The Goal Is Reunification

Think Foster Care is your avenue to an infant adoption ? Better revise that thinking because the goal of foster care is the reunification of the original family members.  Here’s what one hopeful adoptive mother (using foster care to achieve her goal) wrote –

“Just out of curiosity how many of you have had baby placements and have either adopted or planned to adopt them? We have lost hope that we will ever get a baby, plus our region has pretty much said there are no babies that get adopted here. Can you also post what region you’re from, I’m try to see if maybe certain regions have better luck”.

Sure, it can be hard on the foster family to say goodbye to a child they loved.

Children are removed when the situation they are in is one that is unsafe. Each foster care case begins with the goal of reunification. Parents are given goals to meet in a timely manner to be reunited with their children. Most children are able to return home to their families. There are instances in which the parent has their parental rights terminated, and then the child is placed for adoption. Reunification is the goal and must be pursued when possible and safe for the child.

There is no guaranteed time frame for how long a child will remain in foster care. Some cases are short-term cases and can result in reunification after a few weeks, while other cases can go on for years. When the time frame turns to years, the case plan may become one of reunification with the concurrent plan of adoption. In that situation, the state is acknowledging that the case plan is taking a significant amount of time and that the parents may not be able to complete all the tasks. At that time, the child is considered at legal risk and may be placed into a pre-adoptive foster home. A pre-adoptive foster home is one in which the foster family has expressed interest in pursuing adoption, and is home studied and ready to do so. While each case is different, a general rule of thumb is that if a child has spent 15 months in foster care, it is time to reassess and decide how to proceed, and if adoption ought to be added as a potential goal.

While parents are working on the reunification of a child, they will also (as safety allows) participate in visits with their child during this time. Visitation may be supervised or unsupervised, depending on the reason for the removal of the child from the home. In more extreme cases, where a child’s safety is in question, there may be a court order that prevents visits until the court can be assured that visits will be safe for the child. In these cases, parents may need to complete certain steps before being allowed contact with their children. The most important thing is to be sure the child is safe.

Because being removed from their parents is a traumatic event, social workers are required to try to find a kinship placement for children. Kinship placement is any home where the caregiver has a relationship with the child and is not a stranger. Typically, kinship care refers to placing the child with a relative. However, teachers, family friends, and others who the child may be familiar with can be considered. A child will be more comfortable if they are familiar with their caregiver, and far less stressed. Kinship care is not always possible, however, and that is why there is a need for licensed foster homes.

So, going back to the beginning, it appears that another woman was sympathetic and wrote – “We ALL know that some of the kids we have will reunify and we all should know that reunification is not a reality for some babies and kids and they will need adoptive families. If anything most babies shouldn’t be reunited. Obviously MANY families here are praying that they can adopt! I feel like some of you are going out of your way to squash their dreams! They know what the journey can hold! We should be building them up and encouraging them. NOT every case ends in reunification. Actually the national statistic of reunification is only 49% percent there’s a ton of children needing homes! Our county has a lot of drug babies and junkie parents because of the opioid crises. Many foster parents can adopt a baby.”

So there is that.

She goes on to suggest – “We were upfront and told the caseworker we only wanted cases that had a chance of moving from Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) to adoption. Both of my babies are miracles and our first placement. We went into foster care TO ADOPT. There’s nothing wrong with adopting. Reunification shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be about whatever is in the child’s best interests. Stop ruining people’s dreams of adopting. Many babies cannot go home. I have another baby right now who is heading towards TPR. Reunification isn’t an option. No need to remind us that reunification is the goal. We ALL know that.”

Maybe, but clearly – reunification is NOT the goal for some foster parents – adopting a baby is their goal.

Misplaced Priorities

I could sound like a broken record stuck on repeat but here goes anyway.

Society’s first priority should be the support of and encouragement for natural families.  I was reading today about how many churches have programs to assist those persons who provide foster care or are adopting a child with all kinds of useful items.  Why don’t we do this for struggling families ?  Particularly now with the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic, when people are being evicted, worried about feeding their families due to a loss of income or expecting the electricity, gas and/or water to be cut off anytime.  It is bad enough that looking for one’s weekly grocery items feels like living in a third world country instead of what we had thought of the United States as – a first world country – but it seems we have lost that standing to greed and corruption at the top of the government and among the wealthiest citizens.

