This is one of the hardest things I have ever written. Yet it has been pinging around, unsettled, in my soul for years and years, and it is time to bring it into the light.
(It was first shared on Find the Lovely as part of the Adoption Stories Series, which features the stories and insight of parents, advocates and others who want to give more perspective to the often-misunderstood world of adoption and foster care.)
Disrupted. Such an unlovely word. Yet this one word embodies
the essence of our experience with adoption.
Ten years ago and several kids into foster parenting, God
gave my husband Greg and me a deep desire to give a child a forever home. Even though we were already empty nesters, we
moved into the murky waters of the state foster care/adoption process and
prepared to begin parenting anew.
They found us more than we found them. We were captivated.
Terran and Kiki. Beautiful. Ages two and three. Separated
after removal from their home due to horrific living conditions. Kiki was taken
straight to the hospital with extra-pulmonary tuberculosis from eating feces
from the bathtub. She was neglected, wounded and so very sick, but she was
fostered straight from the hospital by a wonderful woman, Cindy, who nurtured
and loved her well.
Terran, on the other hand, went into another nightmare. He
was separated from Kiki by a misunderstanding, and the results were
devastating. At his foster home, he was locked in a closet in the dark for the
better part of nine months. He didn’t walk until he was nearly two years old,
was simultaneously terrified of and detached from every conceivable person and
circumstance. He had almost no language, and at 2 ½ years old weighed 26
pounds.
By the time we met them, parental rights had been severed
and they were both placed with Cindy. But that last paragraph, up there? We
didn’t know ANY OF IT. We were completely misled by the agency, and as a
result, wholly uninformed.
We visited back and forth for a few months, and then they
moved in with us. To their forever home. We were over-the-top crazy in love
with them, and we saw our whole future in the light of this beautiful
adventure.
For a few weeks, all was well. We were aware of Terran’s
delayed development, and took steps to catch him up. The kids were funny, sweet
and affectionate.
But then. The honeymoon period ended, and chaos took over
our home. We learned the painful reality of reactive
attachment disorder (RAD) and discovered the depths of Terran’s woundedness.
He became alternately withdrawn and viciously aggressive toward us and toward
Kiki. Once we woke to Kiki screaming and found him sitting on her chest choking
her. He kicked, hit, bit, and screamed for up to an hour at a time, and I had
to forcibly restrain him to keep him (and me) safe. I was covered in bruises.
Often we would find him curled up asleep in his closet, on top of all the
blankets and pillows from his bed.
When we were in public, though, he was darling. Friendly,
affectionate … too much so. This is a hallmark of RAD, and while we were
beginning to understand it, few others did. We felt isolated and frustrated and
that we were failing miserably. We were angry to discover the circumstances of
his first foster placement. In short, we were at our wits’ end and no one else
had a clue. Guilt and pain ruled us, even as we desperately sought answers and
solutions.
We took him to a psychologist specializing in very young
children like Terran, and he was diagnosed with RAD (no surprise) and bipolar
disorder (HUGE surprise). Medication was not an option because of his age, and
we learned that young children suffering from this illness can cycle rapidly
between mania and depression, up to 30 times a day.
Finally we had an explanation for the extreme opposites in
his behavior. Sadly, though, we found no lasting solutions. We read everything
we could get our hands on, prayed without ceasing, got him into counseling and
behavior modification programs, and just tried so hard. SO hard.
In the end, we couldn’t do it. After six months, we were
exhausted and broken, and ultimately realized that we simply were not equipped
to parent him. We were neglecting Kiki, who had RAD and developmental delay
issues of her own, and Terran just wasn’t getting any better. He continued to
escalate despite our best efforts.
So we made the most difficult phone call of our lives.
Sadly, “giving up” on one meant losing both, as the State of Kansas would not
separate siblings until two adoption attempts have failed. Disrupted.
And giving up is exactly what it felt like. Logically, it
was the only thing that made sense. Emotionally, we were devastated. The social
worker showed up the next morning and swept them away from us. They were so
young that we couldn’t even explain what was happening to them. But their
forever family? We were not. We were two more people in a long line who had
failed them and not followed through on a promise that really, really mattered.
In the days and weeks to come, we grieved. A stray sock in
the laundry, too many spoons in the silverware drawer. The aching loss, the
empty house, the guilt and the wondering and the simple fear for their future.
The frustration over the way the system had so abjectly failed them and
frankly, us. The disappointment and isolation of judgment by those who simply
didn’t understand why we had “sent them back” because all they saw was the
sweet, adorable, funny little boy.
For so long I couldn’t understand why God had seemed to
grant us the desire of our heart, only to have it snatched away. The future we
had imagined disintegrated. Our lives were completely disrupted. Today I realize
that we were simply a stop on their journey to an unknown-to-us destination. We
poured into them and gave it all we had, and that was what God required of us.
It was the end of our foster care career. Our hearts were
shattered, and the system is broken, and the children are not the only ones who
suffer.
I know that this isn’t a happy story. I know there are
readers who will not be able to understand our decision. But I also believe it
is a story that needs to be told, because we are not the only ones to have
lived in the darkness of this dream-come-true turned nightmare.
We are not the
only ones who were judged harshly at the greatest point of pain in our lives. I
write to give a voice to all of us who feel like we failed, who are told that
we just didn’t try hard enough, trust God enough, pray fervently enough, who
still wade through layers of misunderstanding and pain. I write to bring it
into the light.
When faced with something this painful, we have choices in
how we move forward. We can let bitterness and despair rule us. We can live in
the shadows of guilt and shame. Or we can trust that God will care for those
precious kiddos, and trust that He is good even when things don’t make sense. We
can trust His leading, even if it runs contrary to popular opinion. And it is only
in the trusting that I have found peace.
Ten years later, I weep as I write this. I prayed that they
were happy and whole, and that they landed somewhere full of love and healing
for them. With someone who was equipped to handle their brokenness in a way
that we were not. I still pray for them, and I will love them forever.
God was merciful to give us one last glimpse into their
lives. The second adoption placement also disrupted. That couple was brought up
on charges of child abuse against Terran. But in the end, Kiki went home to
Cindy, where she was desperately loved and wanted, and Terran was adopted by
his special needs teacher who is surely well equipped to parent him. The two
families know each other and go to church together. And there I find the
lovely.
We were not their final destination, but we were painfully
privileged to be part of their journey.
Remembering,
Angie
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