Dream Child

Remember when I said that the universe has a way of balancing itself out and that if you put in the effort and the patience it will all work out in the end?

No? Well, I did. You'll just have to catch up on my previous posts.

I also said that we've been told time and again that when the right child comes along we'll know. Well...I am really starting to believe that now.

A lot has happened in recent weeks. So much so that I've had little time to write. So, here's the update:

We are now in our second match. A week from today will be what is called a pre-placement conference during which adoption and social workers look at us as a family and the prospective child and come to a consensus that together we would make a terrific family. Soon after that we will have the opportunity to learn more details about the case, ask questions and make a final determination whether we're willing to move forward (we will say yes).

Then, we can start setting up official visits with the child. Day visits turn into might visits, which turn into weekend visits, when turn into his moving in with us, and then after six months in our home, we can petition for adoption.

But, before I say any more, let me take you back a couple of months...

Not long after we became certified resource parents (qualified to take in foster youth and even adopt from the foster system in California), we went to our first-ever event in which prospective parents get to mingle with prospective 'adoptable' children. These are kids in the foster system who tend to be older and who have little to no hope of ever returning to their birth parents. On that day we met a 10-year-old boy who we now realize is our dream child. I'll call him "DC."

I'll never forget pulling my husband aside and asking, 'What is he doing here? He's so ridiculously adorable, how could somebody have not already have snatched him up?'

Turns out his case was very complicated. Yeah, his past has a lot of dark spots, and he's been through some very ugly rough patches in his life that I dare not get into here. He has a sibling, and the sibling's past is even more dark. Both are doing their best to cope, but their cases are so severe, they live in separate homes receiving intensive services to help them deal with their loss and grief over having been torn from their biological family years ago.

We were ready to adopt both children on the spot. 'Siblings should always be together,' I said. 'Always. No exceptions.'

Well, we soon learned that some time there are exceptions that make sense. As we found out more about their cases as the weeks went on, we came to understand that trying to adopt both these children all at once was something that inexperienced newbies like us would probably not be able to take on and survive. So, we came to grips with the fact that these two would likely find a home with some other family, maybe a couple of experienced psychiatrists with skills in wizardry or something giving them the power to alter time and space.

Well, while all this was going on, we found out that there were some rather magical things happening in the background that were unbeknownst to us.

You see... at the end of each of these mingling events, the adults and kids retreat to opposite ends of the room and complete 'evaluation forms' on which they indicate anyone they met that day they'd be interested in spending more time with. If the adult picks a particular kid and the same kid picks those same adults, then they will invite you to a follow-up meeting where you can spend more time and see if you still 'connect' in the same way. If you do that leads to another meeting, and so forth.

Eventually, you will have the opportunity to become a 'host family' for this kid (or kids) and commit to spending time with them a couple times a month for a year. You also commit to advocate for those kids and help them find what they need most: a permanent family. Sometimes, that may just happen to be you. Other times it may be someone else, but that's how it works.

Well, guess who put whose name down and visa versa resulting in an initial match and thus a follow-up event where we got to spend time together. Any idea? Us and DC of course!

So, we spent another day with him and continued to be head over heels in love with him but also grounded in the reality that we would probably never be able to adopt him.

Then something amazing happened.

At about that time, the county was starting to realize that they were having difficulty finding a permanent home for both siblings due to the complexity of their cases, let alone the complexity of having them live under the same roof. So, they decided to try another strategy... make them available for adoption separately as individual cases. We talked to our adoption worker about this, and she said she believed that moving to adopt him on his own without his sibling would be advisable.

So, we threw our hat in the ring. We found out -- of course -- that there were other families interested. So again, we knew there was a good possibility that we would not be the chosen ones. I mean, how could we be? This child is so amazing, anybody who meets him falls instantly in love.

Well...guess who was chosen. Guess who is now officially in a match. Well, yes. Us of course. Oh my god, so amazing, right?

Hubby and I are on cloud 9. We were invited to yet a third event with our organization, which I will be sure to plug in another post at some point, and this was the first time we had the opportunity to spend time with him alone on a car ride and spending the day at an event knowing we were being matched with him. We told everyone that the day will go down in history (along with our wedding day) as one of the most amazing days of our lives.

Once again, there were evaluation forms. And, once again, DC listed us with enthusiasm as adults he would like to spend more time with.

We're over joyed. And, now, once again, we are dying of anticipation. Only this time it's different. Rather than waiting and waiting for nothing to happen, we're waiting for something to happen. We're making plans. We're daydreaming about all the ways we can spend time with DC as soon as we have the chance: professional ball games, the beach, aquariums, the zoo, road trips, movie studios, camping, hiking, seeing, the Grand Canyon.