Okay, enough of my political rant but really ?  Check out this wish list recently posted by a church for new foster parents to help them “get by” –

Lots of food of all kinds.  For example, gift cards to restaurants, fast dinners like Bertoli pasta bags, frozen pizzas, PF Chang’s frozen dinners or even ready to eat, hot meals delivered throughout the first two weeks. Lots of requests for babysitting options such as volunteers that can come and watch the kids while you run errands, provide the freedom for a date night out, or a day of rest or time to enjoy adult activities, maybe even just take a nap or be quiet for an hour.  A full house deep clean from a local cleaning company or maid service.  Car detailing, “movie night” (dvd or Redbox code, popcorn, candies/snacks), board games, amazon gift cards and gas cards (for all the appointments).  A deal with a furniture store for a percentage off of bunk beds, dressers, lamps, etc.  Gift cards for lessons to whatever… swim, music, baseball, haircuts, lawncare, homecare/maintenance, bug man, carcare/maintenance, pretty much anything a regular family would need/use.

Notice something ?  A pattern is emerging.  It all about the adults, the parents, and not about the traumatized children placed with them.  And wouldn’t a struggling family be content with less frivolous luxuries ?  The priorities of charitable people need to be reconsidered and revised to help families stay intact, instead of tearing them apart.

Where is Kaya ?

Imagine.  This girl has been “missing” for at least 8 years.  If not for the behavior of her adoptive parents, Jose and Gina Centeno, her disappearance would still be under the radar.

An investigation was prompted after her adoptive parents were accused of harming her siblings, a 17-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy.  It was these children who made authorities aware that they last saw her when she was between 8 and 12 years old.  She was a student at John Reed Elementary School when she was removed in second grade, purportedly to be homeschooled.  As a parent who’s children have been educated at home, I always hate these sensational stories (and of course, grieve these things happen) because they cast a bad perspective on the practice of educating one’s own children.

In July, authorities in Mexico notified Sonoma County child protective services of allegations of abuse against the parents by the Centeno children after they were sent out of the country about 1.5 years ago to live with a family there. Neighbors of the family’s members alerted Mexican authorities about the alleged abuse.

The Centenos had adopted five children: three siblings and later on, twins. Gina and Jose separated and Gina has been raising the twins, according to police.  Prosecutors have charged the pair with felony kidnapping, alleging that they concealed the three older siblings to obtain adoption assistance funding, according to court records.

Jose and Gina Centeno gave Kaya’s younger sister and brother an explanation for why she disappeared, although that information has not been publicly revealed. Investigators did find evidence in the family’s home “to corroborate the victims’ statements about the abuse,“ police said.

Thankfully, the Centenos are being held in the Sonoma County Jail on $18 million bail and are expected to make another court appearance on Oct. 5. They each face life sentences, if convicted.

To report information about the case, call the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department at 707-584-2612.

Magnolia – Again

Magnolia – 2020 Gerber Baby

I previously wrote about Magnolia in this blog.  She is recently back in the news.  On September 7, 2020, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) announced that it had named a baby called Magnolia as one of their 2020 “Angels in Adoption” honorees. Magnolia, from the San Francisco Bay Area, rose to fame in May 2020 when Gerber announced that she was the first (known) adopted Spokesbaby.

Infant adoption is not a simple story of adorable angels, even when they are cute enough to be a Gerber Baby.  The Angel award is meant to celebrate “the extraordinary efforts of individuals, couples, families, and organizations who work tirelessly to advocate for children in need of a family.”

Creating a connection between this apparently worthy, child-centered mission and adopted infants like Magnolia creates a false narrative. The truth is that there are approximately 30 waiting families for every infant voluntarily placed for adoption. It is unlikely that anyone needs to be convinced to adopt these babies. Also, these children already have a family — the family they were born to — who don’t have the resources to be able to parent their child in the way they would like.

It is true that there are approximately 100,000 youth in need of permanency in the US foster care system — but they are almost entirely older children who have experienced trauma, and there are fewer families interested in adopting them. In other words, domestic infant adoption doesn’t need a Spokesbaby — but families in poverty and foster youth without permanency do.

