I wonder if all moms worry a little when their child kills a fish. I mean, I know it is NOTHING. I know he is just FOUR and probably didn’t even mean to kill the fish. Except for the fact that he told me wanted it to die because it was a mean shark.

Anyway, in the back of my mind I wonder if this is just the beginning? Is he going to grow up to be a sociopath? Is he going to kill a dog next? Set a fire? LOL i realize I am being irrational. HOWEVER, because of his history I think perhaps I consider these things a little more than your typical soccer mom. Maybe not.

Before you start reeming me with comments about how silly I am, know that I am not really worried and I KNOW it is nothing. I’m just saying…. the thought did occur to me. Maybe it is something all parents worry about a little when they adopt a slightly older child. ????

Isaac slept 12 hours straight two nights in a row over the weekend. He goes to sleep for the night between 5:30pm and 6:00pm and then we usually feed him before we go to bed. He wakes up again around 5:30 - 6:00. We didn’t feed him before we went to bed over the weekend and were surprised and thrilled that he slept through the night. Not brave enough to do it during the week yet.

Woo Hoo for sleep!

His teacher told him that fishies aren’t for killing and need to stay in their water to stay alive - he said, “My Daddy kills fish! He goes fishing and kills them and EATS them!”

Guess daddy has some splainin’ to do.

Me: Emma, walk away from the table.
Emma: wii kart? Play WII Cart?
Me: Emma, maybe later. hands off now. WALK AWAY from the table.
Emma: play wii?
Me: that’s one
Emma: (smiling) Play wii? peese? pwetty peese?
Me: that’s two. got to your room, Emma, you’re in time out.

two min later

Me: Emma, do you know why you are in timeout?
Emma: yes….um…..don’t know
Me: next time mommy says walk away from the table, what should you do?
Emma: um….. just eat at that table.

sigh.

Last year, I had everything all labeled and planned out and the kids looked adorable. I thought I had done my job again this year but realized this morning that I was a little less than organized. It dawned on me that I had failed to buy socks for the kids who have to wear tennis shoes if they want to play on the playground. I had some, but they are yucky and stained and too small. (oops)

Then I realized that I had labeled nothing. And EVERYTHING has to be labeled at this age. As I was fixing Emma’s hair, I remembered that i really meant to get it cut before school started. And I really meant to “fix” what I so horribly messed up when I cut Nathan’s hair. Emma has bruise on her face from Nathan’s shoe. FYI: Never agree to lay down on the floor and let your brother try to jump over your face.

Finally, we were ready to go. I took some pictures of Nathan strangling Emma lovingly putting his arm around his sister. And as we were walking out the door, Emma bent over to pick something up and bared an inch of crack.

that’s right, people. My sweet, angelic little princess went off for her first day of school in high redneck fashion. Every time she bends over, her teacher will get to see her princess crack.

Second Email:

Thank you so much for e-mailing us back. We really appreciate the
pictures and updates you sent. We got the e-mail right away, but thought
we would be getting a call within a couple of days so we didn’t respond.
We would really like to hear him. It’s hard to realize how much we really
do miss him. At first you think it’s just the freshness of it. The
hardest thing to get used to was probably the quietness, not hearing him
running and playing. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks
again.

I have an opinion on this.. surprise surprise. I don’t think it is healthy for Adam to speak to his birth parents on the phone. I think it would be very confusing for him. I’m all for open adoption but think that after 8 months of no contact and him bonding with family, it just might not be best for him at that point. Probably would have been better had that phone contact taken place all along. I dunno. Just my thoughts.

Third Email:
We received the videos and additional pictures you sent. We appreciate
hearing from you. We’re glad to see him growing. We liked seeing him
climbing up the slide by himself. His balance has really improved. His
hair looks like it got darker over the winter. I’m sure the Sun will
bleach his hair back out like it did last summer. It’s nice that he is
fine tuning his usual chores. We were interested in looking over the final adoption papers. If you
could e-mail a copy to us, we would be very grateful. (Um, yeah. I don’t think so.)
We always appreciate hearing anything we can about him.

