone. She said it was about my niece and nephew. My heart pounded and I really didn’t know what to think. I found someone to cover my class for a few minutes and walked down the hall to the workroom, bewildered. The social worker told me that they needed my husband and I to take temporary custody of our niece and nephew (and told me a little of why they needed us to take them). I told her that we were actually looking at an apartment that week (thank you God!) but that we couldn’t take them til we moved in. We had been living with my parents for a few months because our rental house had been sold…Long story short, she was at school in less than an hour with the temporary custody papers signed by the mother. Wow! (Of course during this time, I had also been on the phone with my husband and his family in the town where we live.) You see, our niece and nephew that came to live with us also have two older brothers and an older sister. They went to live with my husband’s parents. I won’t be discussing them very much in this story.

It happened so fast! I got the call on Wednesday, we looked at and started moving into the apartment on Friday, moved more stuff Saturday, moved more stuff Sunday and picked the kids up in the county where I was employed on Sunday afternoon. (At this time, I worked in one county and lived in another. The kids had been living in the county where I worked, not where we lived.) We really had not seen these two children much since they were born. We really didn’t know them. I know it sounds strange because we were their aunt and uncle, but it is true. The day we picked them up (they were living with another family member until we picked them up) the little boy came right to us, but the little girl was very hesitant. She knew she didn’t know us!!!

Well, we had brought friends with us to help us move the children’s belongings, and they were such a blessing! They had been helping us move and helped us unload everything at the apartment when we brought the kids home. They helped us keep them entertained and helped us make sure everyone got fed that night. I will never forget when my husband said he was going to the car (to get another load of belongings) and the little girl thought he was leaving. She dropped her food and ran after him screaming and crying, “Daddy! Don’t go!” Keep in mind this was a child that just a few hours before did not even know us…