Not Always Happy

by Kari Wagner-Peck

  The photo was the only tangible evidence we had that Thorin existed. I carried him in my bag. I talked to him constantly in my head. Mostly, I said things such as “Hold on”; “Soon”; and “I love you.”

  Every couple of weeks, Linda would email with some new piece of information about Thorin:

  •Thorin is signing the words “milk” and “more.”

  •Thorin went to Boston with his foster mom and another foster family to see the sights! He had a blast!

  •Thorin had surgery a few days ago. Poor guy needed a root canal as well. They put him to sleep so they could do the work. Foster mom said he’s been clingy but good-natured.

  •Another family is interested in Thorin. They are from out of state and well off. My supervisor is insisting I consider them given the financial needs he will likely have. I’ll call later.

  The last update made me feel faint. I called Ward, and we agreed to ride this out. We had no other choice. We also wondered if Thorin needed a family with more money.

  When I talked to Linda I told her, “We feel like he’s ours. We want the best for him, but no one will love him more.”

  “I know that,” she said. “Hang tough.”

  I had a dream a few days later. I was sitting on a chair in an otherwise empty room. I heard a voice say, “He’s your kid.” I stood up and left the room. When I woke up, I experienced that calm—my now familiar signal that it would be all right. I told Ward about my dream.

  “Let’s go with that,” he said.

  A week later, the other family had been dismissed as an option, and we were told we were the only family from here on in and the court hearing to terminate parental rights was a week away. Thorin would be “free” for adoption after that!

  When the day arrived, there was a snowstorm that shut down the city and cancelled court. Linda called to let us know the hearing could be rescheduled in five to seven months. Until that time, Thorin would remain in reunification status.

  “What does this mean exactly?” I asked.

  “It means he is not technically free for adoption. Theoretically, his biological mother can continue to make a case for getting him back.”

  “In spite of everything . . .” I trailed off.

  “I would call this a low-risk adoption,” she said. “It is very unlikely he would ever be returned.”

  That’s what every expectant parent wants to hear: “It is very unlikely he would ever be returned.” Neither of us said anything for a moment.

  “No one will blame you if you wait until the next hearing before taking him,” she offered before we hung up.

  My same friends—who had two hours to prepare for the delivery of their foster daughter—also experienced the painful reality of losing her. The little girl lived with them for nine months as they hoped and waited to adopt her, then she was taken away by the state and placed with biological relatives. States favor blood relations regardless of whether they are the best choice for the child. Four months later, the state returned her to them. My friends eventually adopted her, but not before all three of them had paid a hefty price. I knew it could happen us, too.

  I briefed Ward.

  “I would rather have him now,” I said.

  “She said ‘low-risk,’ right?” asked Ward.

  “Right.”

  “I don’t want to wait either.”

  We called Linda back and told her our decision. Our family profile of a boy whose parental rights had been terminated and who did not have a disability had gone to the wayside because of Thorin. We just wanted him.

  While most people meet their child for the first time in a delivery room, ours was introduced to us in the reception area of a single-story administrative building located in a business park alongside warehouses. Ward and I stood anxiously in the fifty-shades-of-office gray waiting room with Linda, Karen—Thorin’s guardian ad litem (GAL)—and a foster care supervisor. It had been almost five months since Linda had told us about Thorin.

  It wasn’t too long before Sherry, Thorin’s current foster mother, walked in with a very small boy in her arms. He peeked at us over Sherry’s shoulder where he was burrowed. I can still see his profile against Sherry’s sweater: a gorgeous boy with blond hair, blue, almond-shaped eyes, a little squished nose, and a shy, sweet smile. His soft fist was resting on his chin. Thorin became the subject in sharp focus, and everything and everyone in the room was a blur. I could hear appreciative murmurings faintly from the others.

