A few months ago Alyssa wanted to see the photo album I had of her. I kept everything from the hospital, including her bracelet, every letter I received, the profile of her parents, and all pictures I had. As she was going through the pictures she commented about how few I really had of her as a baby. I have about 50 pictures of her in the first days of her life that my family and I took. I have about 10 pictures from the foster family where she stayed for 3 days from the time she was released from the hospital until the 72 hours were up where I could change my mind. I have about 50 from the time Alyssa was a week old until she was about 4 that her adoptive parents sent me.
Alyssa saw the profile of her parents after reading it she made a comment about how she would have loved to be raised by the people in the profile. She said the hobbies were right and the height, eye color, and hair color were right but nothing else really was. I sort of already knew that, but it sucked to have the confirmation. There was off handed things said in letters through out the years to indicate things weren't quite as said in their profile. I do wonder if they were helped by the agency with their profile. If there were rough drafts that the agency helped with. Was there a basic outline to follow?
I was looking for a very loving emotional supportive couple who had ties to the area. A couple who took the meaning of family serious. I was raised without really knowing my extended family. I knew who they were we went to reunions but I would not say we were close at all. I wanted all of my children close with their extended family. I wanted my daughters parents to be extremely close with their siblings and their nieces and nephews. I wanted her to have sleepovers with her cousins. I wanted them to go on vacations together. I wanted my daughter to grow up having her cousins as confidants, best friends, and each others cheer leaders. I wanted a couple that was so involved in their community that they would not move. I was very specific that I wanted the couple in the same home for 10 years with no intention of moving.
There life was painted as a perfect family with a very close extended loving family with many family reunions every year. It was said they were very involved in their community. If they lived in Utah and said that I knew community meant church but in California it means neighborhood and the local area. They had already commented earlier in their profile that they were involved with the church and their callings in the church. Since they had a separate paragraph about being involved in the community I assumed they were. This also made it appear that they were outgoing.
Their social worker and mine were the same - slight conflict of interest wouldn't you say? The social worker kept telling me what an amazing couple this was and how sweet and loving they were. Since I knew the social worker I totally trusted her opinion. I had met with the SW weekly for months. The SW also had met them, had long conversations with them, she had been in their home. She had seen them parent their older (adopted) daughter. And honestly the SW felt like a friend and I felt like she had mine and my daughters best interest at heart
The social worker added that they are open to communicating with a birth mother and are respectful of her needs. What gets me now is they never say anything about openness being a need of the child. I still don't think they realize that their now adult adopted children (tongue tied and I know I said that wrong) need openness with their other families. It is like they never realized that their children have 4 very real parents.
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