Obviously, it is not actually possible for Magnolia to have made extraordinary efforts to advocate for children in need of a family. It is the choices of adults (her adoptive parents, Gerber, CCAI) to cast her in this role. This highlights how the narrative is already being written and spoken for her, by individuals and organizations that want to promote infant adoption as an unqualified good. And it is deeply concerning that Magnolia, who has no voice and choice in the matter, has twice been made the literal poster child for adoption, before she can even speak in complete sentences, much less articulate her thoughts on what it means to her to be adopted.

Thanks to a Medium article from which the thoughts above were taken (because I do AGREE with every word I’ve shared as though it came from my very heart), I learned about PACT – An Adoption Alliance focused on children of color who end up adopted.

Here is their overview statement –

Pact is a non-profit organization whose mission is to serve adopted children of color. In every case, the child is always our primary client. In order to best serve children’s needs, we provide not only adoptive placement but lifelong education, support, and community for adoptees and their families on issues of adoption and race. Our goal is for every child to feel wanted honored and loved, a cherished member of a strong family with proud connections to the rich cultural heritage that is his or her birthright. We advocate for honesty and authenticity in matters of race and adoption. We strongly believe that adopted children’s and adults’ connections to birth family and birth heritage should be respected and maintained. We also strive to identify and counteract “adoptism,” an unfortunately common social prejudice that challenges the legitimacy of the choice to place a child for adoption or to build a family by adoption. Finally, as an organization committed to children of color, we feel it is essential to educate ourselves and others about the pervasive power of race and racism as they affect our children, our families, ourselves and our society.

It’s A Matter Of Responsibility

Artist Delphine Boel

One of my guilty pleasures in life is not an obsessive but a casual interest in royalty.  So I could say that this blog is simply for fun.  The artist looks like a “fun” person to me but it is about a lot more than fun.  It is about how men so often plant their seeds wherever they wish to and don’t take any responsibility for it.

I’ll never know entirely what transpired between my dad’s parents.  His father was a married man and unless he was simply hiding the truth that he fathered a son, he never knew about it.  I give him the benefit of the doubt regarding that because my grandmother was a very self-sufficient woman and it is likely she just handled her pregnancy very quietly, turning to the Salvation Army’s home for unwed mothers in San Diego (actually Ocean Beach) California.

And I won’t judge King Albert II of Belgium either.  Maybe he knew and hid it and maybe he didn’t but he does know now.  DNA has been a miracle at revealing familial identities for children conceived out of wedlock and adoptees alike.

Delphine’s mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, said she and Albert II had been involved in an 18-year-long affair before he was crowned king.  The Belgian aristocrat also claimed the royal had been a presence during Ms Boël’s childhood.  Speculation surrounding an illegitimate child of King Albert II sparked in 1999 after the publication of an unauthorized biography of the monarch’s wife, Queen Paola.  This sensational claim prompted a royal scandal and growing gossip surrounding the court.

Ms Boël first publicly spoke out and claimed she was the love child of King Albert II in 2005.  She could not open court proceedings until 2013, after he abdicated in favor of his firstborn, King Philippe, and lost his immunity to prosecution.  Despite the launch of the legal case against him, the former king initially resisted court orders to undergo DNA testing.  He only caved in when told he faced fines of £4,500 (€5,000) for every day he would push back the test.

After he “learnt the results of the DNA tests”, Albert II acknowledged Ms Boël as his fourth child.  King Albert’s lawyer issued a statement on January 27 reading: “Scientific conclusions indicate that he is the biological father of Mrs Delphine Boel.  King Albert has decided to put an end to this painful procedure in good conscience.”

The love child’s lawyer described this royal admission as a “relief”.  He continued: “Her life has been a long nightmare because of this quest for identity.  She wants to have exactly the same privileges, titles and capacities as her brothers and her sister.”  Reports suggest a victory of Ms Boël in court could see her children become eligible for a royal title – much like the other grandchildren of King Albert II in the line of succession to the throne.  But the former monarch’s lawyer says the court has no power to hand out titles and only a royal decree would make Ms Boël a princess.