Fourth Email:
We have continued to pray about our son and our desire to have him back
with us. We do not believe you should keep children from their parents. (Then perhaps you should have considered that more carefully before putting him up for adoption. Besides, he is with his parents now.) We never put him up for adoption for a lack of being ready or a lack of
willingness to have our son. (then what? You just needed a babysitter for 8 months?) We had him for fifteen months and nine
months of being pregnant. By your own admissions you said we were not the
kind of family that this would happen to. I couldn’t bear to take my son
away from his mother when we were considering divorce, and she felt the
same way. (yet that is exactly what the two of you CHOSE to do.)
Our rights were violated, here, in our state. We were never told about
the 20 days that your state allows the parents to change their mind. The
lawyer that notirized the adoption papers was not paid to represent us
and we had no one to answer the many questions we had. (yet, as grown adults, you still CHOSE to go through with it. You could have stopped this AT ANY TIME.) Our only option
from who we thought was our lawyer was to contact your lawyer. No one
could help us that was familiar with Texas law. (once again, you are grown adults making a HUGE decision. It was YOUR responsibility to get your questions answered.)
We want to reverse the adoption and have our son with us. (you no longer have a son. You gave him up. WILLINGLY. that is simply NOT something you can go back on.) We can’t
compromise with that. If you had a child of your own you would know how
we are feeling. (see, now this is where I get REAL FIRED UP. This is where the gloves come off and I want to go visit these people. This is where I get pissed. angry. the doe’s do have a son of their own. His name is Adam and they adore their child.) We can’t continue the growth of our family without having
our son with us. (seeing as how you so recently gave up a 15 month old for adoption, I’m going to agree with you here and say that you SHOULD NOT even consider growing your family. You need some serious counseling. Babies are not to be passed around as you see fit.) He deserves to be with and to know his future brothers
or sisters. (again, strongly urging you to not reproduce again until you undergo serious psychological evaluations.) We feel that it would be wrong to our son if we had any more
children without him.
That’s where we are at.

See? Do you see what I am royally ticked? Why this gets my blood pressure boiling?

Fifth Email:
We know we upset you guys a lot, but we prayed and prayed about how to
say everything in a Godly way and with the deepest respect for the two of
you as we could. But this is something that we and our child will have to
live with for the rest of our lives. Constantly yearning for each other,
as we have learned that adopted children always feel (knowingly or
unknowingly). We have consulted with legal counsel and we have a very
good case. They say someone in this adoption practiced law without a
license. Either here, there, or both. We know that this will end up being
costly for us, and it already has been for you. We would rather pay you
for your trip and the care for our son for the past months. We would
rather reimburse you guys than to pay lawyers and drag this out for days
or months. We don’t want anyone to be in limbo. As we have definitely
learned, life is too short. Again, we want only what is in the best
interest of everyone concerned. Especially our son. He celebrated his
beautiful first birthday, and we desire there to be no interruption from
here forth in his life. We know our son will be much, much richer having
known all of you. We thank the Lord for you guys, because in the hour of
our trouble you helped. We talked to our friend who we confided in and
she said we could pray for you to be healed, and happy with a child of
your own. That is the Lord’s will.
Our deepest regards.

I can’t even comment on this like the ones before because I will greatly dishonor God with my choice of words. Let me just say that God is not an excuse. He does not want to be used as one.

Final Email (with the exception of a birthday greeting):
“We haven’t heard from you for a while and we wanted to let you know that our resolve hasn’t changed. We still want our son back. The love that we have for our son is even stronger. We hope and we pray in Jesus’ name because we know that one day he will come looking for us. And we want himto know that we came looking for him too, and never gave up. By your decision, we have made the decision not to have any more children until we have our son back. So I guess I took on your rrenness. Which is what Satan wanted me to do to punish me for my walk with God. We can see why
you desired our son so much. Our son can not fill the void that you felt before him because that was covetousness. You can not get a blessing out of a broken commandment. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.” But Jesus can heal you and fill that void with a child that does not have anyone to love them. Our son is not that child. He is very loving and that is why he makes it so easy to break that commandment.”

Blood. Boiling. Anger. Building. Fuse. shortening.

So I’m wondering what you are thinking about all of this. I’d like you weigh in. All perspectives appreciated, though not necessarily agreed with.

