The Journey Home

Last year, at this time, we had a beautiful 8 year old in our care for the second time. Flash back to November 2012, when a beautiful little 4 year old bright brown eyed girl stole my heart. She was in the care of our music minister at the time along with her younger brother. I wrote a blog about this precious life before, but I will allude to this time for a brief reminder. My thoughts on being a mom were practically non-existent at this point in my early 30’s and even I was concerned that my mom gene was dormant. However, this neglected, emotionally detached little girl won my heart, she woke up that mom gene to full flare and my husband and I set out on a quest to adopt this precious one from foster care.

She experienced life with us for eight months, even enduring the loss of one pregnancy and celebrating the joy of another soon after. All this time knowing that we desperately wanted her to be a part of our forever family. We had set out on this journey with our friends who were also trying to adopt her little brother and we had a wonderful plan for these two little gifts from God. We lived close by and the children would grow up together in the same church, play together, go to school together, and still be able to experience life together forever. However, the foster system had other plans. We were not chosen as her forever home and neither were our friends for her brother. They were placed together in a foster to adopt home only to be sent back into the system for four more years moving from home to home.

During these four years of unknowing what had ever happened to this beloved child, we prayed every night for her and her brother to be safe, healthy and happy. Even with the birth of our daughter in December 2013 my heart ached over the loss I felt losing this dear little girl who I still considered my child and would always. I thank God for her because she made me truly want to be a mom and opened my heart up to love I never knew, especially for a child that was not biologically mine. In this time we were asked if we would like to continue to adopt another child and we knew in our hearts she was the only child we desperately wanted and let our adoption process go and didn’t renew. We were told that she was adopted, and not in the system and so we took that for what it was without questioning.

My heart never lost sight of what this little girl meant to me and never would. During the four years she was placed from home to home with her brother, only to be told by several homes that they wanted to adopt her brother but not her, she was too challenging. We found this out in the Spring of 2016 when we were divinely reunited with her and her brother by fellow foster parents who reconnected with our friends who we started the initial adoption with. Gosh, I had never been more excited to see this precious little girl, who was now 8 and it really was a homecoming for us both. We promised we would not let what happened before happen again and set out to try to see if we could revisit the adoption process again with our friends hoping for the intended outcome from before.

We found out that she had experienced abuse within at least one of her homes and she had been labeled a therapeutic child within the foster system which caused her even harder placement. Her brother was also therapeutic at this point and the system still wanted them to be placed together. When they came back to be with our friends and she with us for respite and every weekend and whenever we could have her, she fell right into step with us and our daughter whom she even wrote a story to about how she was the first one to know and hear our daughter’s heartbeat with us and about the baby we lost. About 6 months into the process our friends determined that it would satisfy the system for them to adopt them both and so they began the process of fostering to adopt. My heart broke knowing that I would not be able to “legally” be this girl’s mother, but it was comforting to know that I would always be in her life.

About 8 months in to this sacred time of having her home, at least I consider it having her home, she began to act out in ways that were very disturbing and difficult, especially for her foster family. Having biological kids of their own that were having a hard time adjusting to some of the behavior, our friends after very careful and heartfelt consideration determined that they just could not continue with the adoption (at least not of this girl). Due to the trauma that she had experienced within homes she had been passed around to through the system she was acting out disturbingly and getting a grasp on her emotions and actions were becoming harder and harder. She needed more care than our friends and essentially we could offer. Having to consider my own child and my husband’s concerns, we had to forego our adoption desire too. This literally was the hardest decision I had ever made up to this point in my adult life.

Who knew that a child, that was not even “yours” by legal standards, could completely encompass your whole heart. I was so angry, heart broken in its truest form, and at a loss. I was told due to her needs I would need to consider leaving my job (which holds mine and my family’s insurance) and become a full time stay at home parent to her. This just wasn’t something I was capable of doing at that time. I was devastated. For her birthday in January I gave her a silver locket with her name on it and engraved with “you are loved” in hopes she would never doubt the love that I truly have for her, as a mother has for a daughter. She left us at the end of January 2017.

Since, she and her brother went to live in a therapeutic foster home, with which from my understanding her brother continues to remain. This sweet, beautiful girl has since had more issues to where she has been removed from the home with which her brother resides and has had been placed somewhere else. My anger, which once I had turned on myself for not being enough and failing this child, has since been turned on a system which has failed these two children, especially her. My story is that if we would have been able to adopt her at five and our friends her brother, at two, their outcome would have been much different.

I write this blog, first- to express my pain and hurt over losing such a precious little one (twice) that I continue to love with all of my heart and will always (and hope one day she will come home to me no matter how old she may be), second- to name how flawed a system is that fails children (yes, there are some success stories within the system, but when you’ve been on the receiving end and have seen how it can fail children, you can’t help but name it and only hope beyond hope it can change– which I don’t know many who have faith that it will), and third- no child is too “damaged” or “unlovable,” NO CHILD. They just need stability, structure and someone to continue to love them unconditionally. That’s what they are longing for, though they may never be able to name that for themselves. They need someone who will invest in them and show them that they are worth investing in. It may not be easy, but I believe it is worth it.

So this year, my heart will continue to miss the beautiful, brown eyed, blond haired girl and hope with all I have that she is safe, happy and feeling the love that she needs and deserves. I know I’m sending mine to her. Everyday.