The list doesn't end.

And, last night I had a dream that DC was already our son. And, I am not the first. Hubby had a similar dream several weeks ago that he was in family court signing the adoption papers. And, in his dream he was crying tears of joy uncontrollably. So was I in my dream.

So, you see. Dream Child has quite literally become a Dream Child.

Now, at the risk of sounding cheesy, the dream begins. And, hopefully we will never wake up.

Slow and steady wins the race

There is a scene in the film Instant Family in which Rose Byrne's character is learning a harsh lesson about the purpose of the child welfare system: family preservation. In this scene (spoiler alert), her character tearfully asks 'What about MY family?'

I feel her. Everything that's done in this "system" is meant to be in the best interest of children. But, like any system, it is flawed. It borders somewhere between having a some serious disconnects and being broken beyond reason.

And, yet. That's what we have to work with.

Do you remember a time when you were a child and one of your parents or teachers reminded you to "Slow down. It's not a race."?

Yeah. I'm still trying to learn that very important life lesson in my (ahem) mid-40s. Because, no matter what happens in this system, no matter how proactive or on top of things we think we are, someone is always beating us to the punch.

This match we were in last week. We were waiting for meetings and formal conversations to be scheduled and take place, which takes forever, because people with degrees in social work who are employed by the county seem to have very little time for conversations.

Well...there was a court hearing, and I won't go into the details, but someone we learned there was a non-relative who was willing to take him in. EVen though she doesn't have all the certifications we already have, she knows him. We don't. So, we lose.

Our agency's director keeps pleading with us not to look at ourselves as being in competition with other waiting families. But, really. How else are we supposed to look at it?

In my support groups they advise us to market ourselves. Get ourselves out there and make sure everyone knows we're waiting and ready. It's something i am still struggling with, because if it's true that there are so many thousands of kids out there who really need us then why haven't we yet have the chance to offer them our amazing home?

On the advice of others whose opinions we trust, we asked to be pulled out of "the match." Seemed fruitless to be throwing our hat in the ring only to wait for weeks on end for something that would probably never happen. I know thousands of kids need us, and we can't put up the 'Sorry, we're unavailable' sign on our door. What if a basket with a bundle of joy shows up there? Are we going to say, 'Not now, kid. We're waiting to see what happens with this kid whom everyone is fighting over...a kid, mind you, whom we've never met and know very little about. Hell...we can't even get a picture! Anyway...get lost.'

So, back to square one. It's okay. We can wait. We're becoming really good at that.

To be fair, in the world of adoption, we really haven't been waiting very long. In our support group, some of the members were expressing astonishment at just how quickly things had been happening for us. That, along with hearing the tails of papas who have been waiting years (and, I don't mean that hyperbolically...they have been waiting for years), helped put things into perspective.

This isn't about racing to the finish line. It's about putting in the work and the patience and doing everything we can but also being comfortable with allowing some time to go by. It's important to use that time to process things and be reflective. And, when you come out of that feeling confident you are moving forward along the correct path, then you know things are still okay.

One of the things that gets left out of the narratives when pop culture attempts to tell the story of adopting kids in foster care -- Instant Family for instance -- is the waiting. Because a movie would hardly be entertaining if you watched prospective parents spending a year sitting and staring at an empty room they've decorated for a non-existent child wondering if one will ever appear there. That would be a ratings nightmare.

I'm learning one of the hardest lessons I have ever had to learn in my life: to wait. And, I think I'm getting better at it. And what's more, I am starting to grasp that it's perfectly okay to experience the emotional turmoil while going through it. I wouldn't be much of a human being if I didn't.

Another positive: I think when I get the chance to be a parent, I'll be a better roll model for the child when it comes time to teach that lesson.

It's not a race. It's not about who wins. It's about what you learn while you are on the journey. Sometimes the journey takes a while, but it is all worth it in the end.

The universe has a way of balancing itself. Enjoy every minute you have. Having the opportunity to share those minutes will and do happen. And, it will be unfathomably wonderful when they do. It will be worth waiting for.

Match game

I wrote recently about how the adoption process feels a lot like online dating. It's no joke. There are photo lists of dozens of kiddies in our area in need of permanent homes. Their bios really show them in the best possible light, generally with a lot of dark unpleasantness lurking underneath. Then you make inquiries and ask to learn more for those who pique your interest. You can even arrange to meet in person at a neutral location with no strings attached.

That's kind of what hubby and I did when we became involved in a non-profit that arranges 'matching' events with many of these kids. At a bowling event a couple of weeks ago, it was extraordinary how many youngsters we recognized from photos and videos plastered all over the internet.

And, if you're someone like me, you have already done a ton of detective work on every case before you see them in person, and it's astonishing how up to speed you can be on their backgrounds. (It feels kind of odd to shake hands with a teenager you are meeting for the first time while thinking 'I know you are in special education classes, taking meds for hyperactivity and have been known to start fires.')

Well...that's become our lives in recent months. We've followed up on a few cases that got us excited, and so far none has yielded anything. Although our agency begs us not to feel as though we're in competition with other prospective families, we cannot help feel like we are, since somebody always seems to have an edge on us whenever we discover there is a kiddie available for adoption.

Then, last week something amazing happened.

Our adoption coordinator contacted us about a young man who had been in a couple of failed adoption attempts -- something she attributes to the bungling of his case by adults and not so much anything to do with the child himself -- and she thinks we would be a good match for him. He's not on any of those photos lists and not involved in the non-profit group we're participating in. That means, he's not as much of a 'special needs' child as many of the others we've met and/or inquired about.

Okay, I told her. He's 11 years old, and we (mostly my husband) have been targeting kids a little younger than that, but let me talk it over and go from there. We'd like to think we're flexible.

Fast forward through a lot of back and forth and we are now officially in 'a match.'

Here's what that means: We are committed to learning more about this kid and determining whether we're interested in going forward. And, meanwhile, we agree not to consider any other cases, and they agree not to consider any other families for the kid until we reach and yea or neigh.

The kid is not supposed to have any idea what's going on while the adults work things out. Then when and if the answer becomes yea, then he finds out.

Well, the kid's adoption worker kind of spilled the beans and let him know there was a family interested in him. It would be two dads, and how would he feel about that. It got back to us that he was feeling extremely excited and wanted to meet us.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling over the moon when I heard that. But at the same time, I wanted to respect the process, because it's there for a reason. What if we find out about something in the case file that is more than we can handle? What if this ends up falling apart before we even meet the kid, and he feels rejected yet again?

I cannot even begin to imagine what it's like to go through what many of these children go through. They lose their parents one way or another. They bounce around to different homes losing their friends and sense of community. They have to keep switching schools. Well...come to think of it, I had to switch schools a lot when I was a boy. And, it felt like the hardest thing in the world to go through. But then I never once had to wish that some day I would get to have a family of my own.

Now, hubby and I could potentially become this kid's parents. We're already thinking about his future, how we can get him on track academically, help him make friends and just lead a rich and full life. We think about him every minute of every day. And, we haven't met him. We don't even know what he looks like. But, it already feels like he belongs with us.

Every evening we look into his room and wonder why he's not there. We look out the window wondering what he's doing and hoping he's okay.

In the next couple of days we should have some new information on what happens next. We should know how much longer until we get to meet him. Meanwhile, the waiting is killing us, but we're doing okay at being patient. I think the hardest thing is having to cross our fingers that nothing goes wrong. We are hoping with all our strength that no politics or bureaucracy ends up getting in the way of our getting the chance to bond with this little guy and become his family.

Not long ago, we thought that completing our paperwork and signing our documents was the beginning of the journey. Now it's a couple months later, and we're in 'a match.' And, it still feels like the journey hasn't begun.

If I can keep my blood pressure down and oxygen continuing to flow to my brain from all the stress of waiting, then I think things will be okay. We'll get a chance to begin the journey. We'll be at a point where we're finished reading the rules on the board game box and now we can take our first turn.

Maybe it will turn out we are not the best family for this kid. In that case, I am sure we will go through this all over again. It would be painful, but we'd be ready to accept how things are and keep moving forward.

No matter happens, we -- and this kid -- will become winners. And, that's enough to take a deep breath and feel good about.

Getting left at the altar

Anyone who has ever been a parent is going to laugh at what I am about to say.

I finally get it now. I get what my mother has gone through. I get how parents can behave in the seemingly most hysterical and irrational ways sometimes, overcome by emotion about their kids.

I always want to smack some sense into them and say cool it. It can't be that hard.

Well...I am starting to get even the tiniest inkling of what parents go through, and we still haven't even been parents for even a day.

It's one thing that we've started to envision ourselves as parents and wanted to be the saviors of all the poor innocent souls out there in need of our love and attention. Just knowing they're out there and reading about their cases makes us anxiety-ridden every moment of the day hoping they're okay.

Then, for the first time this weekend, we met some of the kids out there who are in need of families. These are the kids for whom reunification plans have been terminated. They have no hope of going back to their birth parents, so they need permanent families desperately.

There was one little guy we had the chance to spend some time with and right away we wanted to be his family. We found out he has a big sister that he's very close to and wanted to be her family as well even though we had never met her. It was merely because she was important to him, and we wanted to do anything in our power to help.

The minute we go home, we did some digging and learned of all the ugly things going on these kids' past, and our hearts were breaking in ways they never had before.

We had spent one afternoon with this little guy and suddenly felt responsible for everything that happens to him. It was to the point that we were willing to turn the world upside to help him, ensure he was okay. It's only been two days and yet it feels as though we've known him since he was born. And, we're ridden with uncontrollable guilt because we couldn't go back in time and stop all these horrific things that had happened to him years ago.

Well, fast forward a couple days later, and we've thrown our hat in the ring to be considered as potential adoptive parents. In the system, they refer to this as matching. If it sounds like a lot like online dating, it's because it is. You have people who know nothing about you or the kids aside from what's on paper, and they are in control of whether you even get the chance to go out on a date. So, the chances of getting a marriage proposal come few and far between.

Our adoption manager looked more deeply into the case and very politely told us she strongly advises against pursuing this one. The level of care these kids require far exceeds what we'd be able to provide.

Well...not one to be told no, I'm still open to learning more. But at the same time, I am more grounded in reality. I don't want to put myself or my existing family into a situation where everyone is worse off than before. I certainly don't want to put these kids into a situation in which they are worse off than they would be otherwise.

So, it's not back to the drawing board. It's continuing to be open minded and not putting all our eggs in one basket. As they keep telling us, the right child will come along. I know it's not just about the planets and stars lining up. It's about the right match between the needs of the kids on our strengths in terms of meeting those needs.

We're continuing to keep hope alive while staying grounded in reality. Every kids we meet will always have a special place somewhere in our hearts. Some of them we'll get to stay in touch with and make a difference in their lives. Others we may never see again. Amidst all that, we know that some day we'll get that chance to walk down that aisle.

Imaginary children

For the first time, we attended a support group for ‘unconventional’ parents. That is… a group for gay dads and prospective gay dads. Though it was new to us, the group has been around for a couple of decades.

I loved it. For a lot of reasons I loved it. It meant meeting new people, hearing new stories, having a new system of support. But, I think the most fulfilling thing about it was the fact that some of the dads brought their kids along with them. Not just pretend or hypothetical kids. Not even actors. They were real children with gay dads like us.

It provided a glimmer of hope and helped bring some calm and realness to our situation. Because, after months of paperwork, parenting classes, fingerprinting, reading articles and trying to learn as much as we can, adoption, foster parenting and other non-traditional ways of building families had started to feel like something that just happens in the movies and on tv or at least something that only happens to other people somewhere else. It didn't seem like any of it actually happens in the real world.

Seeing these dads interact with their kids, play with them, correct them when they misbehave. It was pretty amazing. And, what’s more, we got to interact with the kids as well. It gave us a tiny taste and was almost kind of a tease. But, we loved it.

They’re real! I said. They’re not just kids we hear stories about. THey're really here. This really does happen.

It reminded me of the importance to have faith in what’s realistically a dysfunctional system and faith in ourselves to know how to provide the right degree of patience and proactivity to start building our own family.

While it’s painful to wait — and painful to come home to an empty room with no kids in it every night — I’m not losing hope. There are kids everywhere, and they’re people just like we are. They need to know adults care about them, believe in them and are ready to help them become the amazing people they are capable of becoming.

In my career, whenever I've taken on the reigns of a new project, the first step has always been working as a team to create a shared vision. Before you can make it real, you need to be able to see it.

So, while we've seen that the children out there who need us are definitely not imaginary, it is still okay to imagine that some day some of them will come join our family. Because, if we can envision it happening, we’re one step closer to making it real.

That’s where we are now. We’re still closer to the imaginary side of the spectrum. But, with every experience we have, there are hints of realness. That’s what’s comforting and enables us to cope with the waiting, the frustration and exhaustion from pressing so hard to get seemingly nowhere: understanding that we’re not going nowhere. We’re going somewhere. Perhaps very, very slowly with lots of bumps on the road along the way, but we’re still on the journey. It hasn’t ended, and it won’t. In fact, any time now it’s about to begin.

The right child will come along.

We began pursuing parenthood a little over three months ago. It may as well be ten years ago the way it feels. Sometimes it can be challenging to separate the way things feel and the way they are. Nonetheless hubby and I are trying.

