Our Second Little Miracle

It’s been nine months since my last blog entry, and eight months since our little world changed again. I have been meaning to sit down and write the story of our second adoption, but the whirlwind and subsequent day to day life of raising two little boys has somehow prevented that from happening.  Until now.  I thought it was time to sit down and finally tell the story of this second little miracle.  I am going to try to keep it as brief as possible, and touch on other aspects of it down the road.  Today, I just want to tell you how it all came to be.  It is such a little miracle.

If you haven’t already read my last entry, written just weeks before this second baby came,  “ComeWhat May and Love It” was about accepting and embracing the fact that I might only ever have one child, and that I was okay with that.  Haha!  I think God has a way of waiting until you have truly given in, before giving you the thing you desired in the first place.  And, after years and years of fighting it, I had truly gotten to that place.  And then…..bam!

aby came into our lives, you should read it.

I think the timeline is kind of funny, so I will share it with you.  My friend, who adopted three children from the same birth mother, messaged me Facebook.  Here is how the conversation went:

May 13

MY FRIEND: Hi Susan. I know u haven't heard from me for a long time, but would u mind giving me your number so I can call you?

ME:  Sure!

MY FRIEND: Hi Susan. I'll call u at around 2pm. If you're not available then, I'll try again later. Not to be mysterious or anything. Just want to talk to you about adoption.

We had a phone conversation, in which she told me that the birth mother of her three children was expecting any day now, and they just couldn’t take a fifth child and would we be interested.  Now, let me tell you that a lot of people might have been super excited.  But, I honestly had no idea that this would really go through.  I mean, the birth mother didn’t even know us.  And, considering our past experience with a failed adoption, and knowing that people had approached us before about “a sure thing” and we had never heard from them again, I did not even think twice about it.  I said yes, we would be interested, and then I thought I would cross that bridge when a paper had been signed.  The mother didn’t have a due date since there had been no prenatal doctor visits since very early on in the pregnancy. 

A week passed and I got this message on Facebook:

May 20th

MY FRIEND:  Hi Susan. Just wanted to update u. I still haven't heard anything from ####, the Birth mom. I spoke to ####'s mom this morning and she hasn't heard anything as well. Sorry for the delay of information. Hope all is well for you.

ME:  No problem. Like I said before, we are used to things not coming through so we aren't holding our breath! But, thanks for thinking of us. I talked to our adoption social worker and she said it would be a private adoption, so we would have to figure out how to pay for it. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Thanks!

Just as I suspected.  It wasn’t going to pan out.  Glad I didn’t spend any time looking at baby clothes!

Four days later, on Friday afternoon, May 24^th, I was at the park with D and I got a call from my friend.  She said the birth mom had spoken to the social worker and had given her our names.  Okay, now it was a little more serious, but still…..call me when someone has signed a piece of paper and when a baby has been born!  I hung up the phone a little more anxious, but still not getting my hopes up.  I thought about the whole possibility for a few minutes, when the phone rang again.  It was 4:30 in the afternoon.  This time it was the social worker, Christine.  She told me that the birth parents had spoken with her and given her our names and they were sure they wanted to place the baby with us.  Okay…this was even more serious.  But, she hadn’t been able to get a meeting with them to get papers signed.  It was Memorial Day weekend, and she said she would try to get it all in place this weekend and update me next week.  I hung up and started thinking that this really could happen.  However, still….call me when someone has signed a dang piece of paper!  I went home and told John and we chatted about it for a minute, but knew nothing was set in stone, so off to bed we went.

