Saturday, March 25, 2006

We Were Told

My posting abilities have gone by the wayside. All week long, I've been trying to think of something to write about. "Why freak out about this?" I kept asking myself, "Let it come to you." Well, here it is a week later and still nothing has 'come' to me. I started to tell you about our adoption and what that was like a couple weeks ago. Then all hell broke loose in our house and I had to put my blogging on a hiatus for awhile. Tonight, I will continue with our adoption story.

When we brought Hannah home, we knew that every month for at least a year the adoption agency would be visiting us to make sure Hannah was being taken care of appropriately and that Gary and I were still sane being 1st time parents. During the fourth visit... which would have been in October, I remember walking the social worker out to her car when she was leaving. Hannah was sleeping on my shoulder in the warm autumn sun, her breath warm against my neck, and I could hear a flock of geese flying overhead. "Well, we'll see you next month", I said to C, our caseworker. "I did want to mention this to you and Gary before leaving," she replied, "We have had contact with Hannah's birthfather. He's stating that he wants to parent Hannah but I wouldn't put much stake in that. He says he has a girlfriend and is getting married and can provide for Hannah. Don't worry though..... our experience shows that if a birthfather hasn't shown an interest by now, he won't."

I felt my stomach sink and grow queasy. "What do you mean?" I literally screeched at her. "How can you say this to me? How can you tell me not to worry? He wants to take her away from us and parent her? I would never, ever allow this. What do we do now? Should we talk to a lawyer?" I could feel hot, scalding tears behind my eyes. Oh where was Gary? I thought, Why wasn't he here with me right now to throttle somebody? He wouldn't turn into a blubbering idiot like I was. He would know what to say. I was furious that she didn't mention this inside the house in Gary's presence. I felt violated.

"Sheri, if you don't feel you can handle this, we could put Hannah in temporary foster care." she said matter-of-factly. "We don't want you to be under any un-necessary strain and it would only be until this is straightened out." I could feel my lunch beginning to stir in my stomach and I thought I was going to be sick. Hannah still laid on my shoulder, sleeping and breathing softly into my neck. I felt as if the world was closing in on me. "No, C - you will not take her away either. We can handle this... we don't need temporary foster care. We will be fine." I tried to sound positive and upbeat. The person I trusted most in the world in regards to my child was turning against us. Now, it was clear to me that SHE could take Hannah too. All she had to see was weakness in us and she would pounce and remove her. A cold vise gripped my heart when I looked at her and said, "Just keep us posted with what he does. It's very important to us that he just goes away."

As I watched her drive away, I began to sob. Hannah stirred and began to whimper. "It's ok baby...... Mommy's here and it's going to be okay." I went into the house and the moment Gary looked at me, he knew something was wrong. "What's wrong, Sheri? What happened? Did C say something to upset you?" Gary said to me with deep concern on his face. I ran to him and buried my face on his chest wracking deep sobs as our daughter slept on my shoulder between us.

13 comments:

Thoughts said...

Sweet piece of blog-spam crap above.....

Anyway, I was just gonna let ya know thta I was adopted along with my twin brother and at about 32, I got to meet some of my birth family...

I'm really not sure I had it any worse or any better with either parents....

I can't stand the birth father, will never know my birth mother as she died before this stuff unfolded and I am not going to get into the adoptive parents here.

Suffice it to say, I have perservered and have my own kids and hope I have at tleast done right by them.

Thoughts

Anonymous said...

I can imagine a nightmare you were going through. It was painful enough to read, never mind actually going through...
Love and hugs,
T

lime said...

gads...what a horrific feeling.

Mark Leslie said...

I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but thanks for sharing this story - I'm sure it must be difficult to re-live the painful and horrifying moments.

Joel said...

Wow...is all I can say. Waiting to hear the rest.

BTW, which one of these here blogs on your blog roll is your sisters???

Julie said...

OMG...That just broke my heart...I can't imagine what you were going through.
Like Scotty, Ilook forward to hearing the rest of the story...and I'm so glad that things obviously worked out.
Nice to see you posting Sheri...wish I could get up the ambition to do the same.

Beth said...

That is heartbreaking, but I see all these young girl pics of Hannah in your blog so am relieved it all turned out well!!

Kim said...

oh god! I can only imagine such a feeling! You must have been terrified! ((((sheri)))) I bet that feeling lingers just on the fringe of reality often, I can't imagine you could ever dismiss it completely!

Larry said...

Powerful stuff Sheri!

Miguelita said...

Wow. That's all I got.

ccw said...

I'm speechless...

Anonymous said...

Wow Sheri - that sent a chill up my spine.
What an awful experience for such a wonderful person to go thru.

Anonymous said...

Sheri,
My heart breaks again just reading this. I know this was such a hard time for you. I can't imagine how you feel reliving it.

I have always admired your strength and determination. You are an amazing woman.