  What do you say the first time you meet your two-and-half-year-old kid? You want to say, “I love you! I can’t believe this is happening!” But that, without a doubt, is going to freak out a child who has no idea who you are. Instinctively, Ward and I went to hug Thorin, which meant hugging Sherry too. We pulled both of them into us. We tried not to overwhelm Thorin, a difficult task when you yourself are overwhelmed. We didn’t get to exactly melt into the moment as we hoped because were immediately ushered into a conference room.

  The seven of us sat at a ridiculously large table for such an intimate matter. I kept my hands pressed against the table’s edge, mostly so I wouldn’t float away. For the first several minutes, everyone sounded like they were talking underwater. The blaring voice in my head drowned them out: THIS IS MY SON! THAT’S MY KID! I LOVE HIM! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH! IN FACT, I LOVE EVERYBODY!

  How did they expect us to behave normally? Sure, doling out kids was old hat to them. In their minds, it must become procedural: “Okay, here’s your kid you have been dying to meet. You probably haven’t been able to think of anything else but this moment. But, please ignore your out-of-body experience; it’s time to talk turkey.”

  Thorin started out the meeting in Sherry’s lap. I was curious if Thorin was following the conversation. Did he realize the gravity of it?

  The meeting started off focusing on why we wanted to adopt a child with Down syndrome. Karen, the GAL retained by the state to ensure Thorin’s best interests were met, was fairly direct.

  “Why would you want to do this? Why do you think this is for you?”

  “We just know he’s the one,” I offered.

  “Can you be more specific than that?” she asked.

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal . . .” I said, looking at Ward for more words. Being asked to defend why you want your child wasn’t a normal question, it appeared, unless your child had Down syndrome. Why couldn’t we love him freely without question?

  Linda cocked her head in my direction and cut in.

  “Susan, these are two educated and motivated people. They don’t have other children. They could devote themselves entirely to him. That’s what Thorin needs. Dedication. That’s what they bring.”

  I had to admit that sounded pretty good—and frightening. The conversation moved on to how Thorin would be introduced to our home. Fifteen minutes or so into the meeting, Thorin edged out of Sherry’s lap and moved to the table. He sat there silently then pushed himself the couple of feet over in front of Ward and me. He sat Buddhalike, moving his eyes from one of us to the other. It was clear we were being vetted. My first thought was “Our kid has serious balls!”

  My love for Thorin had grown over the months leading up to that day. I was his mother when we walked through that door. Ward wanted him as much as I did, but I think he had not yet become his dad. That morning I watched Ward fall in love with Thorin. He held Thorin’s small hands and beamed, then promptly and completely checked out. At one point, someone asked Ward a direct question.

  “Listen,” I said, “in case none of you have noticed, he’s gone all daddy-o. I can answer for both of us.”

  After going over all the legalese and signing a million forms, Sherry and I set up the visitation schedule. We would visit him at her house over the next few weeks in preparation for him moving into our home. Our first visit would be the following day.

  Once the logistics were covered, there wasn’t anything else to talk about. Ward and I both tried to drag out the meeting with que
stions. It was as if we were on a terrific date and neither of us wanted to say goodbye. Linda took pity on us.

  “I still have a little time. Do you want to take Thorin to lunch?” she asked. “Sherry and I can supervise.”

  “Yes! Great!” I said. I might have said it a tad too loud because Thorin put his hands over his ears.

  “Why don’t you two take him in your car?” Sherry suggested. “Linda and I can drive together.”

  She brought Thorin’s bag and car seat over to us. Ward and I looked at each other. We had no idea how a car seat worked. Beginning when she was nineteen years old, Sherry had been a parent to over forty children—biological, adopted, and foster. She was in her sixties and found our lack of car-seat skills very funny. While she instructed Ward, I held Thorin easily against my hip with both arms around him. He looked up at me squinting.

  “We don’t know anything about car seats,” I said.

  Thorin nodded his head and yawned.

  At McDonald’s, we were chaperoned discretely. Ward and I sat with Thorin alone at our own table while Linda and Sherry sat a few feet away. Thorin was in a high chair, and we sat on either side of him. Most of our conversation was about food.

  “Do you like the pickles?” I asked.

  He shook his head no.