Saturday morning, May 25^th, 8:00 a.m.  I was getting dressed for work when the phone rang.  It was Christine.  The birth mom was in labor and on her way to the hospital.  Long story short, she had to get an adoption plan in place and signed by them before the baby was born.  They suspected the baby would be born positive for drugs, and the county would take it away if an adoption plan wasn’t already in place.  If the county took the baby, the birth parents wouldn’t have a say in where it was placed.  But, we also had to have a lawyer’s signature.  God steps in on these little miracles, I know He does.  Christine just happened to be in the process of adopting a baby herself, and because of the circumstances, even though she was a social worker, she needed an adoption attorney.  She said “the only lawyer I have in my phone that will answer my call at 8:30 on a Saturday morning is the one we are using.”  I said I trust that an adoption social worker knows how to hire a good adoptions attorney and that I trusted her judgment.  She said the only other hang up could be if the county social worker decided this adoption plan hadn’t been put in place soon enough, then she would have the right to take the baby, if and when it was born positive for drugs.  She called back thirty minutes later and said everything was in place.   The lawyer was on board and the county social worker said she was fine with the plan and had no intention of disrupting it.  One hour later, he was born.

 

I didn’t know about him until 12:30 that afternoon.  I was at work with butterflies in my stomach.  I was texting and calling family and friends and the lawyer and the social worker and my friend.  At 12:30, Christine called and said the father had called her and said he had been born at 9:33 a.m., 22 inches long, 12 pounds and ready for school!  Haha!  He was huge!

 

And the kicker?  He was born on my son’s birthday.  D and baby S share the same birthday.  Isn’t that amazing?  I had decided to have D’s birthday party the previous Wednesday, and I don’t know why.  His birthday was on a Saturday, and that would have been easy to do.  But, I had chosen not to.  And now I know why.  D was born at 7:33 a.m. four years earlier, and S was born that morning at 9:33 a.m.  It was, and continues to be a miracle.  I got to drive up to Anaheim that night with a friend, and see this little miracle ten hours after he had been born.  A baby I had no idea was going to actually come into my life just the day before, and I was sitting in the hospital nursery holding him.  He was beautiful and huge and precious and mine.  There is more to the rest of the story, but I will save that for another post.  Just know that I know that God knows each of us.  He knows us personally.  He answers our prayers, and sometimes that answer is “no.”  And sometimes the answer is “not right now.”  And sometimes the answer is “yes.”  And all the “no” answers and all the “not right now” answers make that “yes” answer just that much more precious.

 

The Surfboard. My second favorite Gotcha Day memento.

I was reading a thread on a Facebook post recently about the terms that adoptees/adoptive parents/birth parents don’t like.  Things like “real mom” were pretty universally disliked.  But there were others that I was surprised to find were so controversial.  The term “biological mom” was disliked by lots of birth mothers, because they felt that was such a cold, scientific term and they felt like much more.  I even saw that “birth mom” was disliked by many because birth mothers (for lack of a better term….I don’t know what to use any more!) felt that was a description of one event and not what they really meant in their children’s lives, even if they had placed them for adoption.  But the one I’ve been thinking about the most is how many families didn’t like the term “gotcha day”, which refers to either the day the adoptive families took their new child home, or the day the adoption was finalized.  I was surprised this was so controversial.  Both those days are certainly monumental days in our lives, and though we don’t do a full on celebration for either day, we certainly recognize it and maybe get a special dessert or commemorate it in some small way.  We do need to be sensitive about how the child feels about that day because it may be a very bittersweet day for them.  For us, a dream came true.  For them, a dream fell apart.  It marks the point of no return for their biological family.  It marks a day of finalization when it became sure reality that they would no longer be an official part of their biological family.  And no amount of showering of love and gifts can replace that loss.  So, of course, we need to be sensitive.  I’ve heard of some families that ask their adopted child every year how they feel about it and if it is something they want to celebrate.  Some years, they are sad and don’t want to celebrate, and some years, they do.

