Alaina was our first girl. She was also the first child we ever knew about months in advance, and had the opportunity to prepare for, be excited for, and almost feel like an expectant mother might…almost. Being the biological sibling to Robby, we knew about her conception right away, roughly around the end of June 2007. She was due sometime in January. We were so excited! In August, however, we got placed with a little baby who we were told was a temporary placement, just a couple of weeks. Her name was Isabella and she was only 4lbs when we got her! I don’t think I had ever seen a baby so small! What was suppose to be a short term placement, however, turned into a longer term placement, and by the time January rolled around Isabella was still with us. She had adoptive-parents-to-be up north who happened to have several of her siblings, and it was just a matter of paperwork at this point, to have her move to her forever home.
Then on December 24th we got another phone call. This time they needed a home for a little 6 month old baby girl named Emma. We of course said yes, as we always do, and scrambled to find Christmas items for our new addition, hours before Christmas! Meanwhile we tried to prepare for yet another baby to come into our home. We had been told Alaina would be CCO right away, and adoption was the plan from the get-go. We picked out a name to call her, Caitlin Grace, the first time we would have ever had the opportunity to name one of our children ourselves. On January 28th, 2008 we finally got the phone call that Alaina had been born. Although Isabella was still in our home, as well as Emma, Robby and Mathieu, we wanted nothing more than to bring Alaina right into our home as well. Five kids sounded like nothing to us, especially considering Alaina was our daughter, we were to be her parents, and she should be with her mom and dad! Unfortunately, the ministry of children and families have a rule, that you cannot have more than 2 children under the age of 2 in your home at one time. That meant Alaina was to go into a foster home until Isabella left for her adoptive home. Our hearts broke, I cannot tell you how much it hurt to not bring her home from the hospital, to not even see her or get a photo, or anything!
The next two weeks we phoned and annoyed every single social worker we could, to see things moved. Not only did we want Alaina to come into our forever home, but Isabella’s adoptive parents were anxious to have her come to their forever home as well. Everyone wanted their child! Finally, 2 weeks after I phoned everyone and Isabella’s mother phoned everyone, they got the approval to bring Isabella home. They would be there on Friday morning of Feb 8th to pick up their precious little baby. I, however, was told that they were going to wait a week or so before we could bring Alaina home, so that we had a gap between when Isabella left and Alaina came. I’m sure you can only imagine my reaction to that. After a few phone calls I convinced them to let me bring her home the same day Isabella left. So 2 hours after Isabella finally got to join her forever family, I was finally able to bring Alaina home into our forever family! We were ecstatic!
That was when things started to become challenging. We had been told the last 9 months that Alaina was to become CCO immediately, and adoption was the plan for her. We had been calling her Caitlin, assuming it was only a matter of a month until all the paperwork went through to officially have her placed for adoption with us and have her name change and everything become legal. After already losing their son Robby to us though, her birth parents decided to also fight to keep Alaina or Hellana (Hell-ay-nah) as they had named her at birth. Being the foster parents it suddenly became a very tricky place to be. We of course always want children to return home to their birth parents, but without going into details, all I can say is this was not now, nor would it ever be a situation where the children should be returned. We now had to take a step back, however, and go through a very challenging situation. She had visits twice a week with her birth parents, and court dates were set to determine her future.
The following year was one of the most difficult as we anxiously waited for the final decision, all the while fearing for Alaina’s life if she were to return home. Because of the uncertainty of what would happen, we knew we couldn’t really change her name; after all, at this point we were only the foster parents. We also, however, did not like her birth name. First of all, no one could pronounce it properly; we heard more than 5 different variations of her name every time someone met us. We finally decided that we were going to start calling her Alaina (A-lay-nah). It was a name that was actually on our list of baby names when we first found out about her, and happened to sound almost exactly the same as her birth name Hellana, minus the “H” sound. We also knew that if she did return home it wouldn’t cause any confusion, as she was only an infant, and the names probably sounded the exact same to a baby!
What seemed like an eternity later, which was late winter/early spring the following year of 2009, we finally had our court dates, to which Alaina’s birth parents did not even show up. CCO was granted and shortly after she was placed for adoption with us! Now, three and a half years old, our beautiful Alaina Grace (Grace was her birth middle name which we loved and kept) is doing great and has thrived in our growing family! Although she too, like her brother Robby, has FAS and mostly likely ADHD, she is another amazing blessing to us and we couldn’t be more thankful!
(I unfortunately do not have any baby photos of Alaina at this time because my computer at the time died and we have yet to have the resources to try and fix it…very sad!)
