Good morning [caseworker],
Well it took me a little time to be able to send this email... Cody is back with his father.
It was a tremendously heartbreaking experience to go through. I can't believe how many different emotions you feel when you have a child staying with you, even temporarily. It makes me respect those parents who can do foster care about a million times more than I already did.
It also makes me certain of the choice I made to go straight for adoption and not do foster care.
I was so ready to make a place for Cody in my home, in my family and in my life. It was a hard choice to make but once I'd thought through as much of it as I could at one time, I had made the choice to choose him and for me, that started the really hard part of letting him then choose us and then talking to his parents. It was hard because I once I decided I wanted him with us, I didn't want anyone else to come along and tell me no. Additionally, I started to realize the enormity of that choice. That my parenting, my family, my household - it was all going to get harder because I would be fitting a new child, a male child, into it. And I knew it would be a long time before I could relax again about it all.
Anyway, his mother couldn't have cared less. But when I called his dad, it turned out he cared quite a bit. He said he had no idea the situation that Cody was in, not having a place to live and with his mother not caring one way or another. He said he would be down that weekend to pick him up. Just like that, all the thinking and preparation I had done both alone and in conversations with my girls, was done.
I talked to his dad several times on the phone about Cody, and Cody's life, and Cody's future. His dad is scared, overwhelmed, at the prospect of raising this teenaged boy. But he is scared and overwhelmed because he wants to do a good job. He wants to be a dad.
As this all was happening, I reflected back on your class. I kept telling myself that it is best for a child to be with their parents. That reuniting them is the goal. And I believe it too.
I will make myself available to Cody's dad as much as I can be. Even if he just needs someone to talk to when things aren't easy. But in the long run, I have to believe that this is what is best for everyone.
I feel like I learned so much from such a short experience... things I will take into my own adoption process as valuable lessons. It made me all the more certain that our family is ready for that little girl to be here. I hope that we find her soon.
Thank you so very much for being someone I could talk to about this while it was all going on and all overwhelming me. You've truly been a friend.
~KHE

Labels: adoption, Being Mommy, my crazy life