What Is Best For YOU

In my previous post, I mentioned that The Boy was acting kind of off on the last day we spent with him in Florida.  Considering we were still getting to know him, Justin and I both wondered if we were just reading him wrong.

About two days after we got back from Florida, we got a call from The Boy's main caseworker.  And she gave us some heartbreaking news.

She reported that after we dropped him off where he lives the day we left, he and the caseworker walked back in the building and were going to go into a room and talk about how things went.  She said that they hadn't even gotten the door closed when his eyes welled up and he could hardly talk.

In panic, she asked him what was wrong.

"I don't really know how to say it," he said.

After some coaxing, she got him to open up.

The night before, after we'd had such a good day hanging out with him at the facility and talking at the beach, two of his biological family members called him.  And they said some very confusing things to him.  That they'd looked it up, and he was basically going to be the first black person in the state of Utah.  That he was too old to be adopted and that a white family could never accept him for who he was.

Obviously none of those things are true.  But.

But.

I can only imagine the emotional turmoil The Boy was going through.

He'd just had a good day with us, started making some bonds and connections.  But these were biological family members who were making him doubt.  These were people who had known him his entire life.

I don't want you to get me wrong.  I am in no way trying to make them look bad.  Because they were trying to protect him, they were showing concern for him.  I can't imagine how they must feel about this seemingly random family coming in, saying they will take care of this child, and then moving him most of the way across the country.  I'd be cautious too.

The caseworker asked him, "Well, did you like the family?"

"Yeah, I really did."

"So that has to be your decision," she told him.  "You have to remember that you're not with your biological family right now for a reason, and this decision has to be about what is best for you.  You can't let them make that decision for you anymore."

How hard must that be for a barely 14 year old boy?

I certainly wasn't ready for those kinds of decisions at his age.

With a few days to process, everyone reported to us that The Boy still felt good about moving forward with us.  But I will tell you, those few days until we got word were agony.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do if this boy, who I knew was supposed to be a part of our family, said he had changed his mind.  Thankfully, I didn't have to face that.

God's plan continues to move forward.

Coming up next: his visit to Utah.

The First Meeting

I think part of the reason I'm so behind in writing up these posts is because they're so overwhelming.  Every time I've thought about sitting down and trying to put the experiences into helpful and articulate words my chest tightens.  Because it's all so heavy and big, you know?  But the point of this blog is not only to chronicle everything we're going through, but to be a helpful resource to others who might go through this as well.

Anyway, on to the point of this post: OUR FIRST VISIT/MEETING OF THE BOY

As I stated before, our initial meeting and visit with The Boy took place the very next day after Full Disclosure.  In fact, we flew out that night after the meeting.  It was scary, and hard, and I was so overwhelmed, and yes, I did wish I had a few days to process EVERYTHING, but that's not how it works sometimes.  You can't always have control and not everything will work out in the ideal form.

In the 30+ hours leading up to meeting The Boy, I was nervous.  So nervous to the point that I couldn't eat anything.  We arrived in Florida (yes, The Boy is from Florida) at 5:30 AM, we hadn't slept more than a few minutes on the plane; though thankfully the kids slept pretty well.  We had a few hours to kill before the Teen Meet event, so we went to Ihop for breakfast.  I ordered something, but I didn't eat more than a few bites because I was so nervous.  After breakfast, we tried to sleep in the car for about an hour before we had to head over, but my brain was of course running a million miles a minute, knowing I was so close to finally meeting this boy I'd been hearing so much about for months, and one I'd anticipated meeting for nearly a year.

Finally, the time arrived, and we headed to the place the event was scheduled at.  We got there early, so we helped set up a little bit, and just waited, anxiously, for what felt like forever.

And of course The Boy was the last of the teen's to arrive.

One of his caseworkers first introduced us, and I'm sure the smile on my face looked ridiculous.  Hopefully all that nervousness wasn't showing too bad.  But I asked him if I could hug him, and he smiled and said yes, without hesitating.  While hugging this boy who is two inches taller than me, my eyes welled up, just a little, and my heart was so happy.  Thankfully I didn't immediately start crying, like I was worried I might.