The Doe’s explained their openness to a more open adoption where birth family could visit with Adam, once trust had been restored and that seemed to pacify them. Then came threats of hiring an attorney and saying they didn’t have an actual attorney so they could get the adoption overturned. (The Doe’s did have more than one actual attorney - one in every state involved) Jane wisely halted all contact at that point; until a much more appropriate email was received, sending birthday wishes to Adam. In good faith, she responded with photos without commenting on any of the other stuff.

I’m going to share with you the emails that the Doe’s have received from the psychos birth parents. I can’t help but comment so anything you see in italics is from me.

The following are emails that the Doe’s received from the birth family -

First email received about 8 months after placement:

We’ve been wanting to contact you for a long time but with how fast
everything went we were confused about the paperwork. We’ve not stopped
thinking about our son as any Mom and Dad would. (aahhh, yes. you are just like any mom and dad I know.)We remember him smiling, and kissing us and how he would praise Jesus when weren’t even expecting him to. We know how fast he grows and wanted to see how big he’s gotten. We wanted to let you know that we worked everything out together and we did not get a divorce. We’ve also been wanting to get in touch just to see how he is doing and maybe talk to you on the phone. We’ve had some dreams about him and us together and although we respect the decision we made we also think it was a mistake. (at one point they actually told the Doe’s that they dreamed God told them they were the right people to parent Adam. Now, they are saying they dreamed he was back with them so they know it is what God wants. yeah, and uh, I dreamed I could fly once but you won’t catch me jumping off any rooftops.) We know you’ve taken great care of him and we’d like some pictures and if he’s talking we’d like to hear what he has to say. If it’s alright we’d like for you to call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx any time. Most of all we just want to see how he’s doing. We thank you very much for helping us take care of him. (HELPING you take care of him? Cause what part are you playing in us feeding him, loving him, putting him to bed, taking him to school, teaching him, etc…) We know that you’ve filled a place that could never be removed. We wanted to tell you that if you had ever thought it was a mistake also it is our desire to have our (they should really learn to use correct pronouns. This should read “your”) son back with us. Please do not take us or our intentions to be harmful (let’s see. what part of that statement isn’t harmful? that you are telling me you want to take my child from me? That you are acting as though I have been dog sitting for the last 8 months? That you would consider causing tremendous damage to MY son by attempting to uproot him again and then expect him to have healthy attachments?) to you or our son; we only want the best for him. (no, you want what will make you feel better.) Please call us and let us know how everything is. Thank you again.

Are you outraged yet? Even just rereading what Jane sent me makes my blood boil. She asked me to share her story here and let you all weigh in. I asked her how much detail I could share because I’m going to ask you to be as faithful to her as you’ve been to me in prayer. I haven’t given you all the information yet, but I’d like you to start praying now. First, pray for Adam. For his continued healthy attachment to his parents and for his protection. Second, please pray for the Doe’s. Pray for God’s wisdom and discernment in this situation and pray that they will be confident in their journey to protect their son. There are a lot of scriture references being thrown out by the birth family - pray that Jane will listen to His voice and not their voice. Finally, pray for the birth parents. Pray that God will also give them wisdom and discernment about what is right for Adam Doe. And pray that they will not find any resources to help them in any way continue with this plight to cause harm to Adam and the rest of the Doe family.

I guess you know where I stand in all of this. I don’t feel this way about all birth parents…. there is a huge difference between a birth mother making an adoption plan for her child from the beginning and what is happening here. I realize that there are cases when a birth parent (mother, particularly) feels like she had no other choice and was forced into making an adoption plan - this is also not what is happening here. Some day i may find hte courage to write what I feel about that but this isn’t that day.

I’m done. Can’t give any more or I’ll never get to sleep. This just bothers me on so many levels.

It’s going to take a while to get through the whole thing so bear with me.

Because of the way we chose to adopt (through foster care), I didn’t get the privelege of working walking through the ordeal with a birth mom who made a loving decision for her child. I can not imagine how excrutiating that must be; there are a multitude of reasons why adoption is the best option for a child but the one I’m going to talk about here is just plain wierd.

Let me preface this story by telling I believe this child is right where he needs to be. Adoption was the best choice for this boy but not for the reasons his birthparents gave. And yes, I am calling htem birthparents rather than the more politically correct “first parents” because i think they are screwed up. I am hesitant to call anyone “parent” who would consider doing this to their child.