  “Well, let’s get rid of those, Buddy,” said Ward as he pulled them off.

  “Do you like ketchup?” I asked.

  He nodded yes.

  “Lots of it then, right?” said Ward.

  “Kari, is that you?” I looked up to see a donor from the film festival I directed standing in front of me. For some reason, my first thought was how I would explain we take our kid to McDonald’s.

  “I told Mel it was you,” she said. “We never come here, but the grandkids love it. What can you do, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  She stood clearly waiting for an introduction.

  “Shirley, this is my husband and . . .”

  I was stumped.

  I stood up and put my hand in front of my face so Thorin couldn’t see and whispered ever so quietly, “And this is our son who we just met this morning and are adopting.”

  She screamed. Thorin and Ward jumped in their seats.

  Linda shook her head, sternly making a cutting motion below her neck.

  “Do you have pictures? A camera?” Shirley asked.

  “No,” I said as I shook my head.

  “I’m going to go get my camera!”

  I didn’t look to see Linda’s expression. I wanted photos of this day. We had been told not to bring a camera. To Shirley’s credit, she tried to be discrete.

  “I don’t want to overwhelm him,” she said. “Oh, he’s adorable. I could just eat him up!”

  When we left, Sherry walked alongside Ward and Thorin. I hung back with Linda explaining to her my interaction with Shirley. She cut me off.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Say what?” I asked.

  “Don’t say you’re adopting him. He’s not free for adoption, not technically, anyway.”

  I hated hearing that.

  “What should we say?”

  “Say you are his foster parents.”

  My heart sank. It sounded so impermanent.

  Ward and I said goodbye to Thorin in the parking lot. The urge to hug and kiss him was great for both of us, but how would he feel? So instead, we both waved wildly, which I am sure was no less weird.

  “See you tomorrow! We can’t wait to see you!”

  When we got home, I was happy to see Betty and her husband Matt on the front steps. The beauty of having your sister live next door to you is that you know you are going to run into her at some point during the day. She jumped up to hug us.

  “How’s our little man?” Betty asked. “Are you just over the moon?”

  She and I started crying. Ward and I filled them in on the entire meeting.

  “Everyone is going to want to hear about this tonight,” she said.

  By “everyone” she meant the other members of our apartment triplex. Betty and Matt lived next door to us in the same apartment as Johannah and her four-year-old daughter, Ella. On the other side of them were the McGirrs: Jimmy, Shonë, and their three-year-old daughter, Evvy. We had a common backyard where we ate together at least once a week in the summer and alternated apartments the rest of the year. Daily, there was a steady running back and forth between the apartments to visit.

  That night we all met out back for dinner and discussed what was needed to make the little room next to our bedroom into Thorin’s room. We had resisted making the transition until we knew he was moving in because we hadn’t wanted to walk by an empty child’s room for months on end. That night, Ward and I stayed up late talking about Thorin. We were in agreement he was the most-best-greatest kid, ever.

  It took almost an hour—mostly on country roads—to get to Sherry’s house. We waited at the top of the stairs to her deck. We waited because we didn’t know how to operate a child gate. On the other side of the gate was Thorin and another boy we knew to be his foster brother, Jacob. Jacob was careening like Mad Max in a little push car. Thorin, who could not yet walk, was crouched on all fours scooting like a little monkey across the wood panels of the deck. Jacob came within an inch of knocking Thorin over. Ward, the soon-to-be-father of Thorin, yelled helplessly from behind the gate.

  “Hey, slow down, Buddy . . . um, be careful . . . watch it!”

  Sherry stepped onto the deck with a cup of coffee in her hand.

  “It’s okay, Ward,” she said dryly. “He’d hit Thorin if he wanted to.”

  Seeing Thorin was still dreamlike and surreal. Ward and I looked at each other; this was going to be a long three weeks of visits. I wanted to hold Thorin. I wanted to hug and kiss him, but it seemed best to let him play.

  Out of Thorin’s earshot, Sherry said, “He’s trying to figure it out: who both of you are.”

