You had a brother

For almost a year now, I haven't had the words to write this. We became your legal guardians the summer of 2022, and it was all that I had wished for. After 3 years of silent yearning and quiet, tear-filled prayers my biggest wish was granted: to be your for real mom. It happened while I was doing my practicum at the Foundry; I booked a therapy room and logged onto zoom for court. Your Dad was at work too, watching the proceedings on his laptop just like me. When it came to our turn and the judge asked if we were both present, we said we were, and the judge and the lawyer confirmed some stuff about your band consenting, the judge ruled that we were legal. Just like that. Then court was over, and it was almost anti-climactic after all of the back and forth visits with your birth dad, the family meeting where your birth mom said they'd get you back "when she's ready", the phone call from the social worker saying they were ready to return you to a dad who wasn't ready and didn't want the responsibility of a baby. After all of my sleepless nights spent trying to figure out what I needed to do to keep you safe from a system that's built around reuniting kids with their birth parents whether it makes sense or not, we had you safe and sound. It felt like the biggest relief I had ever felt, ever.

Next item? You needed a sibling. I had actually felt this earlier, and had started the process to adopt another kid when you were 2 years old. You have always been a gregarious little guy, and since I feel the same way, I thought the best thing I could do for you (aside from keep you safe with us) was to give you siblings. Your dad wasn't so sure about this because he's always so pragmatic about our time, our money and other finite resources, but to his credit he typically goes along with my ideas when I'm passionate enough about them. So I signed us up! We went through the process of getting character references again, filling out applications, finding a doctor (nearly impossible these days) and having them ok our health. We then got approved to do the 12 week course adoptive parents need for the ministry. That course was tough! It was online, since we were in Covid times, and we had to plan a few live classes, plus watch videos, take quizzes and write a lot about how we were going to handle adopting a child from the ministry. We really could have used the course before we got you, but we learned a lot retroactively.

Once the course was done, our adoption social worker called and set up a meeting with us. She was really nice, and said she'd come back after 3 months and start our home study. By this time it had been almost a year since we started the process, so we were surprised at how long everything was taking. After a few months we started the home study and that went painfully slowly. We did have access to an online list of kids who were up for adoption, and I would check that list way too much. I saw kids come and go while we were waiting for the steps to be completed so we could be approved, feeling pretty helpless and frustrated. After a time the home study was done and we did get approved: I was so excited! We were looking for a little person who could be your brother or sister. Ok, I was looking for 2 little people. Your Dad wanted one. Remember the pragmatism?!?

After a year and a half into this process, we were ready to wait. I enquired about 2 little sisters on the registry, but they had just been adopted. There were older siblings who'd been returned that we were asked to consider but we were nervous about changing our home dynamics that much. There were little girls we were told by one social worker would be perfect for us, only to have their boss veto the idea. There were 3 little boys I really wanted to consider but your dad was nervous about your safety with that many kids to look after. I agreed with him when he told me his fears. I could go on and on telling you about the kids we heard about for the next year, but I think you get the idea. This process felt like the excitement-despair rollercoaster of unexplained infertility all over again. My heart was getting beat to hell.

We had started the adoption process for your future sibling when I started my masters degree in counselling, the fall after Covid hit. We got legal custody of you halfway through my internship at the Foundry, then around the time I graduated, we heard about S. He was 3 years old, living with foster parents, and the ministry wanted him on a concurrent plan for adoption. They wanted this placement to happen quickly, too. This was something that could actually work, and it felt different. I'll admit, I had been not-so-secretly hoping for a girl to even out the gender situation in our home, but I felt like that was a small wish compared to the wish I had for another child and for you to grow up with a sibling. So we went for it.