 

That said, one of my favorite things in our house—one of the few things I would try to save in a  house fire, is the thing that commemorates the finalization of our adoption.  This surfboard.  We threw a big party when everything was done, and I wanted something that everyone could sign.  I didn’t want to do a mat for a picture frame.  I wanted something more personal.  As we thought about it, we came up with the idea of a surfboard.  John loves to surf and we love the ocean and we live fifteen blocks from the beautiful blue Pacific.  And on top of that, when we chose D’s name, the one thing that sealed it for us was that D meant “son of the sea”.  Our house is an old beach cottage style and it just seemed like the perfect fit on all levels.  A friend of ours went through his boards and gave one to use that his kids used to use.  It was signed and dated by the surfboard maker and had been built in the 70’s.  It was perfect.  Well, not yet.  It was perfect later after everyone had written a special note to D on the night of this perfect party.  This board hangs in his room, and I often stop and read the signatures and the messages and remember what an incredible time that was.  After so many heartbreaks, this dream had finally come true.  The adoption finalized when he was sixteen months old, and each birthday since, we have stood it up, and marked his height in red up the center of the board, so it’s meaning is growing each new year.  There are expressions of love and sweet messages from kids on there, and there are things like "Scharpf Forever" and "remember your mother is always right" and clever bits of advice, often about surfing or being happy.  But I think my favorite one is a simple phrase...."And then there were 3."  It makes me tear up every time I read it.  I think that summed up that day best of all.  One of these pictures shows a photo behind the board and a teddy bear.  The photo was taken the day we finalized as we celebrated....where else?  On the beach, and on a surfboard.  The bear is wearing the onesie I made for our little Isaac who was returned back to his birth father after five months.  Many thought that onesie belonged to D, but he never wore it.  It's been on that bear since the day Isaac left.  I thought it fitting he be there to help us celebrate.  It makes that statement even more meaningful and powerful to me.  And then there were 3.

To read more about some of the memories mentioned in this post, see these links:

Our failed adoption:

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2012/01/the-one-that-got-away-memories-of.html

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2012/12/giving-my-baby-back-worst-day-of-my-life_9.html

What kind of adoption language to use or not use:

http://weareadopted.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-not-to-say-regarding-adoptionnot.html

The Other Mommy, and Why It's Important to Love Her

Oh my gosh, I can't express how much
I love this kid!  Is he the cutest, or what?!

It’s 4 a.m. and I just spent a half an hour helping my sweet son go back to sleep.  These are tiring, yet precious moments.  There is something about 4 a.m. that brings clarity of mind as I sit there with his little hand in mine as he drifts back off to a peaceful, dreamy state.  These last few months have been emotionally draining for me, for reasons I won’t go into except to say I’ve been sorting through a lifetime of struggles that have, for one reason or another, come to the surface lately.  It’s as if I’ve been shooting wiper fluid onto the windshield of my life and clearing all the dirt and bugs and haze away, and am able to see more clearly.  I wish it was that easy, but the good thing is that it is definitely making it easier to drive.  I had a conversation with D (my son) in the car a couple of months ago.  We have always been very open about his adoption, but he is only three years old, and it’s not like it comes up in conversation all the time.  He doesn’t understand the concept at this age, and frankly, we are busy living life and it just isn’t a topic that comes into everyday life, as we go to the park and have dinner and read books.  So months pass, and I started to realize that I didn’t want to have a big sit down discussion with him one day to say “hey, you’re adopted”.  My goal has always been that he just knows.  I want him, when he’s older, to be able to say “I’ve always known I was adopted”.  I don’t want there to be a moment he found out, as if it was a deep dark secret we were keeping from him. Children think secrets mean something is wrong, and more specifically, wrong with them, and I never wanted him to feel that there was anything wrong with the way he came to us.  I am learning that this is easier said than done.

