menuthe

Our most unexpected rainbow…

One year ago today we adopted our third son out of foster care after three years. (If you missed our first adoption story you can read that here.) Here is the story of how he found us and fit so perfectly into a spot we didn’t even know was missing in our family.

It’s fitting that this day we had waited years for would finally come in October which is dedicated to Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness. Khalil truly was our first rainbow baby after the storm of losing Gabriel. And his entrance into our lives is one of the greatest ways I have ever seen God move first hand, and one of the handful of times I have heard His voice loud and clear. It was August 2016, a few months after our miscarriage and I felt more conflicted about motherhood than I ever had. I longed for a baby in my arms. I felt God telling me there was another child for us. But oh was I terrified at the thought of carrying that child in my womb. The fear was paralyzing. I just wasn’t ready for that chance of loss again. And yet the longing persisted. And I was late. Very very late for a cycle that had been right on time the month before.⠀

I was too scared to take the test. Too scared that it might be positive. Too guilty for feeling that way when I knew how others longed for it, how I had longed for it for years. So that night I prayed like I never had before. I begged God to have mercy on me, to show me the path He hoped I would walk, to forgive my doubting heart. The next day I visited my cousin’s house, the cousin who had been my confidant through our shared infertility, the cousin who inspired me with her faith and trust in God, the cousin who I knew would absolutely have a pile of pregnancy tests under her sink. And so she gave me a pep talk, tossed me a test, and told me to just get on with it. I did, and it was the only time I have ever been relieved to see a negative. I felt peace. I felt God reassuring me that my fears would be overcome, that this was not the time. Then I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call and voicemail from a number with the department’s prefix. Assuming it was something for the big boys’ ongoing case, I listened the the voicemail and my heart stopped. It was a placement worker asking us to take in a newborn.

To understand my shock and confusion you have to realize that we were not open to new placements at the time. We were not accepting calls. Which meant she had to have called through to the ENTIRE list of active foster parents without receiving a yes, and then had started in on the list of inactive parents where we were sitting. And that NEVER happens for a newborn. That barely happens at all. We had not received a single placement call since accepting the boys two years before. And so I replayed her voicemail out of sheer disbelief. And that’s when I heard His voice, clear as bell: “This is the child. This is the time.” ⠀

I called Liam at work right away, and he said he had a missed call too. He told me to call them back and get the details I could, but that his gut was telling him it wasn’t the right time. I called the placement worker back and she told me it was “raining babies” in the office that day, and they had a specific baby they thought needed to come to our home. He was six weeks old and in another foster home that proved not to be a good fit. I got as many details as I could, and when I heard his background my heart sank and I realized just why I had heard God’s voice a moment before. He was answering more prayers that had been on my heart than I even knew.

The entire hour long drive back home, the three babes napped and I was on the phone with Liam talking it over. I gave him the whole history I had just learned. I confessed the longing and fear and guilt I had been feeling for weeks. I told him how I had prayed the night before. I told him how I had heard God’s voice. And he told me all the very valid reasons why he thought we should say no: how we were still deep in our grief trying to work our way out, how the boys’ case was becoming more and more complicated, how we were already bursting the seams of our income, our house and our car, how we were coming into fall which was our busiest season with my work and his exams. And after every reason he gave me I would say, “Yes I agree, but the timing! But this case! But his story! But God!” And that’s ultimately what it came down to. Despite every reason to say no, it was so clear that He meant for us to say yes. Our entire foster care journey thus far had been following His path, and faithfully trusting He would provide a way. So why should this be any different?

Timing is one thing I am constantly talking to prospective foster parents about. The fact is there will never be a “right time” or a “perfect time” to start fostering. You will always be able to find reasons not to jump in. And those reasons might be incredibly valid. But life is imperfect and messy and so is foster care. There will never be the perfect, pretty, shiny moment to say yes, because every yes in foster care is a sacrifice. It’s an acceptance and willingness to go into a hard place. It’s an acceptance and willingness to get hurt, to experience brokenness. But it was put on your heart. You have to trust in God or whatever higher power or inner voice you believe in that put it there, that got you considering it. Trust it enough to take that first step, to say that first yes.

