Today Theo and I went to the adoption agency to sign a bunch of paperwork, write some checks, and receive the super secret documentation about why the girls were removed from their birth home that we'd been asking to see for months but were told would only be made available to us at this stage in the adoption process.
There was no new super secret information. We already knew it all. I guess our first foster care social worker was a total blabbermouth who told us stuff we weren't supposed to know. Plus, I'd sat in on the termination of parental rights hearing where, I recognized from the awkward legalese of the reports I read today, this stuff had all been read aloud by the judge to all assembled there in the courtroom.
Let's think about that--I had access to deeply private stuff as a random member of the public that I, as a foster and potentially adoptive parent, did NOT have until a year after the girls were placed with us. Our system is seriously screwed up.
I won't go into detail here for their privacy. They were removed for very typical reasons that most kids are removed. Parental rights were terminated because the parents failed to make any meaningful changes in their behavior by accessing even one of the bazillion services offered to them.
I guess I did learn one thing. I'd been asking how the whole final cascade of events happened. Why the police came on that day at that time. Turns out a neighbor called 911. So, god bless that neighbor. Or, rather, knowing the neighborhood they lived in and who these neighbors were, I'm glad Leah pissed off her friend, or stole someone's boyfriend, once too many times and that person called 911 in retribution. However it happened, the girls got removed.
I never, ever, ever feel like a rescuer. I haven't at any time before or during our stint in foster care. It was never about being that important superhero. It was only ever about caregiving for one or two children. Just doing a little bit of good within our home. And now, adding to our family because I guess we like kids enough around here to have five of them.
But for just a moment when reading that paperwork and reading the list of things these girls were exposed to, well, it did hit me what we have rescued these girls from. This past year, even at our most catastrophically terrible moments that I regret horribly, I haven't done anything close to what the girls were exposed to on a daily basis with their birth mother. That's a thought that just keeps on sinking in, deeper and deeper into my soul.
It makes me, again, renew my compassion for Jane and Kate, but especially Jane. Three years, two months, is a very long time for a small, fragile child to be exposed to daily trauma and neglect and abuse. There is only one moment where Leah's own words about her children are recorded in the paperwork. They are recording a text for another purpose but the whole of it is captured and within it she says, "...Jane is a brat...".
That's it. I cannot believe we will ever show this documentation to the girls but if they did get access to it someday then that's all Jane would have of her mother.
It is heartbreaking.
I rocked and rocked and rocked her during bedtime tonight. And smoothed her hair and smiled deep into her eyes so that she could feel a full measure of love.
There was no new super secret information. We already knew it all. I guess our first foster care social worker was a total blabbermouth who told us stuff we weren't supposed to know. Plus, I'd sat in on the termination of parental rights hearing where, I recognized from the awkward legalese of the reports I read today, this stuff had all been read aloud by the judge to all assembled there in the courtroom.
Let's think about that--I had access to deeply private stuff as a random member of the public that I, as a foster and potentially adoptive parent, did NOT have until a year after the girls were placed with us. Our system is seriously screwed up.
I won't go into detail here for their privacy. They were removed for very typical reasons that most kids are removed. Parental rights were terminated because the parents failed to make any meaningful changes in their behavior by accessing even one of the bazillion services offered to them.
I guess I did learn one thing. I'd been asking how the whole final cascade of events happened. Why the police came on that day at that time. Turns out a neighbor called 911. So, god bless that neighbor. Or, rather, knowing the neighborhood they lived in and who these neighbors were, I'm glad Leah pissed off her friend, or stole someone's boyfriend, once too many times and that person called 911 in retribution. However it happened, the girls got removed.
I never, ever, ever feel like a rescuer. I haven't at any time before or during our stint in foster care. It was never about being that important superhero. It was only ever about caregiving for one or two children. Just doing a little bit of good within our home. And now, adding to our family because I guess we like kids enough around here to have five of them.
But for just a moment when reading that paperwork and reading the list of things these girls were exposed to, well, it did hit me what we have rescued these girls from. This past year, even at our most catastrophically terrible moments that I regret horribly, I haven't done anything close to what the girls were exposed to on a daily basis with their birth mother. That's a thought that just keeps on sinking in, deeper and deeper into my soul.
It makes me, again, renew my compassion for Jane and Kate, but especially Jane. Three years, two months, is a very long time for a small, fragile child to be exposed to daily trauma and neglect and abuse. There is only one moment where Leah's own words about her children are recorded in the paperwork. They are recording a text for another purpose but the whole of it is captured and within it she says, "...Jane is a brat...".
That's it. I cannot believe we will ever show this documentation to the girls but if they did get access to it someday then that's all Jane would have of her mother.
It is heartbreaking.
I rocked and rocked and rocked her during bedtime tonight. And smoothed her hair and smiled deep into her eyes so that she could feel a full measure of love.
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