Think about it.  How many times, and at what age, did you sit your child down and discuss conception and their birth with them?  And is it something you worked in to their everyday lives?  Probably not.  Anyway, one morning, a few months ago, I started to think that I needed to make more of an effort to slip it casually into conversations, so it just becomes knowledge.  I have done this before, but that’s easy when they are two.  When they are almost four and able to have conversations and ask tons of questions but not yet fully comprehend concepts, it becomes more difficult because they can hear you and understand your words, but not the meanings.  Which can just lead to confusion, not clarity.  So, this particular morning, we were driving and somehow babies and whatnot came up in the conversation and I said something to him about when he was born and how he was with his other mommy.  I thought it was innocent enough.  But I saw his face fall through the rear view mirror, and I heard the fear and concern in his voice when he said “aaawww.  But I don’t want to be with another mommy!”  And I realized this is going to be harder than I thought.  It was a heartbreaking moment.  It didn’t occur to me that the word “mommy” to D had a wide range of meanings.  It is the person he lives with.  The person he spends all day with, playing and going to the zoo and bathing and tucking him in at night.  In his little mind, he was afraid of having to go do all those things with someone else that he didn’t know.  I quickly reassured him that he wasn’t going anywhere else with anyone else, and that I was his mommy and he would stay with me.  But throughout the day, his concern was vocalized several times.  “But I don’t want to go with another mommy!"  It would just come out randomly.  And I would hug him and say, “honey, you aren’t going anywhere.  You are staying with mommy and daddy.”  

Fast forward to a couple of days ago.  I had decided to leave it at that, and approach the subject later when he was more able to understand the idea.  We were talking about birth and how he was born (or “borned” as he says) in a hospital.  I was sticking to ideas he could understand.  “You were so tiny!  You were just a little, tiny baby and you were in the hospital.  Later, we got to bring you home and you were my tiny little baby.  You were so small and mommy fed you and held you.”  He has been fascinated with babies lately, and he will crawl into my arms and lay down and say “I want to be a baby again”, and we will pretend for a minute or two that he is so tiny and that I’m feeding him with a bottle.  And then I will tell him all the cool things he can do now that he couldn’t do as a baby, and he will laugh and add to the list, and then be happy with being three.  So, this particular day as we were discussing how small he had been and how he was born in the hospital, he said “when I was with my other mommy?”  I was blown away that not only did he remember an extremely short conversation, but that he had put it in its proper context.  And what was even more amazing, was that he wasn’t afraid.  He said it, I said “yes, when you were with your other mommy” and that was it.  He was satisfied, and we moved on with the day.  It was probably a more powerful moment for me than for him. 

The thing is, I want her to be a part of him.  I want him to know that there is room in my heart for her and that I am not afraid for him to love her.  She passed away before D was even a year old, so he will never get to meet her in this life.  But she is forever a part of him.  And she is forever a part of me.  She gave me a gift that I cannot repay, and there is love enough to go around.  One day I hope to meet her and I want to be able to show her an amazing man and reassure her that she made a good choice.  And I want D to have nothing but good feelings towards her.  So we will continue to, age appropriately, talk about his “other mommy” and the contribution she made to his life.  They may not always be easy conversations, but they will always be important.

What Not to Say Regarding Adoption....Not That We All Agree...

One thing I have learned during the whole, long adoption process is that we participants are a touchy bunch!  Like many adoptive parents, my journey began with years of failed fertility treatments, during which I got tired/annoyed/offended/whatever you choose to call it, at the comments people would make about everything from why I probably could not get pregnant, to what other things I should try, to why how I should be grateful for all the things in my life and not worry about it.  Blah, blah, blah.  As we have moved through the adoption process, and especially as we experienced a failed adoption, more opinions were offered up—opinions from people who had never experienced adoption in any form and yet seemed to have clear answers for us.  And now that we have an amazing little boy, more questions and comments come.  Not all of them are unwelcome, but some are said without much thought, that is for sure. I read somewhere recently that children don’t process intent until about five years of age.  In other words, when they are acting out at you, or treating another child badly, there is no intent of hate or animosity behind their actions.  The article made a point that has stuck with me.  It said something about how their actions aren’t at all about how they feel about the person they are mistreating, but they are all about how that child feels about him or herself.  For example, a three-year-old girl hits another child.  It has nothing to do with whether or not they like that child.  It has to do with how she feels about herself—maybe she felt threatened, or insecure, or jealous or frustrated, and most likely none of those feelings had anything to do with that child.  It is often more about something going on at home that is causing feelings that she then takes out on someone else.  We are the ones that read too much into their actions.  They don’t hate.  They don’t really even process love.  They understand feeling secure and happy and cared for.  I think, more often than not, this is still true as adults.  Not the part about not understanding love or other feelings.  But I think the things that offend or anger or upset us say a lot more about how we feel about ourselves than how we feel about the person that was offensive or upsetting.  A secure person is much more able to brush those things off and not internalize them.