Though it’s our first time, we’ve heard tons of stories over the years from those seeking alternative ways of becoming parents — alternative to the “traditional” way I mean. One consistent conclusion drawn is that it takes a lot of time and patience.

Well, patience is not something we have a great deal of when it comes to dramatically life-alerting events. We were pronounced husband and husband about six months after I proposed. Escrow closed on our home exactly 30 days after we started chatting about ‘Hey, let’s go shopping for a house.’

When we decided to start talking about becoming parents, we weren’t in a rush. In fact, we had a lot of reservations. What if we’re too old? What if it disrupts our lives in negatives way? Well…let’s check out some agencies and attend some orientations, we told ourselves. A little information never hurt anyone.

Then about a month later we were ordering furniture for the kids room.

Fast forward two more months, and we have a freshly painted, furnished kids room but with no kids in it.

And now, here we are: A couple in our (ahem) mid-forties who have never been parents suddenly experiencing empty nest syndrome. Strange how that happens.

We’re trying to be patient. Even though it’s hard, patience is important when it comes to things in life that are important.

“The right kid will come along,” the folks at our agency say. Reading and hearing others’ stories, I believe that’s true. It just goes against my nature to wait patiently.

When hounded by propaganda that so many thousands of children are waiting desperately for loving homes, it’s hard to feel as though sitting around listening to the clock tick is the best way to help.

Shouldn’t we be a little more proactive? we ask ourselves.

So, we are trying to be proactive as well as patient. We’re signing up with organizations that offer opportunities to mentor and advocate for older kiddies in need. We’re joining up with a group for gay dads and even attending a pot luck this weekend (time to brush up on my casserole-making skills). I’ve even started building relationships with folks working within the big bad COUNTY system. Heck…it helps to learn about and understand the territory.

So, if you have ever wondered what it’s like for a middle-aged married gay couple in Los Angeles in the 21st century, this is what it’s like. It’s a balance of being proactive and patient.

With each passing experience we become slightly wiser and more savvy about how things work.

We will continue to document the journey of very little — and yet a whole lot — happening all at once.

Breathing deeply now and remembering: the right child will come along. 

New year. New Beginnings.

When I was a child, my father often reminded me (as many fathers do) that ‘life isn’t fair.’ It never made much sense to me when I heard it as a child. Why not? Why isn’t life fair? Shouldn’t it be?

Well…fast forward to now, and I am in my [ahem] middle ages, and I understand my father was right.

I had a phone conversation with my adoption worker. She told me things I had already figured out on my own. While it’s helpful to validate some of the observations I have made in recent weeks, i.e., that the system is severely broken with lots of disconnects and can be incredibly frustrating to navigate.

What's more it means there are many thousands of kids in need of a loving home and many hundreds of prospective parents like me ready to provide it, and yet we can't seem to connect all the dots effectively. And, so we end up with a lot of losers. 

I knew coming into this that the system was broken. I knew case workers were overwhelmed and under-resourced. So, I am not sure why I am surprised that people haven’t been beating down my door trying desperately to invite the most needy kids in the county to come join our family.

‘What a beautiful home,’ everyone says. ‘You are going to make such amazing parents!’

‘Thanks,’ I invariably reply. ‘I am looking forward to having the chance.’

One must never lose hope.

The holiday season is over, and the social workers are returning to the office, schools are back in session and it means many new opportunities for new stories, new problems and new solutions.

I absolutely believe there are thousands of kiddies out there desperately in need of a home. I just don’t yet know how to find them and welcome them to join our family. But, I am determined to find out.

With the new year, I have resolved to intensify my efforts. It’s not enough to hang around and wait for the phone to ring. I am apparently in competition with hundreds of other waiting parents out there.

We need to put ourselves out there and let the system know that not only are we ready to be a part of it, we’re ready to work to understand it and even make it better.

Having had a little extra quiet time recently—in  a house full of empty rooms—I’ve thought about how my father was right about the unfairness of life. And I realize that in being right, he taught me a very important lesson…probably THEE most important: It’s not worth spending time and energy being angry about things beyond your control. It's how you cope with the unfairness of life that counts.

There are so many kids out there who desperately need to learn that lesson. Kids who have experienced unfairness to the depths I can't even imagine. And they need to know that somebody cares enough about them to be a teacher, a mentor a guide and just someone they can lean on while working through the unfairness.

Hubby and I are ready to get out there, make the connections and become the parents the world needs. While 2018 was about paperwork, fingerprints and parenting classes, 2019 will be about actually becoming parents. The road to making that happen starts now, continues tomorrow and the next day...and the day after that. And for years to come.