Maybe I am luckier than most parents waiting to adopt. My little girl, a beautiful and adventurous two-year-old, lives in my home already and has been since she came to us as a foster child at three months old. For the past twenty-three months, I have been able to love and mother her as if she is my own. I did not begin fostering with the intention to adopt. I fell in love. After only a few months with this precious little girl, I knew I wanted to adopt her. I hoped of course for the best for her family, that bio-mom would deal with her addictions and the family could be reunited, but always feeling that letting go would be next to impossible.
As the months passed, it became obvious to everyone involved that bio-mom was making little to no effort to deal with her problems. Each temporary court order was replaced with another longer protection order, and the original three months we had been asked to foster (C) turned into a year and then two. My husband and I began to discuss the reality of committing another eighteen years to child raising and decided that, although this was not something we had planned, we just could not let her go. We wanted this little girl to be ours. And we were the only family she knew.
The wait has been agonizing and laced with fear of loss. In our area, biological parents are usually given two years to make improvement and show they are able to provide a safe home for their children. At the end of the two years, social workers apply to the court for permanent wardship. Before permanent wardship can be granted, the social worker must show they have tried all other available options, including all relatives and in the case of aboriginal children, which (C) is on her biological mother’s side, the family reservation. Biological family is always given priority over the foster family whether they have a relationship with the child or not, as is the child’s band.
In the midst of this waiting, we have suffered moments of terror. Bio-mom has come forward with the names of distant relatives on numerous occasions and each time we feared this would be the day we would lose our little girl to strangers. As fate would have it, though, these relatives have either not been willing to commit to raising a child not their own, nor have been unable to pass the home study. For two years we lived with the hope that everything would turn out for the best, while at the same time knowing we could lose (C) at anytime.
