Faltering and Fostering

"So are you guys foster parents?"

This is another complicated question our family gets asked fairly often. For us, the answer is yes and no. As parents, we talk about kids and birth stories being unique and completely different and the same is true of adoption. There is no "standard" story. Even in comparing our journey to other foster journeys you'd find so many points of contrast. This post is designed to illuminate what our wanderings were inside the foster system, what we learned, and how our story is a little different than other families you may know. Once Dan and I had come to terms with foster care we did some research and we found our way to what our state calls "the heart gallery." This is the website in New Mexico that features different kids who are freed for adoption. Scrolling through the faces was one of the most heartbreaking exercises we did while moving forward with adoption, and on occasion we'll go back to it, and see some of the same faces online, nearly a year later.

"Freed for adoption" is the legal term for children whose parental rights have already been terminated and who are living under the state's care either in a foster placement, group home setting, or treatment facility. This is where movies like "Instant Family" come into play. Dan and I both had a similar experience to Mark Wahlberg's character as he scrolled through the hundreds of kids that are just waiting for families. These children featured online are "freed" for adoption, and all states have some sort of list or gallery that you can browse through. What's more, these faces are only a fraction of the children that are actually waiting for adoption. During our training, the social worker said to think of our state's list as it's "highlight gallery." This is where they highlight kids and get their faces out there. This is where they appeal to hopeful parents through the kids' stories, and gapped tooth grins. Every so often they switch out the kids on their corresponding website to give a different kid or sibling group a chance at getting their face out there. It's a type of publicity for these children who are judged more by their resumes and ages than by their inherent worth and value as children created in the image of God.

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But let's back up, what happens before a child is freed for adoption? In most states the process of termination of parental rights is long, emotional, and draining. In New Mexico this is absolutely true. It's not uncommon for children in our state to be in care for 2-6 years before parental rights are terminated, if they end up being terminated at all. So what does that look like for kids? Well, if you're reading this you can assume that children rarely stay in the same home for those 2-6 years. This means that these children undergo multiple displacements and multiple traumas every time they enter a new environment. Our children personally had a combined four homes before coming into ours, and for half of those they were separated from one another. It's difficult to find a home with space for a sibling group of three, especially when some of those children are between 10 and 12. Our kids didn't have medical needs or behavioral needs. They didn't have reactive attachment disorder and didn't require special therapies. There were just three of them, and they weren't babies.

This is how we found our way into foster care. During the filling out of the paperwork I was entering my third trimester with Beatrice. Our three children would be four years old and under at the time of her birth so we weren't exactly "looking" for a baby to foster or adopt. For a lot of people, adoption, foster care, etc. may be their plan B, even if it's God's plan A. They walk into it with pain and scars of baby's they hadn't been able to birth or even conceive. But for us Welshes, this wasn't our way. Through our research we found out about "public adoptions." Have you heard of this? I'd imagine not, in fact many of the social workers we worked with weren't familiar, and most foster parents we know aren't either! A public adoption is an adoption where you adopt a child in your state who is already freed for adoption. Yes, these children are foster children, and yes they are "wards" of the state. But in a public adoption, they come into your home with the distinct intention for adoption. This was where we thought God could use us.

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One of our biggest natural roadblocks to foster care had been time. The state's first priority is family preservation and parental reunification, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. Dan himself bears witness to this as he was returned to his biological mother countless times during her abuse. Because of this factor (and others already discussed) we never thought we would be able to take in a child, work through the system, go through visitations, court hearings, etc. and be able to adopt that child before the Air Force would move us again. In a public adoption, much of this time is cut out as the children aren't working through all the steps for reunification anymore.

We took the idea of a public adoption and we ran with it. Dan downloaded and submitted the paperwork within a day. We updated shot records, had doctor visits, and made all the phone calls and just began to walk the steps. Don't read me wrong here. The process is still not fast. We're coming up on15 months from the time we submitted paperwork, to our family's adoption in five days. If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone who is hopeful for an adoption it would be this: wait well, let God work, but be the squeakiest wheel in your organization. Make calls, emails, submit letters, call more, text workers, ask hard questions, double check things, and know what is required of you and of your representatives. Be the squeaky wheel. I am not a squeaky wheel, but I can honestly say that Daniel's ability to push limits, hold people accountable, and know each thing that was required of us and others helped push our process forward. Who cares if you're the most annoying parent they work with, your kids have futures at stake, and that's worth being a little annoying.

In my last post I talked about filling out our survey for kids that we would be willing to accept and did our best to walk in faith and keep the doors fairly open. We said we could probably do a sibling group of two, and that a sibling group of three would be a "stretch". We were open to different genders and dynamics and said we were looking for kids anywhere from 2-10, but "if a child had an older sibling, it wouldn't be a deal breaker." This is one moment, like many others, where we can see in hindsight how God used open hands for his glory. We believe God planned these three children for us, and one way or the other, they were going to end up as our forever family. All we had to do was open our hands a little bit, and when the time came God used it, and he used it without having to pry our cold dead hands off of our "ideal." Instead, he took our open hands and gently led us his way.

We were required by the state to do 32 hours of foster care training. We read books, filled out forms, got home studied, waited a lot, waited more, looked at the gallery for kids in our state repeatedly and with great hope, waited some more, did some more paperwork, had Baby B somewhere in there, and then finally we were licensed! Our license is technically called "adopt only." However, we are eligible to provide respite care for families, which we did on occasion. But our license is intended and labeled in such a way that the state knows we are singularly interested in adopting kids whose parental rights are already terminated. Did we still get calls for foster placements? Yes we did, and technically our license could have allowed us to do that. But in this sense we are not "traditional" foster parents. The state requires that kids be placed in your home for 6 months before being able to finalize an adoption, so currently we are living out those 6 months which will be completed officially this Saturday! After we were officially licensed we got news of an adoption event! We were emailed by our state's organizer for the event which would take place at a college a few hours south of us, so we RSVP'd and yes...waited some more.

I wish I could tell you we always waited well. I wish I could tell you we trusted God implicitly with each step. I wish I could tell you I followed my husband's leadership without hesitation, without questioning his motives. But what I can tell you is even better. I can tell you that the paperwork was overwhelming and oppressive to me, and yet God had planned a man for me who would not be daunted by paperwork, who would take that task willingly and joyfully. I can tell you that when I feared what social workers thought of another email and another phone call, my husband reminded me that my worth is determined by God alone. I can tell you that God held me and comforted me with the knowledge that when Jesus adopted me, there was an expense, and it was costly. He reminded me of this over and over as I contemplated the effect on our natural kids, on how much it would take from time with Daniel, and a million other kinds of worst case scenarios. The good news is that I can tell you when my faith failed—God held me fast. Not once, but over and over and over again. There was never a moment when he didn't hold me. I would do it all over again not just for the kids, but for the knowledge that I am held.