Feelings of an Adoptee: Angel-Leah's Grief

April 13, 2006, was a big day at our house. We finalized the adoption of our much-loved son, Luke. I don't know that there have been many days in my life as happy as that one. But it ended on a sad note.

In the late afternoon, we got a call: The court had ordered our 7-month-old foster daughter, whom we had since her birth birth, back to her mother.

It was a bittersweet thing. I had gotten to know this family well, and I knew they had worked very hard to get this child back, hiring a very good attorney and even buying a new house. She had a good transition, in fact, she was actually only spending one more hour a week with us than with her family. So I let her go with no real misgivings, although I knew I would miss her.

A couple of days later, I put our name back on the placement list for another foster child. We had two openings, and I told them they could put us on the emergency list, which meant they could call us all hours of the night and weekends. Less than a week later, just as we were going to bed, we got a call. CPS had a two and a half year old little girl, could we take her? Of course, we said. An hour later, just after 11 o'clock, Angel-Leah came into our lives...

She was a precocious child, very verbal. The first thing she said to me after I was introduced to her as the lady who would be taking care of her was: "I'm wet, and you need to change me." Surprised, I told her I thought I could probably handle that. She went to bed easily that night, and the next day, shopped happily with us at Antique Alley, a 15 mile long flea market that happens twice a year in our small town. It was hot that day, and being a very blond, blue eyed child, I was afraid she would sunburn, so I bought her a big straw hat, which started a tradition; we now buy a hat for her at every Antique Alley.

But after a bit, she began to realize that no one seemed to be coming to pick her up. For days, she walked around, telling anyone who would listen, "My nanny's coming to get me." Her eyes would brim with tears and her lip would tremble, and it would bring my friends to tears to hear her say this.

It was apparent she was a much loved child. She had not been abused, but put in a very dangerous situation by her birth mother. It wasn't her first time to be a ward of the state; she was also taken at birth for her first few months of life, and put in a relative placement.

Her biological family was very upset over the whole situation, and any CPS meetings and court hearings were well attended by them. I got to know the family very well as they worked for the next year to find a solution to this problem. I got many phone calls, and listened to their tears as they agonized over this beautiful little girl. I did all I could to encourage them, even supervising her third birthday party at the park so they could see Angel-Leah outside of the cold CPS visitation room. I liked this family, and they seemed to like me very much, too. They often expressed their appreciation that I was taking good care of her.

But as the year wound up and the final court hearing approached, it was apparent the birth parents would not be able to work the plan that would get their little girl returned to them. The goal changed from family reunification to unrelated adoption. During one conversation, I told the family that if Angel-Leah needed a home when this was over, our family wanted to adopt her. They were so grateful, and I think it really relieved their minds to know where she would grow up, and that she would not be moved again to strangers.

In April 2007, Angel-Leah's parents' rights were terminated, and a final visit was planned. All the relatives that wanted to attend got to visit her for the first hour, and then her birth mother had the second hour all to herself. I explained to three year old Angel-Leah what was happening, and her family also explained during this two hour period. She understood as well as a smart little girl can understand. When I came to pick her up after the two hours were over, I watched as her birth mother gave her a final hug, fighting tears, and walked backwards out the door, trying to take in as much of her as she could. Angel-Leah blew her kisses and giggled as she left. It was very sad, and one CPS lady ran crying from the room.

We had another foster daughter two years younger than Angel-Leah; we called her MiMi, and her visits continued. I tried to make each Tuesday special so that Angel-Leah wouldn't feel the sting of not getting visits anymore. We would go get ice cream, or visit the dollar store for small gifts.

But one day, months later, as Angel-Leah cried for her mother, she told me "I'm afraid it's all going to wash away!" I said, "You mean you're afraid you're going to forget everyone?" She said yes. I promised her I would not let that happen and that we would go to Walmart and get her a photo album and put all her pictures in it.

So we did. We bought a pretty pink album, and I gathered all the pictures we had taken over the last year, and the ones her biological family had given us of their family, and we began to create an album. I'm not much of a scrap booker; so far this isn't much more than just a photo album. But it chronicled her life from the day she came to live with us until the present time. It had pictures of all her relatives, pictures of her at visits with her family, many pictures of the birthday party in the park we had. We had fun putting it together, and once it was done, I told her she would be allowed to get it out every church day and look at it for a while. My thinking behind this was it would keep her from obsessing over it too much.