The event was fine.  There were a LOT of people there, so it was loud and crowded.  We played games.  Got to talk, not as much as I anticipated, but some.  He was very quiet and we had to drag words out of him, but he seemed willing enough.

Kenzie challenged him to a race within a minute of meeting him, but then got all shy and worried when she really thought about how much bigger he is than her.  But she was excited to play with him, and he smiled when she challenged him.

Liam insisted on being The Boy's bodyguard during one of the games, though he didn't stand a chance at keeping up with The Boy.  He was ALL about being glued to The Boy's side during the entire event.

It went well.  Maybe not quite as well as I'd hoped for, but about how I expected.

We only spent a few hours together that day, and then the event was over.  His caseworker took him to run an errand for him, and we headed to our hotel.  The second we stepped foot inside, we crashed hard for a nap.  And that was it for the first day.

The second day started a little uncertain.  It took us a little while to get ahold of his caseworker, and we couldn't make any plans without her involved.  And he couldn't leave the facility he lives in without her there to take him out, and she lives over an hour away.  *sigh*

Finally, we were able to head to his facility and just hang out with him there on campus.  It was quiet and awkward for a little bit, but we settled into just talking at him.  We told him about the places we live (Utah and Washington).  Explained what school and life is like in both places.  We showed him a LOT of pictures.  Of our houses, of the kids, of just day to day stuff.  Of what the two different states look like.  He didn't say much while we showed him the pictures, but he seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Just before the caseworker got to the facility, we gave him the birthday presents (his birthday had been just a few days before we arrived) we'd brought for him.  Picking things wasn't easy.  We didn't know what he was allowed to have at the facility.  In the end we got him a Seahawks shirt (his favorite team), this retro handheld football game, and a nice duffle bag.  And I'm so relieved he loved them all.  Seeing his face light up was certainly a highlight of the trip.

Once the caseworker arrived, we decided to head out to the beach.  Which after we arrived, I got worried was a bust, because he said he hates sand, didn't wear a swimsuit, and didn't want to be in the heat too much.

But in the end, it worked out great.  Kenzie and Liam had a blast swimming in the waves.  And then Justin and I took turns talking to the caseworker, and talking to The Boy.  The caseworker talked to us about a lot of different things, and we further explained "why The Boy?"  And then we also talked to the Boy while he sat on the beach for quite a while.

He didn't say much to me.  Mostly I just talked at him because he didn't seem to know what to talk to me about.  Which is okay.  But he did open up with Justin quite a bit.  They just talked.  And they started to bond.

We wrapped up the day with dinner, and dropped him back off at the facility for bed.

The third, and last day, again, started off slow.  We had to wait for the caseworker to come down so we could take him off campus, and by the time she was able to arrive, we only had about 2 1/2 hours before we needed to head out for our flight.  So we took him bowling and got some lunch.

He was kind of quiet that day.  Reserved.  I felt like something was off, but I'd only spent 2 days with him, so I wasn't really sure I was reading him right.  Maybe more on the reason why in a later post.  But he tried.  He talked a little.  Got into the rivalry and competition of blowing.  Was very polite while we were out and about.

The time came and we had to take him back and head to the airport.  I was expecting this big, drawn-out and slightly dramatic goodbye.  But in the end it was quick and somewhat awkward.  We said goodbye in the parking lot of the facility.  And I saw his eyes looking back toward the buildings where the kids live, looking to see who was watching.

And I get it.

No teenager wants to be made fun of.  No one wants to be teased.

So while it wasn't the goodbye I'd anticipated, I understood.

Flying back to Utah was hard.  Leaving one of my children behind, not knowing when I was going to see him again wasn't easy.  But at least now I knew him.  Now I'd hugged him, and seen him laugh with Kenzie and Liam.  I'd watched him talk to Justin and get serious about sports.

And we were one step closer to bringing him home.

Reading Through Full Disclosure

I'm trying to play catch up here.  So much has happened and my brain feels like it's constantly spinning, trying to keep up with it all.  But there are a few things I thought I should talk about.