S. visited our house for a bunch of weekends before he eventually transitioned over to living with us. We were all excited at first because of the novelty of having a new family member, and then reality set in and it got tough. Little S. needed some things that we had not prepared for, and the things kept accumulating. You two would play well together, and then you would fight. Since S. had grown up with older foster siblings, he knew how to bully you in a way he had no doubt been bullied, and I watched you cry frustrated and hurt tears more times than I can count. S. was such an earnest little guy; he learned all the names of your aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and really tried to fit into the family. We really tried too. We wanted it to be the four of us, and sometimes it was really nice. It got to be though, that most of the time dad and I were gritting our teeth trying to make things work that just didn't. S's family wanted him back, and we couldn't understand why they didn't do what they needed to do to get him. They clearly loved him, and he loved them. S also seemed to need a lot of extra support that we hadn't known about before he lived with us. He got frustrated that we couldn't give him certain things he wanted, and I understood why. None of these factors were deal-breakers in and of themselves. Every day your dad and I woke up ready to make things work. It seemed that every day, we were defeated. As the weeks and months passed, the feeling began to grow that S. wasn't happy, and we were failing at nurturing the little family we had wanted. We asked social workers if this was normal, and no one had an answer for us. We missed you so much, JJ. S. needed us, and we wanted to be and do everything he needed, but it took all of our time from you and we were growing sadder and sadder about that. We were scared about your safety. We didn't feel like good parents anymore. We didn't feel like good anything.

Then one day, something happened, and I broke. He hurt you, and I hit my limit. I couldn't be scared anymore, so I called the social worker to find S. another home.

This decision was not made lightly, and it broke your dad's and my heart. The day he left, his social worker came and told him in the front yard while Daddy and I told you with tears in our eyes that S. was leaving. I saw your little eyes harden and heard you say you wouldn't say goodbye to him. I knew we'd hurt two precious boys very badly that day. I hoped I was doing the right thing. I thought I was, but I couldn't know. That's the thing about being human, JJ: you can't know. You use your best tools to make decisions that sometimes have huge consequences, and you can't know if you've made the right one until much later. Maybe not even then. I knew I had to keep you safe, but was there another way I could have done that? I think the answer is yes. What would that have cost me? My job? My freedom? My peace of mind? At that point I was not willing to give any of those up, and I thought S. had a better chance at a life in a home more suited to what we were discovering were very particular needs. So I made the best choice I could see, and that's all I knew.

What came after that choice was regret. Shame. Grief. A lot of second-guessing and wondering. We took a course on adopting a foster child but not one on fostering and giving one up. The feeling of failure was heavy, and it only got heavier. That summer I sent you with different people to the water park, the beach and the spray park, and I spent the time grieving. I worked and maintained our home, and I slid into a deep depression. I went to therapy to try and understand what happened. I cried a lot. One day in August I experienced what a lot of my clients experience when I no longer wanted to be alive. It didn't happen the way I thought, it was a slow realization that if I just died, I wouldn't have to feel this grief anymore. The idea of being dead gave me more relief than anything had in months. I knew this was potentially dangerous so I shared the idea with your dad. He was scared, but he sat with me on the porch until it passed. When I realized it was a bad idea, I told him, and we held hands for a long time, just sitting there looking at our yard. These moments come in like a spring breeze, and leave just as quickly. I can look at our yard and remember some of my happiest times...and also some of my worst. I think that day was both.

After S. left we were put on hold for adoption. We didn't know what to do next, so it made sense. Once the summer was over, I wanted to try again. Maybe. I still wanted siblings for you. One social worker suggested we try respite, which is like babysitting foster kids whose parents need a break. We said yes to that and waited. And waited. Finally we were asked to look after 2 little girls, and they have been a delight. We see them every couple of weeks and you play with them, sometimes fight with them, and we are a family of 5 for 3 days at a time.

I don't know what's in our future right now. You have told me you want to be a big brother, and you've said you want to be an only-child. I know you can't know what's best for you when you're 5. I don't always know what's best for me at 43. What I know right now is that we are complete, us three. We are a family. We might expand, and we might not. I want to be open, but I now know that not every situation is right for us. And not every kid will thrive here. That lesson came hard, but it has landed, and I'm grateful for that.

And I'm grateful for you, JJ. I love you.