Adoption Here We Come - Part 2

Have I mentioned that I am a ‘Planner’? God and I have this power-struggle that has gone on through the years it goes like this …. I Plan, God throws me a curve ball, I fight it, after some time I readjust my Plan, and then God hits me in the head thus walking me to first base kicking and screaming, s/he shows me who is boss. And, I am not it! When I was about 17 years old, I was quite an introspective teen, there was some issue – don’t remember what it was – and my Mother told me “Hand it over to God and let his will be done”. My response, “What if God and I don’t want the same thing?” There’s’ some insight into my personality!

After planning that we would adopt a 5 to 7 year old, with flexibility of going down to three years of age if the perfect child was presented and agreeing on only one child we started the process all over again. Then out of the blue a friend called, her son and his girlfriend were in trouble, which had already lost custody of their first child to a family member. The girl had just delivered a baby boy; there were no family members available to take the child, would we be interested in fostering the child until the parents got back on their feet.  My friend was not able to take the child, though she dearly loved the grandson she had yet to meet and was trying to find the best solution for him. It was a generous offer to be trusted to foster a friend’s grandson but fostering was not the path in which we were interested. After a few days, and some additional thought, my Husband said to me “We have love, a good family and a life we can provide a child, that is our desire, and if that child is here temporarily instead of permanently then aren’t we still achieving our goal?” That was it, maximum daily word usage achieved, but it altered our decision.  However, somewhere the process moved from custody to adoption. The process begun, the birth parents were in agreement, we hired an attorney, filed paperwork, talked to the social workers involved in the state in which the baby was born. This was it; I was going to finally get my boy. I, We were overjoyed.

But, a new born? Really? Us? This entailed another lengthy conversation, this conversation may have lasted an entire five minutes. I am going to start timing our critical conversations for reporting purposes.  We discussed this tabula rasa, if we took on an infant, any emotional issues later in life could be blamed on no one other than ourselves, ouch!  So we planned, we would take on an infant, risk our own errors on the child, love him unconditionally, and Jose would be the primary care giver. In essence he would be the Mama and I would be the Papa of traditional roles, think June Cleaver in this century.

Here it was a boy, a boy for me, YEAH, what I had always wanted, though not a little black boy and an infant to top it off. I can be flexible, see God, you are throwing me a curve ball and I am game.  And, Yep, I’m planning, I can be the secondary-care-giver, no problem.

We were on a fast track program here, paperwork needed to be submitted while the parents still had custody of the child, custody allowed them to still make life decisions for the baby. We attempted to contact an attorney we know through someone else but phone calls weren’t returned timely. So, I let my fingers do the walking and found an attorney through the phone book – well actually through the internet but, it’s the same thing.  During the initial contacts the attorney was great, lets call him Mr. Not-Organized, during our first meeting when asked he told us he had experience with out-of-state-adoptions. Does foreshadowing come to mind?

Weeks passed into months communicating with the birth parents via my friend, working to obtain the necessary information from them for the paperwork, all while the baby remained in the hospital from neonatal addiction syndrome (NAS). Up to that point I had never dealt with continuous drug users, nor experienced their capacity to blatantly lie regardless of the situation or parties involved. During these months our local attorney Mr. Not-Organized was failing us, I was rapidly losing faith in him. He did not advise us of some critical interstate paperwork required for adopting from another state, in my opinion putting this increasingly risky relationship with the birth parents, at greater risk.  Nor, did Mr. Not-Organize submit the background checks necessary for adoption.

My nerves were frayed. I still had not received our background checks to send to the state in order to complete the paperwork, this was a significant issue since we could not even visit the baby without state approval, which would not be granted until the background checks were completed. I called the attorney for the fourth time and finally spoke to his wife, the office manager, who we were told at the onset of our agreement could answer any questions in his absence and his absence from communicating with us had been quite lengthy.