And so I called the placement worker back and gave her our fourth yes. Because Kahlil was being moved from another foster home, the placement wasn’t immediate. He came home 10 days later. It was such different experience than the few hours notice we had with the big boys. We had time to prepare. We snuck in a date night, and a little extra alone time with the kids. I even got to keep the plans for a girls’ weekend away with my mom and our friends the weekend before. And so in the afternoon on August 22, (which by the way is National Rainbow Baby Day–ALL THE HEART EYES) as the babes napped upstairs, she got to be there to meet her newest grandbaby the same moment I did. She held him and got all her Mimi snuggles in as I signed the mountain of paperwork. Finally getting all of his info, we realized together that he was born on her and my dad’s wedding anniversary: June 26. Living 1000 miles away from all of our immediate family, it will forever be so special to me that the timing worked out for her to share those first few hours with us before she flew home that night.

When I held him for the first time I couldn’t believe how tiny he was…and that proved to be his nickname on the internet for the next three years. 😛 He was just shy of eight weeks old and weighed not even 9 lbs. There wasn’t an ounce of chunk on him aside from his cheeks. He had big juicy lips and a headful of hair. He was wearing a little blue newborn onesie that was baggy on him and socks that wouldn’t stay on. I held him on my lap and studied all his features the same way I had two years earlier when Ty and Louis came home. I didn’t want to forget a thing. And then he cracked the sweetest little half smile which showed off the cutest dimple you’ve ever seen, and I was done for. The social worker left. My mom and I traded him back and forth for a few hours. We introduced the kids to him one by one as they woke. Then Liam got home and met him, held him for a bit, but then was off to take my mom to the airport. So I tucked him into the wrap and went on with the evening routine. By that time it felt like a strangely normal thing to just add a new member to the family in an instant.

Another big difference with Khalil’s homecoming was by that time we had found our village, and they SHOWED UP. Friends dropped meals and clothes and diapers. They took the big kids for play dates. They texted me from the store asking what I needed. They dropped off coffee without asking. Looking back, I can see God showing up through them, making a way through their help. Even in that 10 days of prep, I can see him refreshing my heart and my body, preparing me for what was to come because the next month was without a doubt the hardest of my life. And it took every ounce of help to get us through.

Another thing I constantly hear I hear from others about foster care is “I couldn’t do it. I’d get too attached.” And my answer is always, “YOU BETTER.” You better get attached. You better show these kiddos every ounce of love and security you possibly can because it’s what they deserve. It’s what every child deserves. They didn’t ask to be in this situation. Its our responsibility to help these hurting babes if we can. But here’s the thing: attachment happens so differently for everyone. There’s no one way it will happen. There’s no set time it will take.

With our big boys I attached the minute they came. They were 4 months and 15 months. Big enough to know they needed love and safety and to crave that from whoever was in their life the most, and overnight that became me. They clung and I clung back. They were desperate for affection and I was desperate for motherhood. Tiny Boy was a whole other story. He took us completely by surprise. We were grieving. We were stressed. We were maxed out. And y’all, I DIDN’T ATTACH. Not for AWHILE. He had already been in two foster homes. He had terrible colic and the worst case of reflux which had gone untreated. He was classified as failure to thrive because he hadn’t been able to put on weight. At his eight week appointment his doctor told me he was in the 2% range for height and weight. He screamed all the time. He didn’t cling to me or cuddle, though he demanded to be held 24/7.

I was a mess of hormones. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. I had never felt so challenged as a foster mother. I had never questioned myself so much. On the bad days I was sure I couldn’t do it and found myself wondering if we had made a mistake. Wondering what I was so sure I would NEVER even think about as a foster parent: if we should disrupt placement, if he would be better off in another home. And even on the good days when his meds started working and we both calmed down enough to get some bonding in then I’d get overcome with guilt and feel like we had replaced Gabriel and forgotten about him. It was rough. And it was work. But I kept at it. We kept at it. We flooded that boy with love and he OVERCAME. He learned to trust us. And I learned to love him unconditionally. And sometimes that’s now it goes. Foster care is not always a love at first sight situation. It’s unnatural. You go from stranger to mother or father in a split second. The emotion can’t always follow that quickly. But it’s a choice you made. You said yes. And so you choose to put in the work. You do whatever you have to to love these kids. Because they NEED ATTACHMENT. No matter the outcome.

