I had an interesting conversation with Corey when we were adopting him...because he was older, but not quite old enough to figure what was going on...one day i sat him down and talked to him about adoption...it was a brief conversation....went something like this.....
Me: Corey, dad and I were thinking about adopting you.....would you like that?
Corey: what does adoption mean?
Me: well, adoption means that you stay with one family forever and not have to go to another one. Dad and I would be your mom and dad, forever. What do you think of that?
Corey: what would change?
Me: nothing, nothing would change, everything would stay the same as it is now.
Corey: okay, I'll be adopted.
And that was that!
It was quite sometime before we had any other foster children in our home.....for one thing they have this rule about an adoption probation time...that's a time when they figure you need to get to know your new child and shouldn't have any foster children to take your attention....with us, obviously, that wasn't the case...but CAS sticks to their rules....also, there was the whole black balling/listing thing when we refused to play by the rules with Lauren's case.
Lauren and Corey's adoptions went through in the August and early September and we really didn't receive our next call until the following May!
That was when little Tiffany came......Tiffy, as we ended up calling her most of the time....was a sweet little five month old, who had sleep apnea. This condition opened up another world for me because Tiffy needed to be hooked up to a machine whenever she slept! I was scared silly.....good heavens, what would I do if something happened! A technician brought this machine to the house to give me a lesson......it was very intimidating.....sticking these electrodes onto her little body, every time she slept...I lived in fear that the monitor would go off!
Tiffy's mom, really couldn't look after her and had indicated that she wouldn't use the monitor....well, of course that's all CAS needed to take the child into care....she did live , for a short time , with her grandparents who lived outside of London, (about two hours drive away) but when CAS moved in the mother had her rights to visitation, and since the mother lived close to us ,the child had to be in this area for that to be accomplished.
Tiffy was brought to our home by her grandmother, who of course found it very difficult to leave her...I really didn't blame her. The agency also set up weekend visits with them so every other weekend this faithful grandmother would drive to our home and took Tiffy back with her for the weekend.
Tiffy never did have an apnea episode while in our care but the little monkey quickly learned how to set off the alarm! When she was a toddler , we'd put her to bed at night and be summoned by the alarm going off! We'd race in there and there would Tiffy be, sitting in her crib, holding the electrode wires and grinning! She knew exactly what she was doing! It got so that I had to put footless sleepers on her backwards at night so that she couldn't access the electrodes! She was a smart one!
Tiffany stayed with us from five months old til just after her second birthday. It was then the grandparents were granted full custody of her and she moved back to the London area. Everyone in the family, including extended family , loved Tiffy and we all grieved when she left.
I've had many people say to me....' I could never do what you do, I couldn't let them go, it would kill me' .......I would think to myself....you think we don't hurt, that we don't grieve...what, do you think my heart is carved in stone?
People would also say.....I couldn't do what you're doing ....I would look at what they were doing,...like some were full time teachers and some were full time day care providers.....I'd think ...well, I couldn't do what you're doing...I couldn't just look after and teach the child for a few hours and then send them home.....
I guess it's a good thing that we're all created differently since we're all needed to do different work....so, they couldn't do my job and I couldn't do their job, and so be it.
When Tiffy left we grieved for a long time....I couldn't even look at her crib and made Don take it down and put it away.....we weren't allowed to see her for three months, so she would not be confused and get used to the idea that her grandparents home was now her forever home...it was a very long three months.
I remember it was around the time of March break and I was doing a Vacation Bible School at our church....it was a huge undertaking, running a program for a hundred kids for the week....it was during this week that I received a call.
There was a little boy in need of a home....he was about two months shy of his fourth birthday and had been in another foster home for about a month but the foster parents were having some medical issues and their home was being closed.
Would we take this little guy? Of course we would!
~ Marie
No comments:
Post a Comment