I was on a Facebook page centered on adoption recently, and the question was posed “What phrase or question concerning adoption bothers you the most?”  I was kind of fascinated by it and followed the thread for a few days.  There were so many things.  And interestingly enough, some phrases that some people really liked were completely despised by others.  I won’t go into all of them, but there were some universally disliked ones (and a few others I’d like to address) that I think are worth mentioning.  I know we all need to be a little less sensitive.  I know that certain terms and phrases bother us because of personal experience.  It was interesting to see how birth mothers were offended more often by terms used by adoptive parents, and vise versa.  And in general, I think we all need to relax and take a step back and understand that there usually isn’t negative intent behind the questions/comments.  Usually it is ignorance.  That said, I find there are a few terms that are universally unacceptable, and if you know someone who is adopting, or has adopted, or is considering adoption, you might want to take notes.

Birth Mom/Natural Mom/Real Parent/Child of your own:  There were a few conflicting opinions on “birth parent” and many preferred “natural parent”.  However DO NOT, under ANY circumstances us the word “real” in describing a birth mother or adoptive mother.  What does that mean, anyway?!  Some people use “real” in place of biological.  Don’t tell me I’m not my son’s real mom, when I have spent three and half years wiping tears, changing diapers, caring for him when he’s been sick, playing with him every day, and showing him all the love I possibly can.  Don’t say it!  You won’t like the response.  Don’t say his “real sister”.  Although some people differ on biological vs. birth vs. natural parent, we all agree that we dislike very much the word “real”.  Someone commented on the thread that they had seen obituaries that read something like “so and so is survived by two daughters and an adopted son.”  Uh, no.  Big no no.  I consider my son just that—my son.  No need or desire to ever specify how they came to be a part of the family, especially in an obituary.   And we’re not step-brothers or step-sisters.  We are brothers and sisters.  And if in doubt, ask the person what term they prefer.

Personal questions about the process:  Okay, everyone feels differently about what questions are appropriate.  Personally, as you can see by my blog, I am very open to any discussion.  However, I think we all agree that you need to use some discretion in asking and NEVER ask these questions in front of the child!!  Never ask how much the child cost, (even the less-offensive question of how much the adoption cost) should not be asked in front of the child.  No child wants to feel like a pound puppy who got his shots, papers and for a fee was able to go home with a nice family.  I don’t mind being asked about it, but not in front of my son.  Some people are offended by personal questions and I’ve heard them say “you wouldn’t ask biological parents what position they were in when they conceived, so why would you ask about the details of adoption?”  Again, just ask.  I like to share the experience with others.  But some don’t want to.  Ask first, and not in front of the kids, and don’t be offended if it’s too personal to share.  Just think if someone wanted a play-by-play of everything that happened from conception to birth, or if you had a miscarriage—some things are too private and/or too personal for some people to share, and we need to respect those boundaries.

Opinions about adoption when you have never been part of the process:  This is one that got to me (and still gets me).  Many times, people who have never been adopted or placed a child for adoption or adopted a child, will have very strong opinions about the process—where you should go (foster care, private, international, etc.), what kind of child to take or not take, how adopted children will act.  It amazes me that they are so opinionated, and yet would never consider adopting a child themselves.  I’ve had people tell me how difficult adopted children can be, as if biological children are a walk in the park.  Don’t say it.  I have one parade, and you’re raining on it.  I have one option to have a child and you are telling me that path is sub-par.  Don’t say it.  Be supportive and show love—that’s the best thing you can do.  Any parent knows that life raising a child always has challenges.  Just because my challenges may look different than yours doesn’t mean it will be any less joyful and fulfilling.  And my guess is that 95% of our challenges will be very similar.

