You Are Taking My Son Where?
We spent a blissful weekend with our new beautiful boy! We didn’t like his name and so we changed it over night, we pretty much decided his entire future that weekend, and we made plans to start his college fund ASAP! On Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005 we got together with my sister, her husband, Mike’s cousin, and her co-worker for a BBQ at the ocean. It was my sister’s first time meeting her new nephew! We had a great time showing him off I can tell you. My sister brought him some wonderful gifts that she gave out one by one during the afternoon.
We were feeling just like new parents who had nothing in the world to fear! We were happy, content, full of hope, and really alive for the first time in years! We were mommy and daddy!
Monday, our big happy balloon got a hole in it the size of a crater! I got a phone call Monday morning from the caseworker. He needed to come by and check out our home. He also needed to bring paperwork saying that Avery, (man, look at our oldest son, does he look anything like an Avery?), was our foster son. About an hour later, we got a call from a woman saying that she was in charge of picking Avery up on Tuesdays and Thursdays for his visits with his birth family.
I was stunned! I asked her why in the heck she was picking him up? He had been placed with us for adoption! I was pissed off, upset, scared, you name it, I wanted to take this woman and beat the crap out of her! She was very patient yet persistent, and just said that she would have the caseworker call me about it but, she needed to arrange with me to pick him up tomorrow! I agreed on a time, and hung up the phone and just crumbled onto the couch.
Even though I have always understood what Adoption at Risk meant, I never really considered that until the judge took the parental rights away they had every right to see their child! That’s what hit me like a sledge hammer between the eyeballs. It was their child! Not mine. Once more I was going to have to send a child back to their mom and dad!