FULL DISCLOSURE

For us, full disclosure was ALL the documents they had on The Boy from the time he went into foster care in 2009, till now.  Medical records, school stuff, care/safety/treatment plans, etc.  It was mailed in a FedEx envelope and arrived on our front steps.  I picked it up and it was HEAVY.  It was thicker than a ream of paper.  We estimated it was at least 1,000 pages long.

It was all out of order.  There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how it was put together.  When I started glancing through it all, it was overwhelming, and that's an understatement.  I wanted to cry just looking at it all.

And did I mention we only got the documents 3 days before the full disclosure MEETING with his team?  The basis of that meeting was these documents and any questions we had about what we read.

I had 3 days to read through over 1,000 pages of records.

I started by sorting it all into years.  So you can see how painful this really was, here's how many years I had to sort into.

2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016

EIGHT YEARS.

Some of the years were short, with only a few dozen pages.  Other years were HUGE.

I started with the most recent years and worked my way back.  Looking back I wish I would have started with the oldest years and worked my way current, but it is what it is.

It wasn't fun reading the files.  It was really, really terrible.

There are few positives listed in these types of files.  They write up the problems these kids have, they tell you every little mistake they made, and they make everything sound way worse than it was.  And all of these things are repeated over and over, year after year.

All their little behaviors.  All the difficulties they've had in school.  Individual instances that came about because of circumstances these kids could do nothing about.  Every painful situation that constituted your child being removed from their biological family.

Over.  And over.  And over again.  Year after year.

I just tried to keep thinking, if someone had to write up a file like this on ME, what would it say?  What would it say about my husband?  When all they're focusing on is the problems, how can anyone ever sound good?

I wanted to cry every night after finishing a few years.  I felt sick.  I felt terrified.  I felt overwhelmed.  And scared.  And wary.  And a million other emotions.

The day of the full disclosure meeting quickly arrived and I was a ball of nervous, sweating, freaked-out nerves.  We called into the conference number, our caseworker sitting at the dining room table with us.  Honestly I'm not even sure how many people were in on that phone call, but at least a dozen.  All these people who had worked with The Boy in some form for either a few months, or years.

We were emailed a document the day before that touched on the highlights from The Boy's full file.  Together, all of us, went through that file and discussed things as they came up.  Justin and I had made notes throughout reading the file, so we were given the chance to ask questions here and there.

More than anything in his past, we focused on what he's been like in the last 3 months.

See, The Boy has had 48 placements since going into care in 2009.  Read that number again: 48.

He's been in a lot of different places, but he's been with his grandmother several times, and every time he's ended up having to be taken out of her home for one reason or another.  This last time when he was taken from her home, it was very different.

His caseworker said when she picked him up this last time he looked absolutely defeated.  She'd never seen him so low.  She'd never seen such finality to his expression.

She met with him a little later and he said "I'm ready."

She said, "ready for what?"

"I'm ready for you to find me a family."

Something triggered in The Boy.  The final string of hope at making it work living with grandma snapped and it seems to have set him free.

Everyone during that meeting said The Boy they were involved with currently is not the same boy from that 1,000 page file.  He had turned around.  He was different.  He wasn't perfect, not by a long ways, but he had made amazing changes.  He was trying in ways he never had before.

By this point, there were tears in my eyes, and happiness in my heart.

Our Boy was ready for us.  He was being prepared.

Toward the end of the meeting, one of his team brought up the financial side to us adopting him, and we were quite surprised.

• They're going transfer his Medicaid to where we live.  It will cover everything and he'll have it until he's 18.
• His college tuition is pretty much paid for, up to a masters degree.
• They will pay us a monthly stipend.
• And there's a huge tax credit to adopting an older/special needs child.  For more info check out THIS link.

We weren't expecting any of those, and we're doing fine financially, but it certainly was a nice surprise.  There will be no financial stress to adopting The Boy.  We're not going to have to worry about our medical insurance going way up to get him the things he needs.

Everyone assumes it's expensive to adopt.  And to adopt a baby it certainly can be.  But adopting from foster care is a totally different story.  Especially in adopting an older child.  In the end, this adoption will have cost us nothing.