I railed, I lost it, and my body was shaking with anger and fear of what could go wrong. I was upset with my husband, today I am not sure that I had a right to be upset with him, but at that moment I was certainly within my rights. I felt he wasn’t aggressive enough with Mr. Not-Organized; I wanted a gun (figuratively) held to the attorney’s head. The attorney finally returned our call, of course it was after I lost it with his wife, and he let my Husband have it, I was aggressive and angry and I should not have been because his wife was sick (was it true? How would I have known?). And that I upset her greatly. I am not sure what Husbands response was, nor did I want to know, because if it was not of the same tone my response would have been it would have been a knock-out-drag-out fight between us. My rampage was not mild, nor was it nice, nor was I apologetic in any fashion for my rant, to this day I have no apologies to extend, we paid this attorney a significant retainer fee, and I expected him to earn his salary. We fired him shortly thereafter, we certainly were not refunded any of the retainer fees, an attorney that does not complete his work timely will certainly fudge the billed hours and he did.

The search was on for a new attorney.

On a trip to Cleveland, upon arriving early evening from work to the hotel I begin to contact attorneys in Washington, cold calling and interviewing. One attorney, was kind and helpful, he spent an hour on the phone with me offering advice. I kept thinking I found the right attorney, finally, but something held me back from committing to him. Later in the conversation he mentioned another attorney, a female, Mirisa that could also be of assistance if I didn’t feel a kinship to him (obviously a man of much insight). The next day, I heard her name again.  A friend who had contacts in Washington, and had worked with Mirisa, gave her an excellent reference.  I now had heard her name twice inside of 12 hours, I thought it a sign from God, and so I called her. She returned my call when I was at the airport coming home, nonetheless we had a good chat, I hired her on the spot, every instinct in my body told me she was the one for us. It turns out that she was our Angel on Earth, and to her we will always be grateful.

The following week she went to work, speaking with my friend, the baby’s grandmother, talked to the state caseworker, and meet with the birth parents to obtain the necessary paperwork for an open adoption and custody paperwork. The birth parents had committed to the adoption however, she wanted to be prepared in case they opted for another solution. Both parents were drug users, the baby boy had been hospitalized for almost five months, they had lost custody of their first born to the birth mothers father. We still had not met with the birth parents, we had been working through an intermediary.

Our attorney met with the birth parents on a Saturday afternoon, at a fast food restaurant. Transportation for them was always problematic; they had no vehicle, no license and no money for public transportation, on a Saturday that could obtain a ride easier. Even though we weren’t present I can see it clearly, of course Mirisa did an excellent job of filling us in on the details. The birth mother walked in slouching inwards as if to minimize her existence on earth she viewed the inhabitants of the restaurant with untrusting bloodshot eyes. He walked in closely behind her, reaching for her hand, he too was frail and thin, though his stride had considerably more confidence. He had trust in his Mother that she would not guide him wrong, the girl had no one to trust other than him. He was not allowed any contact with his first born or allowed any information which hurt him greatly, for he loved her tremendously, he had been her principal care giver the first eight months of her life. They found Mirisa and sat. It was clear to any observer that the two were drug users. Their clothes, their forbearance screamed of a life of illicit chemical use and the poverty it caused. Mirisa with patience and simple words explained their options; they could either proceed with an open adoption (which was incredibly generous with mandatory visitations at our expense, weekly contact, and much more) or move to giving us permanent irrevocable custody.  On several occasions Mirisa and my friend had already recommended to them to contact their state appointed attorney

The birth parents asked very few questions, Mirisa went over both documents several times, they were finally willing to sign. It was determined that they would sign both documents, think about it over the weekend, and call Mirisa on Monday to let her know which option they would proceed with. When Mirisa called later I sighed with a sense of relief, paperwork was signed, something would start moving.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The signing of the documents occurred in May, and the struggles had only begun. Unbeknownst to us our friend had mentioned to the birth mothers father (who had custody of the first born) that we were adopting the new baby. The Birth-Grandfather was not happy with that scenario and begun to take action, finding someone of his choosing to adopt his grandson. 