In general, as I said above, I think our sensitivity to the subject says more about how we feel about ourselves than about the person asking the insensitive question.  I believe that if we are okay with who we are, then a lot of that stuff just rolls right off of our backs and we don’t care.  But, it is something very close to our hearts, and it’s hard sometimes to not get emotional about it when someone refers to my beautiful little boy as not my real child.  If in doubt, pull the person involved aside and ask in sincerity what terms he or she prefers, and my guess is that 99 percent of the time, they will appreciate you for being sensitive and caring and showing so much respect.

If you are navigating the adoption process, or know someone who is , check out my post about seven things you should not say to people going through the process:

It’s a Marriage, Not a Birth: Get Over It. Love It. Embrace it.

I’ve been told that adoption is more of a marriage than a birth.  I think that is pretty accurate and the older the child is at the time of adoption, the more of a marriage it is.  At first I thought that because we got D when he was so young, that this wouldn’t really be as true for us, but it is.  Think about the differences between a birth and a marriage.  A birth is when a human life enters the world not ever having known anything else but his mother and father.  I add father because even though he hasn’t physically touched his father until birth, he is still made up of DNA and other physical things that came directly from his father—things that physically touched him.  This child has known no other life besides his own and in some degree, that of his parents.  An adopted child has a history before you—family, friends, DNA, culture, and so many other things—and that’s okay.  It’s even good, so embrace it.

As I’ve sat in numerous adoption and foster parent classes, I have been privy to many, many discussions, some which included me, and some to which I not-so-subtly eavesdropped.  It has been interesting to hear how many prospective adoptive parents would like to erase their potential child’s past and “move on”.  Things like drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, mental illness and so many more issues that have plagued various birth parents lives, become the reasons for criticism.  And keep in mind that many adoptions happen as the result of very coherent, deliberate choices by wonderful birth parents to place their children with families because they just don’t feel that they can give those children good lives.  Those choices are made out of a great love for their child and extreme unselfishness.  But, as one who has adopted out of our local foster care, I can say that most adoptions aren’t the result of a choice like that.  I believe that adoptive parents really need to face this fact:  adoption is not the same as a biological birth.  Accept it.  Mourn the loss of it, if that bothers you, and get over it.  It’s not the same and it never will be and that’s not a bad thing.  It’s just a different thing.

I remember sitting through a wonderful class that was all about how we need to not cut off all ties from a child’s birth family or the life they had before adoption.  The instructors taught about how continued visits with biological family long after adoption can be most beneficial to the child.  They taught us to not throw away clothes or blankets or anything from the child’s life before adoption because no matter how tattered and dirty those things might seem to us, they are one of the few connections that child has with their biological family and with a former life that is becoming more and more distant in his memory.  They talked about not changing their names (especially in older children) because it may be the only thing their mother ever gave them.  They talked about the difficulty in still having contact with the biological family, but that in many cases, that contact was very healing for a child.  They discussed how many adoptive parents don’t want the hassle of more extended family, or regular visits, or dealing with people that aren’t their own family.  They said often adoptive parents are insecure that a child might perhaps love someone else more than them, and maybe want to return to live with that family, but that on the contrary, usually what happens is that the adopted child realizes this was the better choice for him and is happier to have discovered that for himself.  Ironically, right after the bulk of this class was taught, I heard an adoptive father turn to someone else during a break and say “Well, I’m severing those ties as soon as possible.  I know what’s best for my child and they aren’t it.”  I was totally surprised that he had missed every single principle taught in that class, and I felt sadness at how his child may feel, not only with his parents’ attitude towards where he came from, but also without that connection that might have helped him to heal more quickly and more completely.  Adopted children need to sort through all these things at their own pace, not at a pace that is more convenient for us.  A marriage is two people entering in to a contract, with risks on both sides.  Don’t forget it’s a risk for the child to take you, too, and he never asks for you to leave your past behind.