Ultra-Independence as a Trauma Response

Each of my grandmother’s experienced childhood traumas and both were ultra-independent.  Independence is important but when it becomes a survival mechanism then it is a problem.  It can be detrimental when a person becomes so independent that they fail to ask for help when they really need it.

Ultra-Independence can stem from trauma growing up, possibly in a household where you had to take on a care giver role to your siblings (as my maternal grandmother did – she was 11 years old when her mom died, leaving her to care for 4 younger siblings, the youngest barely a toddler). Or a home where your parents were distant or abusive towards you (as my paternal grandmother experienced with a truly cruel step-mother and a father so grief-stricken by the death of his 3 year old daughter, run over by a car, and his wife a year later and 3 months after my grandmother was born).

There are many other causes – being bullied as a child, a failed love affair, an abusive or narcissistic lover and the death of a loved one are a few of these.

Ultra-Independent people tend to be the rulers of the family and household, they run the show, and take on all the responsibilities and decisions at home because they don’t trust others to make the correct decisions, this results in far too much responsibility on one person that can cause one to become overwhelmed and unable to cope with the pressure anymore.

They can become so used to doing everything for their self, making all the decisions, paying their own bills, fixing all the issues that arise – alone without anyone’s help – that asking for help becomes terrifying. Even admitting that they are not coping is something an Ultra-Independent person will never dream of admitting because that implies that they need others to assist them, which is out of the question.

Ultra-Independent people also tend to take on codependent relationships, as they feel their independence allows them to fix everything and therefore can fix others and it feels safer having someone need them, than a person who will try help them. A normal independent partner scares a Ultra Independent far more than having a codependent that allows them to keep their control.

To an extent Ultra-Independence becomes codependency on one’s self ………. and they will beat themselves up if they cannot fix a situation or do all the things they need done without assistance.  They can become very hard on their own self because they expect to be the super hero all the time. This can result in internal anger and disappointment.  The same kind of anger as they might feel in a co –dependent relationship. These emotions and demands put onto one’s self can eventually lead to stress and burnout.

Credit for much of the content in today’s blog comes from Ultra-Independence is a Trauma response.

 

 

What is C-PTSD ?

Most of us have heard of PTSD but until this morning, I didn’t know there was a more severe version called Complex-PTSD.

Most people who have looked at adoption very closely already know that trauma is an aspect of having been surrendered to adoption for most adoptees.  I’ve become so steeped in it that I can recognize effects now in statements made by an adoptee that to them a vague issues they still don’t know the source of.  This lack of awareness occurs most often in teenagers and young adults.  Most mature adoptees have worked through many of these and may have had some counseling or therapy to help them uncover the underlying emotions and possible sources of these.

Complex PTSD, however, is specific to severe, repetitive trauma that typically happens in childhood – most often abuse.  On the surface, both PTSD and C-PTSD both come as the result of something deeply traumatic, they cause flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia, and they can make people live in fear even when they are safe.

The very heart of C-PTSD – what causes it, how it manifests internally, the lifelong effects (including medically), and its ability to reshape a person’s entire outlook on life – is what makes it considerably different.

PTSD typically results from “short-lived trauma”, or traumas of time-limited duration. Complex PTSD stems from chronic, long-term exposure to trauma in which a victim has limited belief it will ever end or cannot foresee a time that it might. This can include: child abuse, long-term domestic violence, being held in captivity, living in crisis conditions/a war zone, child exploitation, human trafficking, and more.

The causal factors are not all that separates PTSD from C-PTSD. How their symptoms manifest can tell you even more. PTSD is weighted heaviest in the post-traumatic symptoms: nightmares, flashbacks, hyperarousal/startle response, paranoia, bursts of emotion, etc.

C-PTSD includes all the symptoms of PTSD as well as a change in self-concept. How one sees themselves, their perpetrator, their morals and values, their faith in others or a god. This can overhaul a survivor’s entire world view as they try to make sense of their trauma and still maintain a belief that they, and the world around them, could still be good or safe.

