Enter Chloe! Our youngest munchkin! Chloe was a bit of a different experience for us. It was February 2009, and Alaina had just turned one. Since we like to have all our children close in age, we started to chat again about when we would like to next add another member to our forever family. We discussed some of our options and decided we wanted to do a concurrent adoption. Concurrent, is where a child is placed with you in foster care, who the ministry feels will most likely turn CCO and become available for adoption. It is a great program so that foster children do not have to move from foster home to adoptive home when the time comes, and allows for fewer transitions.
So on a Friday afternoon we phoned up our adoption social worker and told her we would like to start the process to do a concurrent adoption. Our worker told us we would have to do another home study (which takes several months) before we could begin anything, so we hung up, excited to begin this next journey. A couple days later, on Monday, we received a phone call from the placement team of the fostering office. “Hi Amanda, we are calling to let you know about a concurrent placement we have for you.” I was shocked. I had only just spoken to our adoptions social worker 2 days ago, and had been told it would be several months before anything would happen regarding a concurrent adoption. I made sure to clarify that it really was a concurrent adoption, and then excitedly phoned Daniel to tell him the news. Talk about fast moving! We were told the home study would just have to be completed after the placement, but otherwise everything was good to go. I couldn’t wait to go and meet her!
Chloe, however, born Feb 13th, 2009 , had been born addicted to drugs. She was at Children’s Hospital and would have to remain there until she was healthy enough to come home. I went and visited her every chance I got, and prayed for the tiny little 5lb baby’s health to improve. Finally, after one long month, we got the approval to bring her home. She was adorable! Of Carribbean and Caucasian decent, she had beautiful light brown skin and dark curly hair, unlike anything I had ever seen. I beamed as I carried her out of that hospital!
We brought her home and began our new life with our 4th child, Chloe. She turned CCO right away, just as we had been told, and we assumed it was only a matter of time before she was officially placed for adoption with us. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding and too few staff, things in the ministry were moving slowly. We anxiously waited for her file to be transferred to the next social worker who would move things along. Finally, sometime in the fall, her new social worker came over with our fostering resource worker, for something called a Plan of Care. It was something we had done with all our children, and was something that was done before a child was placed for adoption. Half way through the visit, Chloe’s worker turned to us and started to talk about how they had narrowed it down to 2 adoptive families, and wanted our input on who we thought would make the best match. I lost my breath for a moment. I didn’t understand. Chloe was OUR daughter, we were the match, what was she talking about? I barely managed to spit out my words. She went on to say that they had found two families that matched her Caribbean decent, namely, they were black. I couldn’t believe it. They wanted to rip an almost one year old from the only family she had ever known, simply because of her skin colour? I immediately burst into tears, not knowing what to do. That is one of the difficult things about working with social workers and the ministry. Sometimes you just don’t know what you can and can’t do, and when pushing gets you what you want, or puts you in their bad books and gets you nothing. This was one of those times.
They finally left the meeting and I sat there stunned. How could they want to take her away from us? We were her mom and dad! Of course concurrent is never a definitive thing, there is always a chance a child could return home to their birth parents, but Chloe had been CCO for months, adoption was planned for her, this was simply losing her to different adoptive parents! I sat and prayed and tried to figure out what to do next. Finally, I decided to write a letter. I included in the letter the many reasons we felt Chloe should stay with us, including her bonding, our ability to incorporate her heritage into her life, the many different races and heritages that surrounded our day to day lives, among several other things. When I was finally finished, I stared at the screen trying to decide what to do. I didn’t want to mess anything up. I almost didn’t send it. Then, at the last minute, I clicked “send”, scared of what would happen next!
I finally heard back from Chloe’s social worker whom said she appreciated my letter, and did feel that we could perhaps provide the right environment for a child of a different heritage; however, there was a new problem. Now, her supervisor felt that we had too many kids. They were concerned that since they all experienced drugs and alcohol in the womb, and were so close in age, that we would not be able to manage them all once they were teenagers. As if one more would really rock the boat at this point! So the answer again came back as no but were told we could appeal the decision, which is exactly what we did!
A few weeks later we met up at the ministry office with Chloe’s social worker and her supervisor. The meeting was stressful to say the least. For some reason the supervisor started to attack our Christian values, and at one point event said the “F” word for no reason, in relation to Chloe going against the church as a teenager. I was speechless! We managed to have an answer to all their concerns, however, and provided them with a list of people who could vouch for our capability to raise 4 teenagers with FAS (although by this point it became known that Mathieu, our oldest, did not have FAS, so it was really only 3). It took a couple more letters, and some very appreciated recommendations from our adoption social worker, before we finally got the good news. They were going to allow us to adopt Chloe! It had been a rough few months, as I personally went through a bit of a depression, fearing for the loss of one of my daughters, but I finally felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Chloe was to remain our lovely, precious, daughter!
It took many many months later, and much waiting, updated home study’s and several other hoops, before finally, on July 29th, 2011, Chloe was finally placed for adoption with us! We couldn’t be more ecstatic! Chloe is doing wonderfully considering her harsh entrance into this world. She has the typical youngest child personality, and loves annoying all her big brothers and sisters J She is doing great developmentally and it is currently unknown if she has FAS (testing is not done until the spring before kindergarten). We have also just welcomed in our 5th child, a beautiful little foster daughter who is 3 years old, with our home even more filled with giggles, screaming, chaos, and love! Our family may be crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, they are the greatest blessing anyone could ask for and I thank God for all my children every day!
