Dove in the Rock

I know that this pain was ameliorated by so many kind circumstances that felt like it was Jesus himself plumping the pillow behind my head and wiping away my tears, but can I just say that almost three months later it still sucks to have miscarried? I still miss Baby Peanut, still cry to think of him (I assume a boy because E’s family overwhelmingly produces boys, but we don’t know), still have trouble thinking of how far along I would have been now had we not miscarried. On Tuesday we’re getting together with a friend who is due at the same time I was, we were so excited to be pregnant together, delighted to think of our kids being friends. I am still so genuinely happy for her and excited about her baby, but there is still pain to hug her and feel her protruding belly against me, me who no longer has an excuse for a swelling midsection or joy at gaining weight. Miscarrying made me feel broken, like my womb had declared mutiny and my baby was the casualty. Even though the doctors assured me it wasn’t my body’s fault, it still feels that way. It makes me wonder if maybe our Doozer was the fluke, maybe we just “got lucky” with him (even though I don’t believe in luck).

And of course there’s Jay-Jay. So many people saw him as being the window that God opened when he closed the door on Peanut. They hugged me and said how wonderful it was that He was going to comfort us with the adoption of JuneBug’s newborn brother, just at the time when we lost our pregnancy. What a slap in the face to be told by CPS eight weeks later, “Aw gee, we messed up, we never should have called you in the first place, just forget about him and if we need you to adopt him someday, we’ll call.” I do understand it now, I understand the whys and the reasons* and in theory I agree with them, sort of. But right now when I think about this eleven-week-old baby who will likely still end up in our family someday,** I know that each day he spends living with his relative is going to make his transition to our family that much harder later. And it royally ticks me off to think that this organization that is supposed to be about the children is creating a problem in this infant that didn’t exist in the first place. Whereas he could have come into our home at birth (like his big sister), bonded with our family and his siblings and never known the difference unless his mom got her life together (in which case we want to be a part of her life anyway), now he’s going to have a rough transition to our family at the age of 18 months or two years or three years. He managed to enter the system with the least issues of any foster kid I’ve ever seen or heard of, and yet CPS is going to create some by putting him elsewhere first. Thanks a lot.

So I started the year with three children, by August was expecting a fourth, and by October a fifth! Now I’ve ended the year with the original dear three with no plans for more under the present circumstances.

* I know this post doesn’t give enough details to make sense, but there are confidentiality issues and very complex policies that govern how CPS cases are handled and I didn’t want to get into them right now. Suffice to say, they originally called us to take him, but then decided to put him with a relative and will only call us in the future if they need us to adopt him.

** I am truly all in favor of reunification and would love nothing so much as seeing this mom get her life together, but her history and the odds are against it.

Posted on January 6th, 2008 by Dove
Filed under: Fostering/Adoption, Kids, Learning