She read horrific things from the stack of court papers before her, detailing the children's exile from a once normal family life. Facts flew at us, hitting us in our hearts and making us conflicted, sad and hopeful at the same time. We were told by Family Builders this is the beginning of the moment where you decide. Forty-eight hours after the disclosure meeting is the only opportunity to vote: yes, these will be our children; no, I want to keep looking. Anxiety mounted as the placement social worker's ignorance of the actual children became more apparent.
I asked, "What do they like to do for fun?" I asked, "Are they religious?" I asked, "Do they like to be silly?" I asked "Have they ever been around animals?" She answered with bureaucratic silence, shuffling through court papers as if the children could manifest themselves from the judge's orders. Our social worker, silent through most of the meeting, said "That was a great disclosure meeting" as we left the building. We left wondering the basic question of: who are these children?
How we were supposed to determine if these are our children based upon their parents' legal circumstances?
When Sarah was told she would give birth at ninety she laughed. What a ridiculous thought that she could conceive after all these years of barrenness! What a beautiful idea! When she gave birth a year later she named Isaac after her laughter. From Isaac's birth terrible things happened (Hagar and Ishmael were banished into a desert, Abraham tries to sacrifice Isaac), but beautiful things too (a new Abrahamic nation, a trust in G!d so profound). Called forth from a moment of desperately wished-for absurdity, life, laughter, sorrow, and joy resounds throughout our history.
If I'm being honest, our absurdity began before that non-informative meeting. The entire concept that you can "pick" your child is absurd. Biological parents wait desperately to discover who their child will be. Sure, they have a hand in shaping the person-to-be, but they are not the arbiters of their children's existence. Our hand in shaping our children will still be strong, no matter the age or child we receive.
The pressure placed on this meeting was also absurd. How could one hour-and-a-half meeting determine our family's future? What a ridiculous thought that we could decide in a few hours, after all these months of preparation! What a beautiful idea that these children will be ours!
We met with my mom, MK, after the meeting and shared our frustration and dissatisfaction. Being the wonderful mom she is, she later talked to a friend that runs another adoption agency and she then gave me his number. We called him and he shared with us the adoption secret: this is not the only veto point. We can say no after we meet the girls and they're not right for us. We felt so much better after this phone call.
What a blessing it is to have been able to have that phone call. What a blessing it is to be able to have my moms care for me so much. MK jokes that when she met me, as a teenager, I was already "cooked," that there wasn't much else she could do to mold me. Yet, she's the reason I want to adopt older children. She molded me so much, more than she could ever know, to become the person I am today. I am so grateful to have her as my mom, to have her watch out for me and call her friends to get adoption advice when I don't know what to do. I do not know who I would be without her, but I know it would be for the worse - much worse - if she wasn't in my life.
I want to be that parent to my children. I want to help shape them to be the best they can be. My anxiety about this process is displaced by my trust that I can be that parent, that despite the delusion that you can choose your children they will be whomever they will be, and the fact that I am so well supported and loved by my family and friends that I know I can tackle anything.
We're leaning toward "yes," but here's the caveat: we can't tell you much about these children. I know you have all sorts of really good questions - some of which we might even have answers to - but by law we can't disclose that information, and some of it is our children's to disclose. So, in advance, thank you for your love and support and please let us take the lead with bringing up the topic and disclosing information.
If we say yes, the next step is meeting the children and answering our most pressing question: who are you? We'll meet them with the foster parents and social workers, and we'll get to ask the foster parents all sorts of important questions about the children's identity and behaviors. From what I understand from last night's conversation, THIS is the real veto point.
If we say yes, it might lead us to a really hard "no," these are not our children. OR, we might be taking the first steps to acquiring our kids. What a beautiful and absurd idea!
No comments:
Post a Comment