Full disclosure is done.  We can move on from this now.  While I know it is important to know everything in The Boy's past, I think it's equally important to give him this fresh start.  To turn a blind eye in some way, and to let him move past all of that.

Pulling The Trigger

After so long of nothing really happening, things are suddenly getting solid and real.

Our full disclosure meeting was scheduled for the 24th of this month.  FINALLY.  A solid, known date.  They're still working on putting all of The Boy's docs to send us, and should be sending those out next week.  It sounds like we have a lot to review, considering he has been in foster care since 2009.  But the meeting has been set, and they told us once we have that meeting, we are cleared to go out to meet him.  Which they made it sound like it would be about two weeks after the meeting before we could do that.

We got a message from The Boy's caseworker the day before yesterday that there is a "Teen Meet Matching" event on the 25th.  This caseworker

said she almost didn't even dare ask The Boy's team if it would be okay for us to come out for that, since it is the DAY AFTER our meeting, but she asked.  AND THEY SAID YES.  It sounds like this is a small miracle, she said she thought there was no way they would say yes.  Considering they told us that we had to wait a few days after the meeting to give them a final yes or no, it's shocking they are cutting that out completely.

So, it's like, 98% sure that this is happening!!!

Am I nervous?  YES.
Am I a little scared?  YES.

Do I feel good about this though?  ABSOLUTELY.

It's weird.  I just feel calm and peaceful about it all.  Yes, my brain runs a million miles and hour overthinking everything, and I still ask myself over and over what are we doing?  Am I making a mistake?  But I just feel good.  I feel confident about it.  And ready.

Even with the shotgun trigger being pulled.  I better be ready.  Because this is happening.

We'll have that meeting the morning of the 24th, and fly out that night, and meet him in the morning.

Flights are booked.  The rental car is set.  The hotel has been reserved.

This is happening.

There's a boy.

Honestly, I've avoided writing this post for a while.  Not out of dread or because it's about anything bad.

But because my heart is so full these days and I'm just not sure I can adequately capture in words everything that is going on, or tell you how I feel.

There's a boy.

Back in December, when we finally got our home study and were able to register on the AdoptUSKids site, we had four boys that I felt strongly about that we first wanted to inquire on.  So on December 21, 2015, we sent the inquiries.  Over time, 3 of them were eliminated as possibilities.  One had already been placed, one couldn't leave the state where he resided, and another was no longer eligible for adoption.

And the last one we were never able to get the caseworker to respond to us.

Right in the beginning SOMEONE, I don't know who it was exactly, requested our home study, which we sent right away.  But then all of our follow up emails were just shuffled from one person to the next.  All of the phone calls Justin placed just went to a voicemail.  He left a new message, every week, saying we were interested in this boy and could we talk more about him.  But we never got any responses.

Suddenly, over spring break, so a little over a month ago, I get an email from this boys caseworker.  She apologized profusely, and explained that all our messages had gone to her desk phone, and she's out in the field about 95% of the time.  She'd just gotten ALL of them.  She also attached a file, telling us a lot about this boy.

My initial response was, I guess, shock.  There were some serious things in there, some things I wasn't sure about.  But the more we talked about them, the more we felt that everything could be solved by him being removed from this terrible situation, that he very, very badly just needed a second chance, because he'd never even been given a first.

After a few days, we asked the caseworker if we could speak on the phone and ask some questions.

We spoke.  Learned a lot more about him.  Some new things were brought to light, and again, Justin and I had the chance to talk it over and decide what to do.  But every time we talked and considered everything with this boy, we felt okay about it all.  We always felt like we could help, that we could be that second chance he needed.

About once a week, we would have some form of communication with her, learning more about him, having time to consider.

In the end, we both just felt very good about this boy.  And up to this point, we have 100% said yes to him becoming a member of our family.

There are still steps to be taken.  They are working on his full disclosure case to send us, which is EVERY document they've ever had on him.  We'll know everything.  Once we've had time to review that, we'll have a meeting with his entire team to ask any last questions and go over a lot of details.

And then we get one last chance to make the final call.  Yes.  Or no.

