Category: Adoption
-
Has someone ever tried to kill you?
“I’m having the feeling that I want to kill you, Mom,” she said to me as I measured out grain for our sheep in the feed room. “But there aren’t any knives down here,” I said. She glanced around, her eyes landing upon the heavy tools she could bludgeon me with. We were alone on […]
-
A Masterpiece
“You’ll never guess what happened to me today! I was raped!” She said this gleefully. “But they gave me a shot in the leg so I don’t get HIV and a pill so I want to move on.” “But I thought you went off birth control because you wanted to make babies with Joe (fake […]
-
Adoption Madness (a brief fast forward)
M could be pregnant. Left to her own devices in the past we’ve found her dressed in wild princess outfits talking to herself in front of a neighbor’s farm on a blind curve in the road where people speed without thinking. At the village school she attended, she used to wear such outlandish outfits that […]
-
Adoption Story (Pt. 10)
I’m passionate about American history — its flaws, its nobility. In a recent conversation online I asked to what extent my ancestors should be accountable for the fates of the tribal peoples of the continent. Here’s my unpopular take: ” … to be fair we would also have to look at what would now be […]
-
Adoption Story (pt. 9)
A bit about the “team” at this point. This point being the first few months with M being back in our home. M’s social worker from the foster care agency had moved on to another job by the time M came home. We met with the new worker who M knew in passing from […]
-
Rescue From the Cuckoo’s Nest (pt. 8)
“Thorby had two choices. Be adopted quietly or make a fuss and be adopted anyhow” Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy The lead social worker on her case at Saint —— facility mentioned that while reading M’s extensive medical records she had to pause often. The trauma described seemed too insurmountable. She was in awe […]
-
Rescue From the Cuckoo’s Nest (pt.7)
“I may be a lost cause, but I thought if you loved me, it needn’t matter.” John Osborne M didn’t make contact with us for the next two weeks. By now M’s sisters were on the fast track to adoption. We could have jumped ship at this point. Her worker told us that she had […]
-
Rescue From the Cuckoo’s Nest (An Adoption Story)
One family’s story about adopting a child from foster care.
-
Rescue From the Cuckoo’s Nest (pt. 5)
Technically we were off the hook. The doctor at the small general hospital immediately understood that M was overmedicated and agreed that the best thing to do was to send her back to the mental health facility around thirty minutes from our house to have her medications reevaluated. Yet … we knew what M didn’t […]
-
Rescue From the Cuckoo’s Nest (pt. 4)
M’s issues as noted by the experts at the time: ADHD, PTSD, mild cognitive “delays.” Because we were only foster parents, we had no access to her previous medical or psychiatric records. We were completely dependent on the overworked social services and foster care agency staff. Things were hinted at or misrepresented or just misremembered. […]
Author Adrienne Morris 