The call came while I was sitting in the middle of the almost finished pink and purple bedroom. We aren't supposed to know the details of the actual meeting, but our case was so unusual, she told us about it. The choice came down between us and one other family. Three committee members, one voted for us, another one for the other family. The last one asked to hear ALL the info again; it took an extra hour for them to decide... to give the three girls to the other family.
I know the miscarriages hurt more, but I don't remember crying as hard about anything in my whole life. Why did God draw me to them, only to crush me again? I knew we would go on and find the right girls, but for that moment, I grieved... maybe for all of my girls I never got to raise. I still pray for those three girls; I discovered later that the oldest girl ended up in a children's psych unit for a while, and I believe she is back with her foster parents now, which is probably where she should have been all along.
I have discovered a few things working with DHS here in Oregon; the main thing is that foster families, the good ones, tend to get a raw deal! I will go into detail some other day, but this is a system (one of many) that rewards the bad and uses up the good people. You only get rewarded if the child you are in charge of remains "special needs." And if you are great at being a foster parent, forget about trying to adopt! I've seen several examples of this, in just the short time we were involved. I know at least one high level person in the Hillsboro DHS offices who has lied (on the witness stand) several times, effecting the outcome of at least three adoptions. When I have the time to do more research, I will name names! The strangest thing about my feelings about DHS, is that they have worked to our advantage (because we were never really foster parents.) Through this person's manipulation, we were able to adopt the daughters that we have now. I'm getting ahead of my story...
I didn't let any grass grow under my feet before jumping right back on that horse! (cool double metaphor!) After seeing the need right here in Oregon, we didn't even look at adopting anyone besides sisters who needed families right here! There are hundreds of kids in the Portland area waiting for families to love them. We looked through books and books of kids, plus websites, and individual sibling groups that Beth brought to our attention. I fell in love (again!) when I saw these two little button nosed pixies in a report that claimed the oldest one was at least partially delayed, probably retarded... I took one look at those smart eyes looking out from that picture and had to strenuously disagree! (for the record, I was RIGHT!!!)
We started the process again. There are always hurdles in these cases, and you can never be for sure until you have those signed adoption papers in your hand. The first question was if we were willing to take on a "delayed" child, who might need life-long assistance. It was something to be carefully considered, just in case I was wrong.
This is part of the process that is weird: you never meet the children face to face until you are selected to be their parents... I understand the desire not to make the children feel as if they are on display or rejected, but it makes it hard to decide if this is the right child for your family. For us it was easier, we have faith, and God is in control. I'm not sure how those without faith do it.
The little one also had her own issues of insecurity. She was not "free" yet, which mea
nt that we could go through committee, get the girls, and still have a judge decide to give her back to her biological parents. Because of this, we had to make a big leap of faith and hope that we wouldn't be heart-broken again. We went to committee, were selected by them, and went to meet our new girls. Taven says they were his birthday gift that year.
(getting tired... gonna finish this up next time....to be continued...)
-jay-
PS. still sick......... nasty, achy, sick! and i feel like whining about it!
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