At the hospital with this little one – he would finally agree to let me hold his hand.
June 2015
We had just gotten back from a long family vacation, and waiting nearly a year on the adoptive placement that we believed would complete our family. We received the call at Epcot, and we were all so excited that we could hardly focus on anything else. He was our son’s age, and he had been in foster care nearly four years. We spoke to him daily via Skype until we arrived home. He would arrive from his respite placement the day after we got home. We rushed around preparing, gathering things he would like, and looking for things that would make him feel like part of our family.
My three kids, two of them biological, spent almost 8 hours making a poster. They designed every letter in SpongeBob characters, and spent hours coloring, cutting and creating. They were considering everything: what would make him feel welcome, wanted and loved.
Dan was sent on a business trip the day we returned home so he wouldn’t meet our new son for three more days. The doorbell rang around 8 am, and we all went to the door. There he stood, tiny-framed for an eight-year-old, the pain of loss and abandonment heavy on his little shoulders. His loving case worker smiled her biggest smile and introduced us. As our crowd backed into the air conditioning, they pointed to the sign hanging on the wall. He didn’t look at it.
We moved into the living room and what began has left permanent marks on all our hearts. As I signed paperwork, gathered up medications, – doctor visit information and a brown box with everything he owned in it, the kids tried to engage him. He went on to share every swear word he knew, pooped his pants on the couch, threatened my son, and told me and his case worker to shut up. He wanted so much to be part of a family. This was so not human. I had had many hours of video conversations with him at this point, but he was exceptionally mentally unstable.
The case worker left and I felt a nagging fear start to shadow over my heart. We consider ourselves very loyal people, and are determined to honor commitments. I immediately felt that we had ruined our home and future. He went on for two and a half days, escalating as he stayed. He hurt the dog, he hurt the kids, he threw and broke things, and he used the entire house as his restroom. He cussed continuously and had no shame addressing me like we were in an adult movie. Over that two days, my children became more and more sad. I started crying around day two and couldn’t get my composure back. In the afternoon, my mountain girls (part of my Tribe) sent me a big package full of Spiderman things and gifts for our family. I added a new emotion to my fear list: failure.
I called Dan who felt horror over the words I was using, emotions we were feeling, and the threat of permanency. He couldn’t get home any sooner. Day three was the crescendo. My girlfriend reached out and asked me to bring the kids over. I told her I was too afraid we would wreck her home. She said that she would manage the newest one, and the rest of us could just eat a meal. Even now, remembering her kindness gives me new resolve to raise up the arms of every foster parent that I can.
We went over, Dan landed at the airport, and my girls cried. My face was swollen from crying, and I hadn’t eaten in three days. Dan knocked on their front door, and I collapsed into his arms. We put our children in the car and came home. When we arrived, our foster son threw a clay disk at our daughter, slapped her, cursed and I ran up as it happened. The most painful part of this incident is that she was sitting next to him trying to read to him. Despite the horror of all we had been through, the physical injuries and the words, she had Jesus’ love left in her to give. She was holding her teenage neck and crying where she had been hit, and ran to get away. I reached for him and tried to get him to sit down and reason with me. We were at the top of the stairs, and he would not calm down. I was so afraid he would fall down the stairs. He punched me in the face, bit me and cursed. In this moment, Dan was running up the stairs after me and we looked at each other. Both us were sobbing, but fully knew we were not able to parent this child and keep our other children safe. He softly shook his head “no” to me and I knew it was over.
I had to file the physical incidents with the county, so I made the call. They asked me if we needed him removed tonight. I begged them to wait to change his placement until the next day. He had gotten his medicine taken and I knew he would fall asleep soon. We sent our teens to our neighbor’s home, where they were met with shoulders and tissues and love by another foster family who could help them talk through this trauma. We put our son in our bedroom and locked the door. We focused on getting this one to sleep. He refused, saying that he would only lay down if he could have the dog bed. The dog was hidden in our room and we decided not to fight about the appropriateness of that spot for sleeping. He curled up on the dog bed, refusing covers, love, words or any human interaction. As he lay there, he talked about killing our son (whom he called “poop boy”) to a person not in the room, discussed taking our keys and driving away in the van, and burning down our house while we slept. I don’t think I could ever accurately describe the horror of this situation to me. He weighed about 40 pounds, curled up on the dog bed, yelling out obscenities and refusing sleep. When he finally dozed off, we held each other and cried. The effects of sin are horrible. The effects of sin he didn’t commit on this innocent child burned my eyes.
We spent 12 hours the next day holding on to this child in the emergency room at Children’s Hospital. The agency didn’t have anyone to take him there, so they asked us to. Dan took off work, people took care of our children, and we went with him. After trying everything, they attempted to transport him in an ambulance to a psych facility, and asked me to ride with him. He had known us for 2 weeks, but ironically, we would be the closest thing to parents he had. Before the ambulance took off, he had climbed out of the bed, bit me again, and was heading for the driver. We had to abort the plan, head back inside the ER, and force sedation.
He fought sleep for 20 minutes. I stood beside him, attempting to pet his hair, touch his cheek and hold his hand. He refused every gesture of love and mothering I could offer. My mother’s heart is still so wounded at the thought of a small boy who could not receive love from me, even in those desperate moments fighting sedation and terror. I saw the terror in his face multiple times that day. When he was finally asleep, I kissed him, touched his hair and face, and we had to say goodbye. We knew when he awakened we would not be his parents anymore. That is still a tough spot to wade through in my heart.
The Hospital team told us they had never seen anything like us. They said normally “these” children are dropped at the door by foster parents, and no one comes inside. Oh, Jesus, the brokenness of this world. Even as we drove our swollen eyes home, picked up our children, and piled onto the couch to hold each other, we knew we had made the right decision for our family. Peace had settled again over our home almost supernaturally.
That day of watching him fight doctors, nurses, bite an aide, punch, kick, yell and curse was one of the worst days of my life. But I do know now that I needed to be there. I could never had known how broken a small abandoned child could be, how much pain foster parents could experience, or how to let God heal our family and bring us closer to Him and each other.