So we bumped through. We found a groove. As his physical strength grew and grew, so did his personality and his emotional ability to connect. By his four month appointment (left) he had just barely broken the 5% marks. We kept trucking. At six months he got up to 10% for height, still low for weight though. And then he BOOMED. In the next three months he gained SIX POUNDS. He started rocketing through milestones: crawling and pulling up and talking and clapping. At his nine month check-up he broke through the 50% MARK for BOTH height and weight (right), and I swear to you as he sat on that scale clapping and I saw 20 LBS pop up I cried. Happy tears for this happy boy who has overcome so many odds. Sheer joy for this hunk of love who was finally out of the danger zone!

Khalil embodied joy, and still does. He lives to make people laugh and smile, and he’s been that way since his personality first started peeking out. Over the next year he kept crushing milestones. His physicality was astounding. He was climbing before he was walking. Speaking of walking: that started just before he was 11 months! Liam and I took a week long trip, and he gave his first steps for Granny and Grandpa while we were away and was practically running after his siblings when we got home! We started gymnastics that summer and he’s been flipping ever since and leaving his instructors in a constant state of terrified awe.

During that time his case bumped along too. Most of those details are not mine to share, but for the first year and half we were all actively working toward reunification, but it was rocky. A lot of two steps ahead one step back. He and his mom’s case opened our eyes to a whole side of foster care we had never experienced, and it changed us. And then just before his second birthday right as the judge moved his case goal from reunification to adoption, a relative came forward. It was not the first time we’d been blown back by this particular foster bomb. We had been dealing with the exact same thing a year before in our bog boys’ case. But with them there were warning signs, alarms went off in the months before, and we were prepared for the boom. This one though, caught us completely by surprise and left me frozen in shock. Instead of picking which cake to bake and ordering his balloon and presents, I was a wreck wondering if that would be the last birthday we’d spend together.

This is the scary part of foster care, the part that convinces so many to quit before ever getting started. “What if I do get attached and they leave?” But here’s the reality: you don’t become a foster parent to put your own feelings first. You go into it to put these kids first. To help them, to support them, to advocate for them, to love them. So the fear in your heart should not be “what if I get attached” rather “what if he DOESN’T attach?” Khalil came to us tired, hungry, and mad at the world. What if we didn’t give him to opportunity to attach? The opportunity to be loved, cared for, protected. What if we decided it was too hard, that we were too afraid of getting hurt and let him keep bouncing through the system? What future is that pushing him towards before he even has a voice to fight for himself? Let me tell you ATTACHMENT is a privilege. It’s not required to survive. It’s not guaranteed at birth. But good gracious does it make life fuller. So we do it. We love them like our own. We get too close. So close the thought of them leaving feels like a hole being ripped open in my chest. But them’s the breaks in foster care. We are utterly in control of raising them yet utterly out of control of their future.

And so, while my mind spiraled with every worse case scenario, I put on a brave face and we kept taking the next step. The relative flew in from out of state and had two visits with him. I’m not sure what she saw or what she thought–we weren’t given the opportunity to talk aside from pleasantries at drop-off and pick-up–but she flew home and stopped responding to any of the department’s contacts. I like to think she saw that he was loved and cared for, that he was already a full member of our family no matter what the law said. I wish I had set my fear aside in the moment and pushed more to develop a relationship then. I hope we get the chance in the future.