We're about two weeks away from making that call as long as everything on the caseworkers end goes smoothly and they can get the documents to us on time.  And then the next step would be to fly out and meet him in person.

We're so excited.

And it sounds like this boy is too.

The caseworker has talked to him about our family's specifics.  Where we live.  The ages of our kids. What Justin and I do for a living.  What our general expectations would be of him.  If he would be okay joining a white family, and the biggest thing: if he was okay with moving out of the state where he lives.

And so far, he's said yes to everything with us.  He's understandably nervous and a little hesitant.  But his caseworker couldn't believe how well it went over with him.  He's grown a lot in the last few months, she's said.  He told her that he feels so far that this is the best thing for him, and that he knows he needs to get away from the area where he grew up.

There's a million little things that feel like they've lined up with this situation.  Where this boy was at when we first inquired on him was not a good place.  He was struggling and he was in no way ready for us.  But in the last two months, he's made huge changes and gotten to a different place emotionally.

Back when we were being considered for another boy and got fairly far in the process, I felt nervous. I felt VERY hesitant and I knew he wasn't the boy from my dream, but thought he could be an "in addition to..."

I feel absolutely different about THIS boy.

I feel calm.  Peaceful.  Confident.  I think about him all the time.  I dream about him being part of our family frequently.

Maybe this won't work out.  Maybe he will change his mind about us.  Maybe something we never saw will come up and we'll be back to square one.

But I don't think all these things that have happened/are happening are coincidences.  It feels like prayers are being answered.

I feel at peace.  I have faith.  And it feels really, really good.

I'll keep you posted.

"My Older Brother"

We had a very sweet experience at the grocery store the other day that I wanted to share.

I was getting things for dinner with both of the kids.  As we're checking out, Liam is being a little crazy and joking around, basically being a boy.  MaKenzie just kind of shook her head at him and rolled her eyes.  The cashier, a boy who looked to be around 18 or 19 kind of laughed with her.  He said, "when I was your brother's age, I was just like him."

He told MaKenzie how he had one older sister and one younger sister, and that it had been his job to keep the girls on their toes.  They joked around for a minute and he left my kids smiling as we finished paying.

As we walked out to the car, MaKenzie was still in a good mood from the encounter and she said, "he was just the opposite of me!"

I asked her how so.

"He has an older sister and a younger one.  I have an older brother and a younger one.  Well, I will have an older brother soon."

I just smiled and said, "yeah, you're right, sweetie."  But she had no idea how much it touched my heart.

She also kind of chewed me out last week and asked why I wasn't looking for her brother any more.  When we first started this process, we had the kids look through the websites with us often.  Because they haven't done that lately, she assumed I had stopped looking for him.  She was very relieved when I told her that I was still actually looking for her brother, and that I was checking the websites every day.

They both continue to pray for their future brother every night.  And still talk all the time about what it's going to be like when they have another brother.

MaKenzie and Liam are waiting.  They're ready.  They're eager.

Where are you, brother?

Fear

This entire process has brought me a lot up ups and downs, but also a lot of loops and twists when it comes to my emotions.

At times I'm so happy about what we're doing and so terribly excited for the day that I'll get to meet my other son for the first time.  For when he calls me mom for the first time.  For when he begins to consider MaKenzie and Liam his siblings.

But then there are also a lot of times when I feel terrified.  When I read on adoption website forums about how people who adopted older children bit off more than they could chew.  About how terribly bad it went.  When I see so many hateful and angry comments about white people adopting black children.  When I think about how hard this transition is going to be for him.

There are times I start to question everything.

When I'm afraid this is too big for our family.  For me.  When I wonder if I'm adult enough to handle all the hardships that are going to come.

But what it boils down to is faith and love.

I've always said that I think each woman is born with a certain amount of mothering in them.  And I've always said I wasn't born with a whole lot of it.  That's part of the reason why, for years, I thought we would only ever have two kids.

But then that dream happened, and a dozen other little things happened and suddenly I felt like that mothering place inside of me grew a little bit.  Which shocked me.  And I just knew.

It's not about race or saving some kid.  It's about family.

And that keeps me going through the fear and the doubts.