When an adult experiences a traumatic event, they have more tools to understand what is happening to them, their place as a victim of that trauma, and know they should seek support even if they don’t want to. Children don’t possess most of these skills, or even the ability to separate themselves from another’s unconscionable actions. The psychological and developmental implications of that become complexly woven and spun into who that child believes themselves to be — creating a messy web of core beliefs much harder to untangle than the flashbacks, nightmares and other post-traumatic symptoms that come later.

The effects are usually deeply interpersonal within that child’s caregiving system. Separate from both the traumatic events and the perpetrator, there is often an added component of neglect, hot-and-cold affections from a primary caregiver, or outright invalidation of the trauma, if a child does try to speak up. These disorganized attachments and mixed messages from those who are supposed to provide love, comfort and safety – all in the periphery of extreme trauma – can create unique struggles.

Credit for this blog and for the beginning of my education in this new concept goes to Beauty After Bruises.

After Terror, Come Babies

I’m not certain what this image conveys about what we teach our children.  Like many people on this date, my thoughts return to 19 years ago and a photo we took of our 6-1/2 month old oldest son sitting next to a TV with the image of the Twin Towers burning real time.  One of those iconic things one does in an attempt to capture a moment in history, which we instinctively knew it was.

So my thoughts turned this morning to the orphans of that event.  These children are what comes after 9/11. Gabriel was born six days after the death of his father. They are the joy, the salve, the ointment. They’re the love.

“I could only imagine how much courage someone could have to go into a situation like that,” says Lauren, who was born less than three months after 9/11.  Her father died after running into the South Tower to save others.

Ronald lost his dad at the Pentagon while his mother, Jacqueline, was five months pregnant with him. (She was working on the other side of the building during the attack.) A high school basketball player, today Ronald Jr. wears the number 33 on his jersey, the age his father was when he died. “I feel like my dad is watching me,” he says. “Every move I make, he’s here.”

Robyn was born seven weeks after her father died.  She says the loss has given her a different perspective from her peers. “I’ve always been aware of the world.  The world should be a place where it’s okay to be who you are, and to love whom you love and believe what you believe. Underneath, what we’re made up of is the same.”

Allison’s father was on Flight 11, traveling to be home for his daughter’s imminent birth – has learned that her sadness is also coupled with happiness.  “There’s always an empty spot.”

Sadly, death is a part of life, no matter how that death happens.  At this time, there is a lot of death all over the planet and the terror of never being certain if one will be infected with this virus and lose their own life to it.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

One of the interesting things about having become a mother for the first time in 1973 and then becoming a mother for the second and third time in 2001 and 2004 was how much some baby advice had changed.

Back in 1973, I had an acquaintance who lost a baby to SIDS, so I was terrified about the possibility.  I would stand outside my daughter’s bedroom door to listen for her breathing.  If she didn’t wake up at the usual time in the morning, I would go in to check on her and she was always beginning to wake up – thankfully.  Back then, we put a baby to sleep on their stomach in case they threw up, they wouldn’t choke on it.

But by the early 2000s, the advice had changed and I can only assume it was due to statistics that proved babies would be safer sleeping on their backs.  And both of my sons also survived their infancy.

The reason this is on my mind today is an awful story I just read about a hopeful adoptive mother.

She and her husband were going to adopt from a “friend”. The pregnant mother changed her mind only a week before she gave birth. And of course, this was a terrible disappointment for the couple hoping to adopt and destroyed the friendship that had previously existed.

Sadly, this baby died from SIDS.

The hopeful adoptive mother admits to conflicted feelings about this. She admits that the adoption failing to go through left her heartbroken because she had become emotionally attached to the developing fetus, thinking of it becoming her own baby to love. The baby now dying has left her feeling like she lost her baby twice. She understands that she really doesn’t have any right to mourn the loss of a baby that was never hers but never-the-less.

The hateful part is that she also feels vindicated, as though it is karma taking the baby away from its original mother, because the hopeful adoptive mother was denied the opportunity to raise this child.

She also admits to being irrationally angry. She believes the baby would still be alive had this child been in her care.

Weirdly, she is relieved the baby didn’t die in her care, if this was the child’s destiny from the beginning.

What to make of all of this ?  She is one very mixed up lady to put it kindly, which I would.