So here goes. (now that I have built it up so much you’re probably going to expect more. ha ha) The story is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Part 1: The adoption

John and Jane Doe (sorry that’s all the creativity I’ve got tonight) got a call from their agency telling them about a 15 month old little boy who needed a new family. The facts surrounding the adoption were a little strange, the couple told the agency they wanted to place him for adoption “because they were getting a divorce and were going to be on the road ministering” and a host of other excuses. Yes, i am sticking with the word “excuses” here because anyone who wants to convince me that God is calling them to put their 15 month old child up for adoption so they can go on the road “ministering” is not ministering in the name of the God I serve.

They did say that they considered putting him up for adoption before he was born but decided they would “give parenting a try”. They told the agency that their decision for adoption was firm and they had no family resources and wanted to place immediately.

The Doe’s spoke with the couple on a Tuesday and traveled to their state to meet them on Thursday. They had their son, we’ll call him Adam, put on a dog and pony show, trying to impress the Doe’s with how cute he was. Jane says it was a little uncomfortable and they were worried the Doe’s would not like Adam. In fact, they wanted the Doe’s to keep Adam for the weekend - this is before any paperwork is signed. Wisely, they refused until paperwork was in place. They signed the papers and “released” them on Monday. (not sure what that means) Although they wanted a private adoption, they agreed to an agency adoption so their rights would be terminated the moment they signed because they wanted to Doe’s to bond immediately with Adam and not worry about the birth parents changing their minds.

I found it strange that although the birth parents took Adam to various church friends to say goodbye (their “church” is a gathering of people who meet in different homes) but then told the Doe’s to get out of town immediately because they didn’t want anyone they knew to ask questions.

A week after the placement, the birth parents called the agency to thank them and told them that although the Doe’s were interested in an open adoption, they wanted no contact because it would be too hard. Jane gave them an email address in case they changed their minds.

I don’t know about you, but I find the circumstances around the adoption very suspicious. I mean, who up and decides to place their 15 month old up for adoption and lists as one of their reasons that they will be on the road “ministering”? I know that the family did not have stable living arrangements and perhaps that all factored into it, but seriously? You have NO RESOURCES to help you keep your 15 month old if you really want him? With all of hte public agencies out there? With your church friends? I’m not buying it. Something about it screams freaky religious fanatic who interprets the Bible to meet their needs. Can you tell the whole thing ticks me off? I’m so grateful that Adam is now Adam Doe and believe that he is right where he belongs. I just have the ickiest feeling about these birth parents.

Especially since they are now saying they want him back.

More to come.

“Are you breastfeeding?” - that’s easy to answer without the grand revelation
“Did you carry him low?” - um, no. I didn’t carry him at all.
“Did you have a bad labor?” - Actually, it was excrutiating. It lasted 6 days and I thought my heart would burst from the pain.
“How much did Nathan weigh when he was born?” I really don’t know - I have the information but I can’t remember.
“was it hard going from one to two kids?” Don’t know. It was hard going from none to two.
“Did Nathan sleep through the night easily like Emma and Isaac?” I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

And many more. I don’t want to lie but I also don’t want the kids to hear me discussing it with strangers. Because once you reveal the adoption, there are lots of questions. Questions I LOVE to answer. But people say things without realizing how inappropriate they are in front of the kids:
“I just can’t imagine a mother not wanting her child.”
“Wow, how does a mom give up her child at 2 years old?”
“I’ll never understand how parents can be so cruel their little ones”
“that birthmom should really be in jail for what she did”
“What about the dad?”
“What is his mom’s story?”

those last two really irritate me when asked in front of the kids. “Their dad lives with us and is a wonderful father. Mom? I have a great story if you’d like to hear it.”

I know people mean well. It’s just frustrating when they say stupid things in front of my children. Especially Nathan who hears and absorbs EVERYTHING.

Sigh.

Regular domestica adoption is a beautiful thing and often comes along with beautiful stories. We also have a beautiful story; but Foster Care adoption is more complicated. Their are more pieces to the puzzle that are just sometimes difficult to explain. And when you have a mouth like mine, it is especially difficult. :D :D :D :D