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Boundary Issue or Intuition?

I imagine someone reading my blog might question our desire to adopt cc. In other words, we may seem selfish. After all, foster care is supposed to be temporary, and the ultimate goal is to reunite parents and children. I can't say too much because of foster care regulations and because I want to respect cc's privacy, but I can say that his case is complicated, and right now there is no family for him to go home to. We are the only family he has known and will possibly ever know, unless something unexpected happens. And there is one other scenario - he could end up going to live with another foster family, who could end up adopting him. If that seems crazy to you, it certainly does to us. It's also really frustrating to know this is a possibility. If he's not going to be with his birth family we feel strongly that he should be with us and that we should be able to adopt him. As I said, it's complicated, but hopefully when it's all said and done, the judicial system will agree with us. That's what we're counting on.

We're on really good terms now with the foster care workers, but we were told previously that we'd overstepped our bounds. I won't go into the details of what happened, but I can say that I feel we're simply following our intuition - trusting something in our gut that says cc is our son and we are his "forever family" (as we say in the adoption community). I know we could be wrong and we could end up heartbroken, but it doesn't help to think about what may or may not happen. We continue to think of cc as our son and live our lives day by day as if he is our first child. We haven't experienced the typical treatment new parents receive, such as a baby shower or a month of meals planned by friends, and we assume that most people outside our family don't really think of cc as being our son yet. But within the walls of our home, the hearts and minds of our extended family members, and the deepest parts of our souls, there is no doubt he is our child.

No matter what happens, we will love him eternally.

Comments

Emily said…
i think you two are amazing. like you, i believe cc IS your child. nonetheless, it must be terrifying. it seems CRAZY to me that you would lose him to another foster home.

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