Monday, October 26, 2009

I may not have given birth to him. . .

We had our first meeting with Early Intervention.  Our guy has a service plan in place from his previous placement so it was mostly a matter of paperwork.  The coordinator asked lots of questions about his prenatal and birth history.  I had received all the information at our disclosure meeting so was able to answer her questions pretty well.  

At one point, I noticed that she has recorded his  birth date incorrectly. She had written a day earlier than the actual date.  When I pointed it out to her, she actually argued with me a bit. "Oh, no. I saw it written on his records as __/__/__." She even started shifting through papers to show it to me.  Ummm, hello.  I may not have given birth to him, but I do know when he was born.  I am acutely aware that I missed his first birthday and I am very sure of when that date was because I was thinking about him all day (we hadn't started the transition yet).  

It turns out she found her paper and it listed the date I had told her.  How about that. 

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Weird Mix of Emotions

L's social worker visited today.  We talked a lot about L's biological father, J, and how his death has changed the process.  She said that rather than looking at 2-3 years to finalization, L should be legally free in several months and that we should be able to finalize by this summer.  There is a possibility that one of L's maternal relatives could come forward now that J is out of the picture, but it's highly unlikely.  Most relatives on both sides are not suitable because they either have substantiated child abuse complaints filed against them or they have criminal records. There are a couple who would be appropriate, but the Department heavily recruited biological relatives when L was placed in care a year ago and there was absolutely no interest.  At this point, the state is obligated to consider biological relatives, but isn't obligated to place L with them.  You can imagine the relief we felt at hearing that. 

DH and I have decided to send flowers to the funeral home when J's body is released to them. We hope it will help L when he gets older to know that we/he did this for his biological father. We talked a lot with the social worker today about how to process this with L when he's older.  She suggested making sure that we talk about it all along.  If a friend's grandmother dies, for example, she said we could mention how J and R (L's biological mother) are in heaven, too.  The big idea is to make sure it's not secret or shameful since L has nothing to be ashamed of in regard to the circumstances of his birth or of his biological parents' deaths.  I'm also not sharing details of his parents' deaths so we can share that information with L when he's ready and it doesn't come from a cousin who overheard the grownups talking. 

This whole situation has created a strange mix of emotions in me.  J was not someone who made good choices in life and there were safety concerns for all involved in this case due to his past behavior.  There was no chance of an open adoption in this situation because of those safety concerns. I certainly didn't wish J dead, but a part of me is glad that I won't have to worry about L being tracked down by J as he gets older and that we won't have to spend the next 2-3 years in court.  I wish J had just realized that he couldn't care for L and terminated his rights voluntarily. I also realize that J was an abused child at one time and was failed by the system.  He was like L, but he kept being moved from foster home to foster home or returned to abusive parents instead of being adopted as a young child.  In many ways, the system messed him up, or allowed his family to mess him up, and then stepped in to take away what mattered most to him because he was too messed up. Again, I'm just so grateful that cycle is broken for L.  




Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Major Turn of Events

We found out today that our baby boy's biological father died this past weekend. His biological mother is already deceased.  Both were products of the system (abuse, neglect, foster care) and had many life-long issues because of that.  Their early deaths are sad, but not shocking. Our son is now legally an orphan. I don't know what that means in regard to our attempt to adopt L. Our social worker is coming later this week for a visit and I'm sure we'll have more answers then. Tonight, I'm just going to reflect on the life of a young man who fathered a beautiful boy but, because of being terribly wounded as a child, was unable to be a father to him. I am so glad our L won't have to continue the cycle. 

I'm just stunned right now. 

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Grateful

Our son has been living with us full-time for almost 2 weeks now. I don't have the words to express how lucky I feel to have this little boy in my life. I've had people tell me that we deserve this because we tried for a while, had multiple failed IVFs, etc (nothing compared to what some have been through). But I know that I have never done anything in my life that would make me deserving of this amazing gift I've been given. I am so grateful that, although completely unworthy,  I get to wake up every morning and spend the day with my little guy. He is pure sunshine. When he first wakes up, I like to listen to him for a few minutes via the baby monitor. He usually spends some time talking to himself and turning on his crib soother music. I love listening to his babbling, always hoping for the word Mama to come out at some point of course (still waiting right now although I'm pretty sure I'm hearing "Hi" every morning). When I go into his room, he flashes me a huge smile and every time he does I'm overwhelmed with gratitude.