To Be Continued......

© Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Adoption Here We Come! Part 1

My husband, Jose, and I found each other late in life.  It is actually a love story that took almost 25 years to percolate; we are both a little slow. I once asked him why it took him so long to fall into a permanent relationship, however, I already had the answer in my mind, not allowing him enough time to reply I answered for him, “It took all this time for you to mature.” Because he is smarter than the average bear, he countered with a “What about you, why did it take you so long?” Of course my response was that I was waiting for the right man.  For you see, even if men and women have similar experiences, the reasons are always different.

Three years into our marriage (State of Texas paperwork submitted at the courthouse as Common-Law Marriage, recognized by law, the IRS and our insurance company) we both decided we wanted a child – Adoption here we come!

At the time of our decision I was 48 years old, obviously I had lost my mind in wanting to have a child at my age. I am a planner and happiest when there are no surprises, no curve balls and have planned my path forward. The path does not have to be the easiest route, or even a straight route, but it must be planned for me to feel a sense of peace.  Because of our age and my very demanding work schedule my idea of the perfect adoption was an older male child, preferably a child that could drive in a few (like one or two) years to limit his dependence on me, or better yet provide a designated driver for my parents to doctors appointments, grocery store, and fun outings, etc…. How wonderful to have a child to love, care for and nourish in todays’ world but one old enough to forgo night time feedings, potty training, and the full demand on ones time. An older child sounded like a perfect fit into our established routines.

We attended a state workshop to learn more about adopting a child in state custody. The video portion of the class was a gruelingly heart wrenching experience. The video was narrated in a child’s voice, the unseen child asked for a family, a home, food, medical care and above all love, patience and understanding. The child described that his reactions to a new environment displaying love and care may cause him to retaliate with anger, denial and resentment as a natural mechanism of protection, that his greatest fear is being vulnerable and allowing himself to accept love for fear of it being taken away later, as it already has happened, usually more than once in his young life. Here was vulnerability planting itself in my face once again. I wept silently in a room full of strangers and my husband beside me for all of the young children in this world who were not provided what God intended for any child. I wept for their pain, praying through my tears that these children would find peace. I wept because I could not save them and heal their wounds. I wept for the children that do not find homes, graduating out-of-the-state-care structure without a support system to help them through life. I wept because I wanted them to know the unconditional love of a family and the strength that comes with that love. I wept. I controlled my tears, I pushed beyond the emotion and said prayers nightly for weeks for these unseen children. Damn, I hate admitting vulnerability, particularly publicly.

I learned through the workshop and talking to state workers that an older child is much harder to integrate into a household, not impossible but more challenging. In one off-the-record-after-hours calls with a state worker she recommended that we attempt to adopt a much younger child particularly due to my work schedule. I travel (at that time) four to five days almost weekly, it would be greatly unfair to bring an older child in the house and then not be available for him daily.  My husband has a less demanding job, but we live together with my parents and it would be unfair to them to bring into the household a child with emotional and/or physical without me available on a daily basis.

I will take a rabbit trail here and explain the living situation. We are like the Mexican Ewing’s (you know JR, Bobby, Miss Ellie and family - 'Southfork', the TV show from the 80's for the young readers if there are any). 

After a brief discussion (my husband doesn’t have long discussions, he has a maximum word limit per day) we decided that we would adopt a child from the age of 5 to 7 years of age. We began the process, realizing that it could easily be two to three years down the road before a child was found for us and generally we would begin with a foster situation making ourselves available for adoption if the state deemed it appropriate. It looked more and more likely that this would not happen, for how could I become a first time Mother at the age of 50 or 51, it didn’t seem like a good idea to me. So Planner that I am, we set an age-limit to how long we would attempt to adopt before we stopped the process.

To be Continued......

© Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.