For weeks after it was finished, she didn't think about it again. But one Sunday afternoon, she asked me if she could look at it. I got it out, and we sat on the couch together with the album. The more she looked, the more she cried, until she was crying great, gulping, body shaking sobs, saying "I want my mommy!! I want my mommy!!" I didn't try to stop her; I just let her get it out. But she started asking me the hard questions: "Why couldn't I stay with someone I know?" She kept pointing at this aunt and that aunt, and saying "Why couldn't I live with her?" I didn't know what to tell her, so I gave her the lame, "Well, they work during the day." So then she started pointing at her cousins, saying "Where does SHE go when her mommy works?" All I knew was to say the truth, day care.

She kept asking if her mommy was well yet, and if she could go back to her. She was afraid she had forgotten to tell her mommy bye that last time. She cried "I forgot to tell her bye!! Why didn't you remind me to say bye??" I said, "You DID say bye, Angel-Leah, I saw you. You said goodbye, then you went to the door and blew kisses to her." That made her feel a little better, although she doesn't remember it, but it still didn't help a whole lot. She cried so much, that I finally put the photo album away, and began to get her ready for bed. She hadn't had a nap that day, and I thought maybe she was overtired. I dressed her in her pajamas, and then I just sat beside her on her bed while she kept crying. I explained as much, in fact, more than I thought a four year old could handle and understand. I told her it wouldn't be forever, that someday when she was big, she WOULD see her mommy again. She asked how long that was, a few weeks? No, I said. Years. A lot of years, until she was big like Max. More and more tears, as she cried 'that's too long!' I explained to her that I could not change that. It had been ordered by a judge, who wanted to make sure she was safe. I told her as soon as the adoption was final, I would let her write letters to her grandma, and maybe mommy would write her too. I said one or two letters a year, with pictures, how would that be? That was good, but not near enough. I read her a book, got her under the covers, and she started to cry again. I said, "Why don't you try and think of something else? Or go ahead and think of your mommy, and maybe you can dream about being with her." She said, "I don't want to dream it, if it isn't real!" I turned off the light, lay down on her bed with her, and told her to put her feet on my feet, and go to sleep, and I would lay with her for a while.

When I came out of the room, my older children were upset with me for letting her look at the album. But I had been researching foster care and adoption so much, and everything I had read so far actually suggested using a photo album or creating a book with their life story in it for them. I had also read that working through the grieving process like she had just done was actually very good for adoptees, as opposed to bottling it up inside.

As I told a friend who had experience with this the story, she suggested I keep up with the book, and have it continue to show that Angel-Leah had gone on with her life and gained a new family through adoption. I thought that was a very good idea, and something that we are following through on.

And yet, I worried that what happened AFTER she lost her birth mother would never be as important to her as what happened before. She told me often that she didn't love me, that she only loved her birth mother. I assured her that it was okay for her to love her birth mother more than me, but I did hope that someday she would love me just a little bit too. She would also inform me that when she did finally grow up, she was going to go back to live with her birth mother, and she would never come see me again. I told her that would make me very sad, because I loved her and I would miss her. I said I really hoped she would change her mind, because if she never came back and visited us, that meant she would never see Luke again, or Mary Susannah, or the grandkids. That gave her pause, but then she straightened her shoulders and said, no, she was sure that she would never visit us again. I said I was sorry to hear that, and I let it go.

Then, recently, she came down with a raging ear infection, something she is prone too. She was so miserable. I gave her medicine, and then I told her I would rock her until the medicine kicked in and she felt better. We rocked in my trusty rocking chair until she fell asleep, and I gently laid her in her bed. When she woke up a couple of hours later, she found me on the couch, and she crawled into my lap. I cuddled her, and after a minute, she said, "Mommy? I guess I really do love you and (birth mother) the same." I told her I was so glad to hear that, and that I loved her too.

And just this past weekend, after a really fun week full of grandchildren visits, she came to me, tired and full from her week, and said, "Maybe when I grow up I WILL come back and visit you. Maybe I will even just stay here, and not go live with (birth mother)." I told her I would be very happy with either of those decisions. And I felt like we had won a battle together.

Thought for the day: Foster/adoption is not all kittens and rainbows and butterflies, but hard work on the part of all parties. It's about great loss, and great gain. It's about taking heartache, and making a family. It's about taking the loss of first best (an intact first family) and turning it around to a new beginning, which is a specialty of God!