  She also filled us in on a few things about Thorin.

  “He chokes a lot. Just make the pieces of food small. . . . It’s always a good idea to stay calm when it happens. . . . You’ll learn to understand what he wants. Talking is not the biggest obstacle to understanding him. Be patient. . . . Oh, he loves SpongeBob.”

  During our visit, Sherry suggested we take Thorin and Jacob to the pond at the end of her road. Jacob walked alongside Thorin’s stroller, pointing out the landmarks on the way.

  “That’s the Harris’s. They have a dog named Grover like from Sesame Street.”

  Thorin would nod his head and smile.

  Once we got to the pond, both boys wanted their shoes and socks off. Jacob had his off in about two seconds. He then walked into the water.

  “Hold up,” I said.

  “Jacob, you can stay in if you hold my hand,” Ward added as he kicked off his shoes. Jacob was happy to comply with the offer.

  Sitting on a little incline, Thorin pulled at his shoelaces.

  “I’ll help, okay? . . . Do you go in the water, too?” I asked.

  Jacob answered for him, “Hold both his hands though.”

  I put my hands out in front of Thorin. “Ready?”

  He grabbed my hands and pulled himself upright. We walked to the edge of the water.

  “Do you want to go in?”

  Thorin shook his head, no.

  We stood together watching Ward and Jacob throw rocks they had pulled from the bottom of the pond. As we were getting ready to leave, I noticed the heel of one of Thorin’s socks was muddy. So did Jacob.

  “Sherry’s going to know we had our shoes off,” said Jacob.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You’re not supposed to have your shoes off?”

  “No, go in the water,” he volunteered.

  “Ward!” I yelled. “Did you hear that?”

  “Relax,” he said.

  I looked at Thorin. “I suppose you knew, too, right?”

  Thorin smiled up at me.

  “You’re afraid o
f Sherry! You’re afraid of Sherry!” sang Jacob.

  “Settle down, Jacob,” Ward said then turned to me. “Don’t worry, Kari. We’ll explain exactly what happened.”

  Sherry was fine with it all, and Jacob got the talking to, not us.

  For two weeks, we would drive after work for an hour to Sherry’s house, bringing dinner for everyone. It seemed like the least we could do since she was giving us a son. During each visit, we observed a little more. Thorin was feisty and curious, but his mood could turn somber quickly; it seemed he was both burdened and unburdened by his fate. It was clear he trusted Sherry, often seeking her help and approval. He loved her; I could see that by how he looked at her.

  It was clear she felt the same way toward him. Sherry wasn’t like a used car dealer trying to get a clunker off the lot. She was like a Porsche dealer wondering if we had the goods. Sherry could have put the kibosh on the whole thing if she had determined we weren’t “the ones.” Thankfully we proved worthy to her.

  During one of the visits, Ward and I sat close on the couch with Thorin leaning back into both of us. His legs splayed over each of ours. We discovered he liked his feet massaged. When we stopped he would make the sign for “more,” which he did repeatedly.

  Sherry would indulge and encourage us. “Oh, there’s something you know about Thorin I didn’t. He loves a foot massage!”

  Each night, Sherry would stay in the living room and allow us to give him a bath and put him to bed. The first night, we debated how much water was safe to use.

  “That’s not enough,” Ward said. “I think that would be an unsatisfying amount.”

  “Listen, let’s err on the side of too little tonight,” I countered.

  We saw Thorin sitting on the bath mat with his head in his hands. We were going about this all wrong.

  “How’s this look, Thorin?” I motioned for him to look in the tub.

  He pulled himself against the tub and looked in. We got a big smile. I was going to help him in, but he stopped me. He shook his hand back and forth.

  “Hah?” he asked.

  “Hot?” Ward clarified.

  Thorin nodded yes.

  I put some of the water in a plastic cup. Thorin very tentatively put his index finger in the cup but just barely. He pulled it out dramatically and said, “Hah!” We found after a few more attempts of adding cold water Thorin liked his water tepid.