The good can be worth remembering.

The Bad can be worth forgetting.

The so so is just that . . . . so so.

Our adoption experiences have been part of this blog for over 15 years now and it’s time to share the details of our latest and “last” adoption experience here.

On December 6th, 2022, hubby received a call from CPS informing us that Arryn’s mom had another baby. While it would appear that our journey to Ezran began on this day, in reality, it began earlier.

When it comes to adoption, I am a big advocate of making connections with bio family. Especially with bio parent(s). For many different reasons, those connections aren’t always possible, but even if it’s a connection via social media or thru annual letters or a phone call every once in a while, that connection is very important. As an adoptive parent, I can only fill in so many blanks in my children’s lives. Bio parents, however, can fill in the vast majority of those missing pieces and that is just one reason why the connections are important.

About six months after we finalized Arryn’s adoption, I was able to connect with her mom over social media. My first question to her was, “Do you want to have contact?” Fortunately, she did and on a pretty regular basis we would chat online. We even had a couple video chats along the way.

When Bubby was placed with us the following year, I was able to help keep her connected to him. When he left to go live with his great-aunt, she kept us connected to him.

We would go thru periods of time where I wouldn’t hear from mom, or I would lose track of how much time had passed. When one of us would realize we hadn’t heard from the other, we would reach out to check in.

I regularly shared pictures of Arryn, giving her a glimpse of her life and allowing her the opportunity to see her grow.

Then last year mom became less communicative until one day, toward the end of June I received this photo.

I asked mom, “Who is this?” Although I was quite certain I knew.

She responded, giving me a couple names she was considering for him and that was the last time I heard from her.

Up and until this point, I thought mom was doing pretty well. At least, on the surface, she seemed like she was doing pretty well. We all know that what we see doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s really going on in someone’s life though.

My attempts to reconnect with mom were unsuccessful. I had hoped, that maybe, just maybe, she was parenting this baby. I really wanted to know how he was doing. I wanted to know how she was doing.

That call in December answered some of the questions I had. I now knew for a fact that mom was not parenting this baby. He was in CPS custody and being cared for by a foster family. CPS had been spending the previous six months trying to connect with bio family to see if anyone would be willing and able to care for him. Their attempts had been unsuccessful and since we had adopted Arryn, who was his bio sibling, we were be contacted and asked to take him. The case worker informed us that at the next hearing, they would be terminating rights and the case would then move toward adoption. Their hope was that we would be willing to adopt him so he and Arryn could be raised together.

I would love to say that hubby and I immediately said yes, but we had some talking to do. We needed to make sure we were on the same page and willing to commit to this baby. We asked for a few days to discuss, and the case worker was more than willing to give us that time. I called her with more questions about his health history, his current health, information about mom and dad, etc. We needed to make a fully informed decision and you can’t do that with too many unanswered questions.

During our discussions I contacted our previous foster care agency to gather information on what the re-licensing process would look life for us. And with all the information in front of us, plus time to discuss and think about the magnitude of this decision, we called the case worker back and told her we wanted to take him.

To be continued . . . . .