Well, there is not only movement, there is SO MUCH FORWARD MOVEMENT it’s honestly overwhelming.
We have now received the judge’s decision, and … baby is 98% likely to be ours! There is never 100% until those papers are actually signed…but barring completely unforeseen events we will be adopting baby at some point (again – timing is a question of many, many, many, factors).
AND… also her big sister! Which is a mixed bag of terror and joy and all the emotions. INSTANT SO MUCH FAMILY!
TAKE THAT FOUR YEARS OF MISCARRIAGES! WE ARE CAUGHT THE F UP!
We spent time with BabyX3 officially for the first time yesterday and had an outing to McDonald’s. Judge all you want, people who are not in the position of trying to win the trust of a 4 yr old who has been moved through at least 4 moves that you know of. She may not remember my name after meeting me 10 times plus being told 7 times yesterday, but she sure as hell knows the name of McDonald’s AND what she likes to order there, AND that they have a play-place.
Everything about the outing was sad, and hopeful, and scary, and complicated, and good, and hard. I am convinced that any time this tiny peanut gets in a car she has NO IDEA if she will ever go “home” again. No one can learn, or grow, or develop, or make any healthy attachments under those circumstances. We made a reasonable and not bad at all amount of initial progress on our outing. On the way, she did not speak at all, except to answer my question about what she likes to eat for breakfast as “cookies”. She was shy and quiet, and played in the play place. After eating I asked her if she wanted to go play or read a book I had brought. She was ALL IN on book. I had been warned she does not know colors from shapes from numbers, so I brought a baby color book, and we spent the whole time saying “one red car”, “two pink flowers”. And we will continue doing this for a good, long, while! She then went and played some more, and then came back and wanted to read again! So we did.
When we left, instead of walking limply next to me she was skipping and bouncing. When baby started crying, she held toys up to make baby happy. She giggled and laughed about baby the whole ride home. When we got to her house she asked if her baby sister was going to live there. We explained her baby sister lives with us, and invited her to come to our house to play with her in the future – she indicated interest in this activity.
We know that after we left she indicated happiness with our outing. She also lorded it over the other kids in her home in a pretty negative manner…oh, but wait… She is in a home with NINE kids. NINE. NINE. Before I went to the home I had a LOT of judgment in me…after being in the home and briefly interacting with the older teenage kids, I was impressed by its warmth and happiness. But my future kidlet is a giant black hole of need for attention, love, and stability, and there is just no way that environment can give it to her. We know there will be a honeymoon stage (like all neglected kids, she knows to to act in a way that is most likely to obtain affection and care) and we know that will be followed by a time of nearly indescribeable anger and acting out (like most neglected kids she has a whole bag of diagnoses that appear to be the absolute result of [lack of] nurture with no indication of an innate inability to thrive). We know the form of her acting out, the triggers for her rage, the psychological bases and the many, many, questions about the future. We have such open eyes it’s giving me heart palpitations…
There are moments where I think about how easy it would be to say “no, we will just keep this perfect baby, thanks”. Literally NO ONE has pushed us to take BabyX3 – in fact, early on they tried to talk us out of it – now that there is no one else, they really are hopeful we will take her, but they cannot exactly force us. But really? Leave behind this child who is blameless in her circumstances because there is a much easier path for us? And say what to BabyX2 when she grows up? “uh, yeah, you have an older sister, but…it just seemed pretty hard…” And be a person with means, opportunity, and ability who just left this eminently lovable child adrift?
Yeah, I don’t think so.
We are now in panic mode – not specifically about new kidlet (not really a baby, although they are all babies to us), but the MECHANICS of it all. We have obtained one quote for basement renovation and will have a second this week. We need to remove everything from her room AND the basement and store it, get a room together for her, have our basement renovated (seriously, our house as-is is TOO SMALL for a working from home artist/webdesigner dad and two kidlets with different sleep issues therefore in need of two separate sleeping spaces- and buying a new house was contemplated but discarded because we have actually PAID OFF our house and we cannot take on another debt while keeping a parent at home to fill the black hole and create constancy and safety, security, surety.) We have to find time for IEP meetings, my usual ridiculous work obligations, getting the house and room ready, spending time with new kidlet on longer and longer visits for comfort, OH and my partner is taking a two-month out-of-home work contract so cobbling together two months of child care for BabyX2 AND realizing SOMEONE ELSE is going to be caring for my babe most hours of the day EVERY DAY for two months and then (hopefully) immediately adding new kidlet to our household…AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.