Adoption Myth V: “I Will Never Survive a Failed Match”

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

This Myth builds from Myth IV which discussed the misconception that a perspective adopted family who chooses to adopt through the foster system must foster children first. As I said last week, there are over 100,000 emancipated children waiting for forever families.The chance that your child waits for you is high. All you have to do is find her.

Finding your child takes: 

• patience
• an open heart
• an open mind
• emotional strength
• the help of friends, family, strangers, and professionals
• hope and faith

My journey to parenthood was not a smooth one. Around the same time my husband and I discovered that starting a family the old fashioned way was out of the question, I met our future daughter. This little girl lived with a wonderful foster family who I grew to know and respect through work.

The five year old little girl they fostered, “B,” was vivacious, precocious, loving, funny, and kind. I fell in love at first sight. Because of her, I decided that adoption through the foster care system was what I needed to do. Immediately after I met her and learned that she would soon be legally emancipated and freed for adoption, I ran home and told my husband I had met our daughter. He agreed that we should do whatever it took to bring B home to complete our family.

We contacted the Children and Youth Services Agency (CYS) responsible for B’s case and quickly realized we needed to work fast because in a few short months they were choosing a family for B.

We did not have time to work solely with the CYS social workers so we hired a private adoption agency to complete our Home Study. With the help of the amazing team of social workers at CYS and at the private agency we got to work completing the mounds of required paper work. The information and steps required for completing a Home Study and being considered for adoption include but are not limited to:

1. Tracking down all your financial and medical records.
2. Taking classes to learn how to be a parent and how to cope with children with all   types of special needs.
3. CPR and First Aid classes.
4. Procuring criminal clearances including FBI fingerprinting and Child Abuse clearances.
5. Asking coworkers, friends, and family for letters of recommendation.
6. Creating a photo album of your family and home.
7. Creating a fire safety plan including  a map with fire escape routes.
8. Baby proofing.
9. Creating and decorating a separate space/room for the child to sleep.
10. Stocking up on toys, clothes, food, and toiletries for a child.
11. Completing in-depth questionnaire about all aspects of your life.

By the Fall we were ready. While we did all of this detailed work, I continued to bond with B. After a visit, I would run home and tell Jim every detail about her. I described her long blond hair and bright blue eyes. I told him how she climbed into my lap and hugged me. I told him the funny things she said and how sweet she was. He fell in love with her too even though he never met her.

                                                   

Much like a woman who is pregnant, I spent those months that we waited for B to arrive dreaming of our future life together. I dreamt of trips to the zoo where we hung out at the ape enclosure making funny faces at silly creatures, and then running with our noses pinched closed through the monkey house trying to escape the pungent odors. I pictured us running on a beach on a perfect Summer day giggling as errant waves unexpectedly crashed over our matching pink painted toes. I envisioned her after her bath with damp hair and warm skin that smelled like baby shampoo and lavender lotion snuggled in my arms as I read her bedtime stories until she fell away into sweet dreams. I planned our lives together right through her college graduation and wedding day.

For months the social workers helped us prepare. The foster parents told us over and over how my husband and I would be the perfect parents for B. They even advocated on our behalf with the social workers. We were nervous but confident that we would be selected as B’s forever family. Never did we think any other outcome was possible.

The day finally came. With racing hearts and sweaty palms we found ourselves sitting before the adoption selection board. The board, with the guidance of the social workers, chooses up to three families for each child to be considered as his or her adoptive parents. The board than interviews each family and reviews the all the paperwork and information about the child. After some debate, discussion, and voting, they match the child with his or her parents.

We sat before this board of five kind but serious faces and nervously answered their questions and shared our story. Before we knew it, we were done and sent home to await the call announcing their decision. In a fog of fear and hope, we drove the hour home and sat stiffly staring at one another willing the phone to ring. 

After an eternity it finally rang. I answered and listened intently as the social worker explained to me that the board really liked us. They thought we would make wonderful parents. They felt that someday they would be able to match us with a child. She said that B was matched with another family. 

My head started spinning and I suddenly got sweaty and weak. She went on to say that she hoped that Jim and I would “stick with” them. They had “plans” for us. If we could just “get past” this loss and keep coming to classes we would not regret it. All I heard was my heart breaking; splitting in two and crumbling into little shards that would never be used to love my precious B.

I fell into my husband and we cried. Then, the next heart breaking thing happened; we had to form the words to tell our families and friends who were anxiously waiting to hear our wonderful news. Knowing that you lost your child is one horrible thing but actually having to articulate it is another even more horrible thing.

The heartbreak took a toll and my husband and I. We felt lost and alone. We felt betrayed and disillusioned. We felt empty and angry. Each day was hard. Somehow, deep within in me I still had hope. I still believed that I would be a mom. I still knew that my child waited for me. I was not ready to give up. 

B turned out to be a guardian angel of sorts. Without my love for her and my quest to adopt her, I never would have met the girls who were meant to be my daughters.