Adoption is a wonderful thing.  If you have read any of my blog entries, then you already know how I feel about it.  But it is the marrying of two worlds.  It is two or more people that aren’t blood-related coming together just like in a marriage.  As you willingly step into that union, remember that you are taking that child to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until…well, I know the traditional vows ends with “til death do us part”, but I believe in the eternal nature of families, so I will replace that with “forever and ever”.   

It ain't over til it's over: The harsh reality of waiting to finalize

I once made a comment about how I might not have to go through nine months of pregnancy and the delivery and all that, but that I had my own frustrations with the adoption process.  A sympathetic friend of mine said something like, “yes, but at least when you birth a baby you know it’s yours.”  And let me just say, that is one of the wonderful benefits of physically birthing a child.  The image in this post is a document we had to sign the day we took D home (Sorry it’s a bad copy—I’ve transcribed it at the bottom of this post if you can’t read it—D’s birth name is blotted out for privacy purposes).  We sat across the table from our wonderful social worker, Ann, filled with excitement at the prospect of picking up our little baby from the transition center that day.  I have to say, signing this document put a slight damper on the event!  First, let me explain a little about D’s placement.  He was what is called “concurrent planning”.  That means that when a child is removed from his parent(s), and there is significant reason to believe he won’t be able to be reunified, then he is placed via concurrent planning into an adoptive home, bypassing traditional foster care.  Now, in California, a child has to be in your home for a minimum of six months before finalization can occur, no matter what the situation, so everyone who adopts is also licensed for foster care, because technically you are foster parents during that time.  However, there is a difference between people who go into it as foster parents, and those of us who are strictly in it to adopt.  I don’t take foster kids right now.  The only placement I will get is one we intend to adopt.  But, as a concurrent planning placement, it is a little riskier because you go into it knowing the parents haven’t relinquished rights, but because of past experiences (either they have lost other children to adoption because they wouldn’t complete the requirements to reunify, or they have a bad drug problem, or have not shown signs of complying, etc.).  I was told more than 80% of concurrent planning adoptions are adopted.  It is a little riskier, but it is also about the best chance of winding up with an infant.  My point is that we knew the risk, but we also went into this absolutely as an adoption—he was ours in my mind the moment I got the phone call.  The county saw us as his prospective adoptive parents.  However, when we had to sit down at the table and sign this document, my heart started pounding and a little of that fear I felt in losing our first placement, Isaac, began to inch up my throat.  John and I were required to read this out loud to Ann, like a couple of school children being disciplined for some crime we’d committed.  I know that it is just the state policy, but that’s how it felt.  If you want a little exercise in how it feels to not know what’s going to happen, read this document out loud and put your name and your child’s name(s) in the spaces and think about what that would mean—to know there is a chance (a one in five chance) you would have to give them back.  After we finished, we just sat there for a minute in the quiet, reminded that this process was far from over.  It would be 14 months before we could breathe a sigh of relief.  Raising kids is hard enough, no matter how much you want it.  Sometimes it’s hard to set aside the anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen, and focus 100% on bonding with your child.  But when you pick that baby up and take him home, it becomes impossible to not throw caution to the wind and just go for it.  

(Click here to read about our previous failed adoption)

Concurrent Planning Agreement

I/We Martin John Scharpf and Susan Scharpf understand that (D—not his birth name) a dependent child of the Juvenile Court, has not been freed for adoption and is being placed in my/our home as a foster child.

At this time, I understand that I am a foster parent first and foremost.  I/we will cooperate fully and foremost with the reunification process.  Including facilitating visits with the birth parent(s).  Failure to facilitate reunification may result in removal of the child from my/our home.

