The 1st Unimaginable Story

The class opened up with an introduction from a new social worker. Leyla wasn't attending this session and this was a little disappointing as I was hoping to see a familiar face. We once again had to go around the room introduce ourselves and explain why we were there. These classes were not only for our information gathering, they were also suppose to serve as a support group. By introducing ourselves each time it gave us all the chance to connect and the counties hope was you would find someone else to go through this journey with. As we all went around the room there were different faces than last time. Each had a different story and once again we were the only infertile couple in the class. However, this time it wasn't as hard to throw the words out there for total strangers to hear.

The new social worker told us what to expect from the meeting. She told us to be prepared to hear stories from the panel up front. Some of the things they were going to say would be hard to hear. She then explained that the items on the tables (play-doh and coloring books) were there for us if we felt anxious or bored. This technique must work with children...so why not try it out on us! I considered this an odd effort on the counties part...I mean shouldn't we be paying attention...we are signing up to take a child's life into our homes. Every detail should be listened to.. even if we were full of anxiety...we should be taking notes and asking questions not building play-doh people and coloring! And if we were bored we were probably in the wrong place but who was I to judge something that was working for social services. And so I moved on from judging the weird table toys and concentrated on the panel up front.



The first woman on the panel talked about being a foster mother to teen girls. She ran a house that was only for female teens. She told some of their stories...they ranged from physical abuse to sexual abuse. All the stories were heart breaking about these girls. Some were run aways and some where given away. Each one of those girls was suffering thru their own story. Every story I heard about one of these girls put tears in my eyes. I wondered how these girls would ever make it to be strong healthy women. I mean I myself struggled with this due to my past and I wasn't placed in a group home or taken away by the state. For me that added a whole layer of struggle I couldn't even understand...yet I felt connected to them...my heartbroke for them...they must have felt so abandon by the people that should love them the most...there is nothing worse than feeling abandon by your own family. Most of the girls were in and out of system because of abuse or neglect....some were on drugs...some had turned to prostitution....others were looking for that feeling of family by participating in a gang. The majority of these girls had seen and done more in their short life than anyone person could imagine and most of them would age out of the system when they turned 18. Unfortunately, that usually meant they would continue the cycle their parents had started for them. They had broken spirits and had lost hope in a future. There were very few success stories in her house in all the years she had been doing this that went to college and became successful. But her heart had a calling for helping teen girls so she hung onto the few success.


The next person to share was a foster mom and she only shared good stories. Stories about how she kept children until their biological families had been rehabilitated. She did cry in talking about giving back a small child to the biological family that had now grown into a great teenager. She explained that she kept in contact with the child and the tears came when she talked about how gratifying it was to know that child would have a good life and she was proud that she had something to do with it. It was heart warming. I knew in my heart I could never be a foster parent. I could never bring a child into my home and then give them up later....it takes a special human being to help children in need this way. I was there to be a mom to give a child a permanent home so out of all the people up there the foster mom was the one I couldn't really relate to. I was waiting to hear from the couple that adopted thru this system.



The couple that adopted looked tired. Their eyes were telling a story and it looked like they were full of pain. They began their story by saying they couldn't have children of their own and ended up at social services because to adopt thru an adoption agency was to expensive. My heart began to race I couldn't wait to hear how this turned out...finally someone that was in the same situation we were. And they had adopted a child so it must have a happy ending.....right? Their eyes were not telling a happy ending story.

Their child's story was unimaginable. The child had a biological mother that was addicted to drugs. She had taken the baby with her to every drug deal and neglected the baby when she was high. Sometimes she would even give the baby drugs to make it sleep so she didn't have to worry about the baby while she she got her next hit. When she wasn't high she was with abusive men that tormented her in front of the child. The child grew up for three years in this environment. Social services had intervened two other times prior to the final incident and both those other times they returned the child to his mother in hopes that she would change her life...then there was the last time social services got involved....The child was hiding in the trunk of the car when the police showed up and the police were there because the child witnessed his mother being beaten to death by a boyfriend. That was amazing to me...how could the system have failed this child in this way.

Then this couple took this baby in to try and change the way this child saw the world. It had been 6 years that they had the child and the entire family was still in therapy. These adoptive father was telling the story because the mother couldn't get the words out thru her tears. She had made this child her own and now was living with a child in pain everyday. How could a mother endure that kind of torture? The child had to overcome so many adult issues at such a young age. As they spoke and told of all the things they were doing for this child I started to noticed that the one thing they held onto was hope for a better future but the mom never stopped crying.

When they were done I started to second guess our being there. I didn't know if I could actually help a child be whole after a situation like this. and I wondered were ALL the stories like this....were all the children in the system being treated this way by people that should love them unconditionally? How many times had the system sent other children back that ended up hiding in the trunk of a car? I couldn't wait to get out of that room so I could talk to my husband about this. I wanted to know if he was full of fear like I was....I wanted to know if he still thought we could this....because I wasn't sure!