Skip to main content

A Major Shift

Today was a huge day. And it came out of the blue. One of those completely average days when suddenly you open a little email that shifts your whole world.

Here's some background: Jane and Kate came to us about 2.5 months ago. They were taken from their mother's home for the usual reasons kids come into foster care. Since that day we've been told an ever evolving series of futures to expect as the social workers got more information from CPS and after specific court events. A frustrating but understandable, and expected, part of doing foster care.

First expectation: girls would be with us 6-9 months and then reunified with mom.

Second expectation: girls were leaving within 1-2 weeks to live with aunt and uncle who would either foster or adopt.

Next expectation: girls were staying with us until definitive court ruling on parental rights in order to provide stability; but, if rights terminated then would go to live with aunt and uncle immediately to begin adoption process.

And then today's bombshell: aunt and uncle have backed out of asking for placement of the girls and have specifically asked that the girls stay with us but that they and grandma remain a part of the girls' lives.

So, that's it. We either have them for at least 6-9 months and then reunify with mother; or we adopt.

The parental rights termination trial is set for about 6 weeks from now. Assuming it isn't delayed, as it has been twice before, we will know then what path we're on.

The trial date is two days before Kate's 2nd Birthday. It's possible that at the party...I could be looking at her like she is my daughter. It is a daunting thought.

It is a heart-bursting, tear-welling, I-feel-so-fragile kind of thought.

And the girls have no idea. I can't say anything to them at this point because there is so much uncertainty and it's all beyond their maturity and language abilities anyway. If we know we're going to adopt I'll buy books and start having that kind of conversation for the months leading up to their adoption. But I put them to bed today in the same old usual way on this day when one little email shifted the trajectory of their entire lives.

Because this is what moms do. We keep on plugging away at the laundry and teeth brushing even when whole lives have just been changed in an instant.

I will absorb the uncertainty and scariness while shielding you with comfort and security. If that isn't mothering then I don't know what is.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching "ouch"

I taught the girls to say ouch. When they first came to me their hair was a mess. Snarls, mismatched lengths where sections had been hacked off, thin and coarse hair that tangled in every hair clip I tried, etc. Due to a healthy diet and daily vitamins, as well as good hair products and regular brushing, their hair is now sleek and glossy. Jane has a cute haircut. Kate's hair is growing longer every day and curling into ringlets that bounce. I was so afraid of hurting them when they first came! I have naturally curly hair and my mother's is stick straight. She never understood how much it hurt when she pulled the brush straight through. I haven't let her touch my head since I could do my first clumsy pony tail. (At first, I held their hair so loosely while trying to do it that every single pony tail fell out minutes after going in. Looking back I feel like those people who don't know how to put a diaper on and it falls off when they lift the baby up!)  But eve...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Lied.

For the very first time I lied to a birth family member. I've been brutally honest even when it caused an uproar. I've been honest because I was personally committed to always telling the truth. Until now. Because this lie may actually be the best way to preserve Jane's relationship with her birth family. At our last video call with Grandma Jane seemed uninterested, unengaged, not showing any real emotion. I struggled to find things to prompt her to talk about. Over the next two weeks I waited and she never asked for another call. In the third week I casually brought up the topic and she did not really respond, certainly didn't ask for another call. Finally, yesterday I point blank asked if she wanted to do a video call and she said the word yes but her whole body language said no. It was clear that she was saying yes because she thought she was supposed to, not because she wanted to. So, I took her body language rather than her words and made the decision that we...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flash Fiction - Guilt Free

And this one I wrote for the fun of it. It was delicious to wallow in such a world of self-indulgence I'll never know. This is flash fiction (less than 1,000 words). Guilt Free It was fudge sauce, thick and cold from the back of the fridge, dipped in gourmet raspberry jam—the kind from France with the understated label—straight onto a spoon and then suckled in my mouth, a frosty mug of milk tremoring faintly in my left hand, to be gulped in indelicate swaths allowing a dribble or two down my front, the first time I hit her. Not really hit. Shoved. A forceful push. A push that began with contact. The contact of my hand wedging so neatly between her small sharp shoulder blades, wedging in so that I almost could not retract myself from the catapulting force launching her into the tub. Not a hit—there was no smacking, cracking, sharp stinging rebound. No bruise. She’d laughed. She’d thought it was a game. Like when I clapped my hands together as she went up the stairs, cla...
Post a Comment
Read more