If the Juvenile Court orders the child to be returned to the birth parents, I/we will assist in transitioning the child to the birth parent(s).

Based on the available information provided to me/us regarding this child’s health/social history, it is my/our intent to adopt this child if the child is freed for adoption through relinquishment by the birth parent(s) or termination of parental rights through the Juvenile Court,

Concurrent planning has been explained to me by San Diego Health and Human Services Agency and I/we accept the conditions listed above.

The One That Got Away: Memories of a failed adoption.

  My little Isaac has been on my mind a lot lately.  I don’t know why.  It’s been just over four years since we lost him.  It’s not the anniversary of anything—not his birthday, or the day we took him home, or the day we lost him back to his biological father.  Maybe it’s because we have finally gotten back on the list to adopt our second child in the last couple of weeks.  Whatever it is, I’ve been thinking about him a lot more than normal.  Sometimes when people hear about our failed adoption, they make comments about how it’s good that we’d only had him five months or else it would have been even more difficult.  But the thing is, I always saw him as my child.  I bonded with him the first moment I heard about him over the phone, and by the time I held him for the first time at the foster mom’s house, I was done.  He was mine.  He was a low risk adoption—99% guaranteed to go through.  His mother relinquished rights and hand-picked us out of the pool of waiting couples.  She told us she didn’t know who the father was, and that she’d hidden her pregnancy from everyone, so nobody knew about this precious baby boy except herself and the social workers, and of course, us.  After years of failed fertility treatments, including two very difficult and unsuccessful runs at invitro, and then more than a year and a half getting through the process to get on the list for adoption, this amazing boy was ours.  I was elated.  I finally got to be the one at the baby shower on the receiving end, holding the cute little baby and telling my story.  It was a most wonderful time.  And then, the hammer fell.  To keep the story short, the birth mother had lied about everything, and after placing him with us, called the birth father to tell him he had a son, but that he couldn't have him because he’d been placed for adoption.  She looked us in the eye and told us she didn’t know who the father was and that she hadn’t told him, but she had.  It took a while for him to get the paternity test, and a few weeks before Christmas, he came to take his son.  That is all a story for another blog entry, but I just wanted to say that it didn’t matter that it was “only five months” (and it is still very painful to hear that comment from people).  We were devastated.  We had lost our long-awaited child.  We had a deep bond with him, and he had become a precious part of our lives.  I still have a hard time talking about it, and this is the first time I’ve written about it since just after it happened.  We still miss him.  I think about him every day, and I still shed tears every now and then when I look at photos and think of that difficult day when I put him in the car seat and kissed him good-bye, so afraid that he would feel I had abandoned him.  He is doing well now.  These pictures were taken two days before his father took him home.  I had been crying all week, and praying for strength.  I asked my friend to take some pictures of us so I could have some final shots of us together.  And in an answer to that prayer (although not the answer I REALLY wanted!) I woke up that Friday morning calm, and more prepared to face the impending weekend events.  
The strange thing was that I could not get him to smile, and that was very unusual.  I tried playing with him, as you can see in the photos, but no smile.  It was as if he knew a traumatic change was coming and he just wasn’t his normal self.  But, I’m happy with the way they turned out, and glad we were able to capture a sweet moment with him before he went away.I still consider him my first son, even though when people ask, I say that D is the first.  In my mind, D is our second, but I keep Isaac tucked in a special spot deep in my heart that I can only pull out in private.  D will never take his place, although he did fill a deep void when he came to us a year and a half later.  If you know someone who had a failed adoption, I hope you never say "well at least he was only ____ months old", and I hope you never assume the next child will ever take his place.  You would never think that if you lost a biological child.  It is such a painful experience, and it doesn't ever go away.  I know he is with his father who wanted him so deeply, and I know that’s where he needs to be, but my sweet little Isaac will always be the one that got away.