WE ARE WAITING.
We have a date for what could be a final decision that our baby leaves us forever, or that baby’s placement with us will be extended for future reconsideration, or that baby’s bio parents rights have been terminated and we are one step closer to maybe making baby our permanent family. It could be for baby and siblings, it could be for just siblings. All the time, trial, and uncertainty, just for an outcome that can be even more uncertainty.
I had guessed a general time frame for a decision and that was nerve-wracking. But now we have a date for at least the first decision and it’s like counting down to your favorite holiday…or the exact opposite of your favorite holiday. I have a giant calendar in my head, I cross off days, and sometimes hours. I’m not great at math, but I’m surprisingly accurate at hours right now.
Questions that have no emotional answer; would I rather have a decision that baby stays for 6 more months and then still goes home or that she goes home now? It’s the worst game of “what if”? EVER! And I’m super good at what if!! Obviously, I would take 6 more months (or 6 more minutes, or 6 more seconds) with babyX2 over letting go immediately no matter what the long-term outcome even though I tend to have a pretty solid “get the pain over NOW ” philosophy.
I just… cannot believe the judge will do the clearly wrong thing. And I know he won’t do the right thing. I am generally fine with cognitive dissonance but this is just a stomach ache asking to be drowned in whiskey.
It definitely feels like the calm acceptance and letting go part of fostering works best for people who have either large families already and have room for love and care but without the desperate selfishness of people specifically looking to adopt, or with people who are older and past the “this is my last chance to start at the beginning” phase. In another form of cognitive dissonance, foster care wants parents that strongly support reunification, that can let go, but that are also also always willing to adopt the child if that’s the direction life takes them…what an insane demand on us. What an insane choice we made in walking this road.
