The Match Process - 2021-2022

I don’t even know where to start this post.

The past year and a half has been insanity for me and my little family. We’ve grown so much. We’ve learned so much. We’ve been through the emotional ringer and back, repeated about six hundred times. There were times I didn’t know if we could go through with the adoption. There were times I didn’t know if our marriage would survive. There were times I questioned everything I thought I knew, and everything that had once felt stable.

I’m going to say a cliche: It has all been so worth it.

And, it has also sucked. Massively.

And it’s also been so full of joy.

It’s been so many things.

So, so many.

There are things about our girls I never want to share on this platform out of respect to their privacy, but there are also universal human truths that I just have to share. There are so many things about trauma, adoption, and raising kids that are different than how society expects, that I want to share. There are things about parenting and marriage in general that I want to share. It’s all so much, and my head feels so full and scribbled so much of the time, but I’m going to try. I want to and I have to. It’s too much to stay in my brain, and I really really really want people to understand. So, I’m going to start at the beginning and attempt to work somewhat chronologically.

We officially began our adoption process sometime in the fall of 2021. We went to a 36-hour, state-required training over a weekend in September. From there, we began the extensive paperwork process. Although I feel llike that’s one of the major hurdles most people think of when they think of adoption, I can honestly say that I barely remember that part being difficult compared to everything since then (*Insert clenched teeth emoji). From there, we were ready to begin our home study process in January.

For the home studies, our assigned case worker came to our house for four separate visits. She asked us questions about our marriage, our division of work and household responsibilities, our families, our friends, our values and lifestyle, our perspectives on parenting and discipline, our hobbies and self-care regimens, and why we wanted to adopt. We discussed what kinds of children - ages, genders, interests, personalities - that we were open to parenting. We discussed what kinds of special needs - physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral - that we would consider. We had our home inspected for state safety requirements, which mostly involved installing a lot of locks on a lot of things. In mid-March, we were approved to begin the match process.

Less than a month later, we received an email describing our first potential match - these two girls named Elizabeth and Esmeralda. According to their online profile, they were 7 and 6 years old, and they were “active sisters” who enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, coloring, riding scooters, doing gymnastics, and swimming. The description said they would “certainly require a parent who has the energy to keep up with their busy bodies!” It said that their foster family loved them dearly but was not able to commit to long-term care, and ended by inviting prospective families to inquire about being a forever home for these “sweet sisters.”

Well, we were hooked. We were in love and obsessed immediately, but we knew not to get too attached yet. We knew there would be others submitting inquiries, and we knew that it was very unlikely we’d be matched with the first kids we considered. And yet, we couldn’t help it. These girls sounded so perfect, and they were so gorgeous. We had a feeling this could work out, but we also figured that many people felt this way about prospective children.

We submitted our information asking to be considered. A week or so later, we got an email from their case worker, inviting us to have a meeting about them. This was not the protocol we’d been prepared for by our agency - according to them, typically case workers attend meetings on behalf of families so as not to get too many emotions involved. However, it was our agency’s first time working with anyone from the girls’ home state of Kentucky, and it would turn out that there would be a ton of unexpected twists we’d experience throughout the process. But for now, we confirmed a date for us and our case worker to meet with several social workers from the girls’ case, as well as their foster mom.

Our virtual meeting was scheduled for Thursday, April 21, 2022. Prior to the meeting, we were sent an attachment of the girls’ records to review, including information about their birth family, what had led them to be removed, and their progress during foster care. This was also unexpected. We had been prepared by our agency to expect not to know these extensive details until we were picked as the final match for the kids, and then we would have some time to review and consider before making a commitment. So, given this expectation, upon receiving these documents we thought it was reasonable to think we might be the only family they were meeting with.

Reading through the documents was a bit overwhelming, specifically Elizabeth’s behavior history. Girl definitely sounded like a handful. And yet, this was exactly what I’d felt prepared to take on. Trauma behaviors. Not so much physical special needs or chronic medical conditions, but misunderstood behaviors and emotions that could be healed with the right connection, nurturing, and resources. Essie’s description actually surprised me because, based on my first impression from the photos we were given, I expected her to be the wild, sassy one and Elizabeth to be the nurturing, responsible big sister. Turns out, my initial impression of Essie would be spot on once she got comfortable with us! We read through the documents and came up with a list of questions we wanted to discuss during our meeting.

When we learned that the girls’ foster mom would be part of the meeting, we were very excited to hear from her. We wanted to know everything about the girls’ day to day lives, what it was like being a parent to them, and get her honest impressions about whether or not we would be a good fit for them.

Our meeting went very well. We asked so many questions and learned so much. One thing that did catch us off guard was the girls’ foster mom sharing that there had been recent discussions about Elizabeth possibly having autism. This was something we hadn’t prepared for and weren’t sure we would be a good fit for. But as we discussed and processed, we learned that all of our most valued traits were still there: she could communicate with words, she was outgoing and affectionate, and she played well with others. My biggest hesitation with autism had been the fear of not being able to bond with the child or have deep conversations, and it seemed that this wasn’t the case with Elizabeth

Meanwhile, almost zero discussion was had about Essie during this meeting, which unfortunately tracks. Poor girl was always so overlooked. As we’ve learned, Elizabeth’s trauma response is typically “fight,” while Essie’s is “freeze” or “fawn.” During foster care, this showed up as being extremely helpful, cooperative, and overall being the “easy” child while her sister got all of the attention. The only issue we were told about was her tendency to be overly hands-on with other people’s babies and toddlers - a fact that is still true today!

The girls’ foster mom was a fountain of knowledge for us while we were thirsty to know everything we could. She said during the call that they weren’t adopting them because, in her words, “we’re old and don’t have the energy to keep up,” but she wanted to have an ongoing relationship with them and be like their aunt. At the time, we took this as a good sign - if she wasn’t pushing them out the door and wanted to keep her relationship with them, it must speak volumes to how wonderful they are and how much she would miss them. Of course we would have an ongoing relationship, we said. It sounds like you’ve been so amazing with them, and the last thing we’d want is to traumatize them by cutting off contact with the person who’s been safe and loving for the past few years.

We hung up the call. We took the evening to process, but we both knew our answer. We were ready to commit if they were ready to choose us.

But for the next week…crickets. We heard nothing for days. As it turned out, we weren’t the only family they interviewed. Had we known this from the beginning, we would have better understood the delay, but when we thought we’d been interviewed because we were the finalist, we lowkey panicked over the next week thinking they didn’t like us.

But finally…on Friday, April 29, we found out they’d picked us! It was wild…there was no phone call or official anything. Just an email response to the group thread from the week before, stating they’d chosen our family to move forward. Not even a “congratulations!” in the subject line. Anticlimactic, but joyful nonetheless. And also, we’d continue to discover, a perfect fit for how the rest of the official process would move along!