However, I don’t disagree with this woman in my adoption group’s harsher response to the hopeful adoptive mother –

What you should be feeling is sad that a baby died, and compassion for the mother. A decent person would stuff their selfishness and feel sympathy. This baby was never the hopeful adoptive mother’s responsibility. Some more advice, you could thank god that baby didn’t have to feel the torment of a mother/child bond being broken before she left this world. I’m sure her Mom’s kisses were what she fell asleep thinking about, as it should be. And this part hurts but you were never her friend. You are lying to yourself about that part. Unkindly, what you are is a predator, mad that your potential prey got away.

Carmen Martinez Jover

Here my newfound values related to all things adoption and foster care bump up against my decidedly new age tendencies and personal experience.  It’s always about the bunnies in my household.  Though these bunnies have human hands.  Oh my.  That part is a travesty.

The adoption group I am a part of does not appreciate Carmen Martinez Jover because of her books on adoption.  One adoptee writes – “My thoughts to you Carmen Martinez Jover: I did not chose this, I did not want this, I reject this, fuck adoption!”  This is tough ground.  I am not an adoptee but I know too much now to ever dismiss the feelings and trauma an adoptee experiences in being separated from the mother in whose womb they grew.

Her books seek to explain adoption to adopted children.  She and I also share an interest in past lives.  The manuscript I have in process is actually about reincarnation and being given a mission to deliver a message in a Syrian refugee camp.

As a matter of fact, her theory is that adoption occurs by the choice of the child’s soul.  This is hard because we really can only theorize about consciousness before physical life.  However, due to my own personal beliefs, I find it difficult to criticize her on that point.  I see this belief structure as being about empowerment, not fault finding.

Here’s one quote –

“The soul is with its soul group, then goes and visits the Elders who give the soul advice on how to be happy when it’s born. The soul is then shown glimpse of possible lives and chooses the parents it wants. Understanding that it cannot be born in a conventional way and is born in another woman’s womb and with the help of adoption lives happily with its chosen parents.”

I do realize that such thinking is not for everyone.  Jover has experienced infertility firsthand and is a fan of Dr Bruce Lipton, who I once met in person and also deeply appreciate.

What I do know about adoption has led me to feel that, of all the options for addressing infertility, egg donation is the kindest to the child.  That is my lived experience thus far.  My obstetrician suggested it to my husband and I when an attempt to jumpstart my very last egg failed.

I would not call it a fully informed decision based on what I know now.  Both of my sons know as much as they are interested in as teenagers about their conception and we are fortunate because the egg donor for each of them was the same woman.  There is some sadness in my youngest son that he doesn’t have any of my genes, though my emotions and the foods I ate throughout his pregnancy contributed to the body his soul inhabits.  My sons would not be who they are otherwise.  This is the bottom line truth.

There is some adjustment needed in my own feelings and emotions as we have all done 23 and Me.  My grown daughter (who is biological to me and my first husband and thus carrying our genes) is also there at 23 and Me.  I see her shown accurately as my daughter.  That feels good.  But I do not see my sons.  The woman who donated her eggs also has a 23 and Me DNA result account and she is shown as their mother.  Genetically, that is the truth that I can’t deny.

This is the world modern medical science has made possible.  I loved my pregnancies with both sons.  I loved breastfeeding them each for over a year.  I love that I have been here for them from day one and will continue to be in their lives until I die (hopefully, before either of my boys).  It means a lot to me to have mothered them because I have faulted myself for being a horrible mother.  Due to poverty and my ex refusing to pay child support, my daughter ended up living with him.  He remarried a woman with a daughter and together they had a daughter.  This gave my daughter a family with two sisters, the same family structure I grew up within.

I paid a steep price for not raising her, I lost so much and know it, and I continue to pay a price for the choices I made as a young adult.  Though I have a good relationship with my daughter now, her childhood wasn’t as good as I once believed but I didn’t know the truth then.  Just like once upon a time I didn’t know anything about adoption.  Just like I never saw inexpensive DNA tests changing everything for donor conceived children.  I do still believe in eternal souls.  I do believe there is much more to this thing called Life than any one person can know or understand.  Only the “All That Is” intelligence can know that.  Some people call that God.  I am good with whatever anyone wants to call what I have discovered for myself somehow exists.