After that, the course was set for adoption. The only question that remained was what path we would get there by. In our state, when a foster child’s case is moved toward adoption by the foster parents, the biological parent has two options: mediate with the foster parents and come to an open adoption agreement, or refuse and send the case to trial where if the judge agrees to the adoption, it will be closed with no contact. I spent months fervently praying that Khalil’s mom would mediate. I wanted her in our lives, in his life. Given the history of the case, this was not likely. In fact every social worker and lawyer thought I was crazy for thinking there was even a chance. Still I prayed. I got our family and friends praying. And just as He had over two years earlier when He put Khalil in our life, God answered our prayers again.

“He has a family that’s all his. I can’t take him away from that.” Can you imagine saying that about a child you birthed? When we walked into mediation and saw her across the room, I was overcome with immense gratitude for my son’s mother. I sat across from a young woman who displayed courage and grace and strength beyond her years, who set any pride, any anger at the system that has by and large failed her aside and put the needs of her son before her own. When she said those words, I fought back tears that I knew would only make that day harder for her. Because that day wasn’t easy. It wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. It was hard and heartbreaking and intense. Yes there was joy, but it came from the most bittersweet of places. But that cold day in November, we entered into our second open adoption agreement, the oh so wanted answer to our deepest heart’s desire and hundreds of prayers.

OPEN ADOPTION. Those words scare so many people, I’m not saying it’s what’s best in every case. By all means we know that it is not. But in the case of our sons’ mothers it was. Adoption will never be a secret in our house. I mean you only have to look at us all together to know as much. And it’s not something we would ever want to keep hidden. It’s something we encourage them to be proud of. Because yes, love makes a family, but so does biology and one does not negate the other. Our sons know we are not the ones who gave them life. We adopted them openly so that they would always have a connection to their origins and their bloodlines, their family. They need their history. They need answers. They need to know whose eyes they have, where they got their smile or their height or their crazy smarts. There will be so many blanks, so many questions. And if you have the option to build a healthy relationship that will help fill in those blanks, I hope you’ll overcome that fear and give it a chance.

Trust me I had to overcome it myself. I was afraid that they would get something from their bio parent that I couldn’t provide. Spoiler: They will, they have, and they should. They need that. They deserve that. But when we started on this journey, that thought gave me so much anxiety. That anxiety was the devil in my head whispering lies that my child’s love was a competition, that sharing the title of mother meant I was losing something. How selfish those thoughts were. This was never about me. Praise God for showing me the truth, that love isn’t quantified like that. That we have the capacity to love so many fully, the way He loves each of us. And praise to these women, who showed me that truth first hand by sharing their sons with me, by trusting us to raise them. Biology is so often seen as this big scary question mark in adoption, especially through foster care. But I can tell you the only regret I have is not shutting those anxieties down sooner. Every ounce of biology we have been able to hold on to is a blessing and will only build in the years to come. For Khalil, her love and courage brought him into this world, it brought him to a family full of siblings to love on him, and on that day it brought him to a point where he gets to grow up having two mommas who love him more than anything!

Of course this is foster care and nothing moves quickly or smoothly, so it was almost another full year before we could make our adoption official. But the same as I wrote in Ty and Louis’s story: one of my biggest points of gratitude is that the constant state of limbo wasn’t on his shoulders. He was home, safe, and loved during all the waiting and uncertainty. He became a big brother again and again, once from me and once from his birth momma. He turned from a baby into a toddler into a preschooler. He idolized his big brothers. He annoyed his big sister. He taught his little sister all sorts of mischief. He just got to be a boy. And we got to witness it and help raise him into the incredible man-child he is today, with absolute faith and gratitude in a God whose plans are so much greater than we could ever imagine.

But finally our waiting came to an end. On October 11, 2019, Khalil Caleb was fully adopted into the RamFam in a courtroom full of love. He had the biggest smile on his face all day long as we celebrated all things him on his special “Doption Day” which he told every single person he passed. One more time we piled around the table, keeping the microphones away from the kids as the judge affirmed what we already knew: he was our son, for now and forever. And then she got real brave and invited our whole crazy bunch behind the bench so Khalil could finish it off with a bang of the gavel! That sound may have finished his case in the county’s eyes but for us it started a new chapter of his story, and I am so privileged to have front row seat to watch it play out!

Add a comment...

Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *