Not Always Happy

by Kari Wagner-Peck

  That was the heart of it: Thorin was not just any boy.

  “Hearing all of this is frightening,” I told Ward.

  “So stop listening to it, Kid.”

  And, that is exactly what I did. I also understood why a woman might feel like she should have an abortion. The information I read was one-sided and biased. And as we would later discover, it was not an accurate reflection of people who live with Down syndrome.

  When we started out two years before to find a child, we looked at domestic and international adoptions. Domestically, there are private adoptions where you pay to get a child or state adoptions where you don’t. International adoption is costly, and the cost varies by country. We had zero funds for adopting, but I didn’t want to adopt through the state foster care system because—I am ashamed to admit—I didn’t want to deal with what I imagined were other people’s troubled kids.

  For more than a year, we hoped somehow to amass $20,000 to $30,000 to adopt internationally. I found Ethiopian children could be adopted for $16,000, and there was a volume discount—the more you adopted the cheaper they were. Racism and ableism played a hand in the supply and demand of adoptable babies. White children without disabilities cost the most.

  My attempts at getting the money turned comically desperate. I tried winning $10,000 from America’s Funniest Home Videos. I had submitted a tape of our German shepherd, Walt, playing tetherball. It wasn’t completely ridiculous; he got air like Tony Hawk. I was confident he would have beat out the ubiquitous toddler hitting his dad in the nuts with a bat. While I did get a contract, he never made the final cut, and I realized I had pinned too much hope on this scheme.

  One morning in April 2008, while still in bed, I turned to Ward and said we should adopt through the foster care system. No revelation. No real epiphany. It was a totally pragmatic decision. We wanted a kid, and the state had free ones.

  “Sounds good,” Ward responded.

  Ward is like the Gary Cooper of husbands, which can be maddening when you want to talk about something but awesome when you just want to get on with it. The next month we went to an informational meeting on state adoptions at DHHS, and we got on with it.

  To get a child from DHHS, you have to attend twenty-four hours of classes, twenty-three hours of which are basically designed to scare the crap out of you about the prospect of adopting a child in protective custody. Our instructors, Doris and Susan, were both mothers who shared their personal horror stories of trying to parent their “damaged kids” who were adopted from foster care. They also provided numerous examples gleaned from years of anecdotal-evidence gathering that sounded like plot lines from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

  By the second night of class, it was clear these women wanted to prepare us for the worst kid we could ever imagine. They were real buzz kills when it came to getting in the dreamy parenting mood, and I wondered, Is this really the way to market these kids? What about playing up the resiliency of the human spirit? Did these kids know this is how they were being portrayed? Could they sue for defamation of character?

  Halfway through the classes, I reached my limit of hearing about the killing of yet another family pet at the hands of a crazed eight-year-old or how you can love your little adoptive kid all you want, but if he has RAD (reactive attachment disorder) there is nothing you can do to get little Charlie Manson to love you back. In fact, your attempts at loving him might be met with resentful anger. I was glad we were hopeful to adopt a toddler because I figured I had a good chance of surviving an attack by someone under three feet tall.

  I shared my fears with Ward, and he felt the same way. During the next class, we divided into small groups, and I took the opportunity to poll my group of prospective parents on their thoughts, whispering because I didn’t want Doris or Susan to know I was questioning their tactics.

  “Hey, I have a question,” I said. “Is anyone else freaked out about all this killer-kid stuff?”

  Charles, who stood about 6 feet 2 inches, weighed 190 pounds, and had three biological kids, said, “God, I can’t take it anymore! I’m having nightmares!”

  “Charles, be cool!” I looked over my shoulder to see if Doris or Susan were on to us.

  The consensus with the others in the group was the same: what had we gotten ourselves into? Ward and I agreed this was our path, based solely on financial reasons, so I needed to make this okay in my mind. I started searching online to see if this anecdotal information was borne out in any data. I began with high profile cases of children who killed their biological parents. I also searched “adopted children killing their adoptive parents.” In reality, kids had a greater chance of being killed by their adoptive parents. And, overall, children are less likely to kill their parents, biological or adoptive, than be killed by them.

  Before class that evening, I presented my findings to Ward, which I had titled the “Menendez Theorem.” I told Charles as well because he seemed so much more distraught than any of us. For the remainder of our classes—whenever Doris or Karen told a particularly chilling tale—Ward and I took turns whispering out of the side of our mouths, “Menendez.”

  During another class, we were instructed to create a family profile that could be sent to DHHS workers throughout the state. The profile was essentially a marketing tool to engage a worker on our merits as prospective parents, or as Karen explained, “Adoption staff are overworked. No one will contact you. You contact them.”

  A perky lady in our class who wore matching pastel-colored sweat pants and hoodies got the jump on all of us. She brought in a marketing confection she had whipped up overnight: handmade, colorful, laminated bookmarks with her family’s profile on it, employing both text and photos. She had pulled fluffy yellow yarn through a perfectly punched hole at the top.

  I hated her. What if this junior Martha Stewart got our kid with her artsy crafty ways? Where once we were all classmates, we were now future adoptive parents in competition with each other. There were only so many kids, only so many caseworkers, and only so many ways to set ourselves apart from each family.

  As we set out making our own family profile, Ward was not as taken with the homespun, laminated bookmark route as I had been. Using standard white 8½ by 11-inch paper, Ward wrote our family profile, adding a few photos of us. Our introductory paragraph was basically our elevator speech: “We are looking to share our forever home with a 3-to-7(ish) boy of any race or nationality whose parental rights have been terminated. We have never been parents but we are very happy, excited, and committed about changing that situation.”

  Let’s break down some of that description.

  •“our forever home”—That’s the terminology used in adoption and genuinely what we were offering, but it also sounded a little like Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

  •“a 3-to-7(ish)”—7(ish)? It sounds like an invitation for drinks at the Algonquin Hotel with Dorothy Parker, but the recommendation from class had been not to limit our options with regard to age.

  •“whose parental rights have been terminated”—This meant the child was legally free for adoption.

  After our graduation from class, we were sent out to find a foster care worker. We emailed our family profile to workers in all the counties of Maine, and a few leads came from those mailings. We were invited to a Foster Care Meet-and-Greet Mixer. This antiquated term should have been updated to Speed Adoption because it was an attempt to pair foster kids with potential adoptive parents in a short amount of time.

  The event took place on a Saturday at an elementary school about an hour away. All prospective parents were gathered ahead of time in a conference room on the first floor. It became clear why we were all meeting beforehand: they didn’t want any of us to screw up.

  Ginger, who was one of the foster care workers, stood before us, clipboard in hand. “We have a group of kids in foster care here between the ages of seven and fifteen . . .”

  A guy jumped in, “We’re looking for a baby or a toddler at the oldest.”r />
  “Then you should probably leave now,” said Ginger.

  He and his wife quietly left.

  “You can play basketball or make arts and crafts with the kids,” she told us.

  Ginger set her clipboard down. Her voice turned hard. “Do not spend too much time with any one child. It will give false hope. And do not tell any kid you are going to adopt him or her.”

  The last one got a chuckle from most of us, but not from Ginger.

  “That’s happened more than once. It seems like a no-brainer. Someone gets caught up in the moment, and a kid gets their heart broken.”

  It was then I realized this day wasn’t just about us and what we wanted. As we filed out to go to the gym, I turned to Ward and said, “Maybe we should leave.”

  He continued walking. “No. What if our son is here?”

  The kids were waiting when we walked in the gym. Some were looking at the floor, others seemed distracted by something on the wall, and a few looked directly at us. One of the dads in our group got the ball rolling.

  “Who wants to shoot hoops?”

  Ward went to play basketball, and I headed to the art table. Almost immediately, a boy about eleven or twelve years old sat next to me.

  “How many kids do you have?”

  “We don’t have any,” I said.

  “I got a brother,” he said motioning to where they were playing ball. “He’s nine. We want to be in the same home. We’re in different foster homes now but we want to be adopted together.”

  I wanted to continue staring at my hands but instead turned to look at him.

  “Of course you do. That would be the best. . . . Don’t you want to hang out with him?”

  “Not today.”

  Of course not. Today, he was auditioning for the role of a lifetime. Ward and I had already decided we were not equipped to parent more than one child. As quickly and respectfully as possible, I moved to the other table. I found myself sitting next to an adorable girl who looked about seven. She was personable and funny, and I wondered how I could convince Ward we wanted her. My emotions were all over the place: stricken with heartbreak by the boy’s story and then filled with excitement at the thought I may have met my daughter.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The girl turned toward me.

  “Emily. My mom is Ginger,” motioning to the caseworker at center court. “Our babysitter is sick today.”

  Well, there was no way I could disappoint Emily or get her hopes up, I thought.

  I stayed with her and made a sock puppet. When Ward joined us, I again suggested we leave, and this time he agreed.

  On the way to the car I said, “I can’t do it this way. It’s somehow too personal. That’s a funny way to think of it but . . .”

  “No, I get it. I feel the same way.”

  The months that followed could best be classified as excruciatingly close calls and near misses of other children we had heard were available for adoption but turned out not to be. In each instance, the caseworker we talked to would offer some tidbit regarding the child: he kicked a puppy; he’s emotional; he shouldn’t be in a home with other children; or he’s been in three other foster homes.

  The most painful situation happened over the course of a few days via phone conversations with a caseworker in another city. On a Wednesday, she told us about a six-year-old boy named Ryan. On Friday, we agreed to take him into our home the following Tuesday, which isn’t as outlandish as it sounds—we had friends who got a call at 2:30 P.M. and by 4:30 that day a four-year-old girl was living with them. So we called family and friends to share the exciting news.

  On Monday, the day before he was to arrive at our home, we received a call. A terrible mistake had been made. Another caseworker, who had seniority, had placed Ryan in another home over the weekend. If it’s possible to have a miscarriage in the world of adoption, this was ours. I had to remind myself what a DHHS veteran told me: “You get the one you’re supposed to get.”

  After four months of disappointment, frustration, and heartbreak following our classes, we still had not been able to get an actual sit-down with a foster care worker, so face-to-face time became our singular goal.

  During the course of yet another conversation about the process, my sister, Betty, offered a much-needed changeup.

  “You need to be unconventional,” she said. “These workers are mostly women, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do women like?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Freud, what do they like?”

  “It’s really so simple, Kari. They like sugar.”

  “Sugar?”

  “Okay, this is what you do. Go buy some donuts or cookies and crash DHHS. Tell them you want to meet with a caseworker.”

  “What?”

  “These women work in little offices or cubicles,” she explained. “They have stressful, crappy, low-paying jobs and they want sugar.”

  “They’ll think I’m a flake,” I countered.

  “They’ll think you have sugar!”

  “Are we seriously entertaining this idea?”

  “We are.”

  “Let’s say you’re right,” I said. “Won’t they see through this charade?”

  “Kari, they want sugar, okay?”

  “Okay, what should we get?”

  “Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins,” she advised. “The fifty-count box.”

  “Shouldn’t it be something fancier?”

  “Why put on airs?”

  I decided not to overthink it. I called Ward and said we were crashing DHHS after work with some kind of sugary treat. I knew he was as beaten down as I was when he simply said, “Right. See ya later,” before hanging up the phone.

  As we were waiting in line at Dunkin’ Donuts, Ward asked if we should get coffee, too.

  “Betty didn’t say anything about coffee. Let’s not improvise.”

  With a box of Munchkins in hand, we stood in front of the DHHS building and reviewed our strategy. I squeezed Ward’s hand and told him to follow my lead.

  The reception area was in a small atrium. There was no mistaking the place for anything but an administrative building, yet there were attempts to be welcoming—the quilts hanging on one wall were made of squares that were reproductions of children’s drawings. In the waiting area, twenty people sat on plastic chairs. A few people slept or had their heads down while others read the paper. No one smiled, let alone laughed; it was quiet for a room full of people. I started getting cold feet.

  I turned toward the woman sitting behind the reception desk. She smiled and waved as we approached. She reminded me a little bit of Glenda the Good Witch. I took that as a sign the Munchkins were a good choice.

  She cocked her head and a mane of blond curls spilled over her shoulder, “Can I help you?”

  I put the box of Munchkins on her desk and just went for it.

  “Yeah, I hope so. We can’t get anyone to return our calls about getting a foster care worker. We have been through your training and we want to adopt a kid. We think we’d be pretty good parents—of course we have a lot to learn. But, the point is we need help. There are Munchkins in here—it’s an assortment box—you get six to make the call, and the rest goes to whoever comes down to talk to us.”

  She smiled and then laughed. “You’re serious, right?”

  “Yeah, we are,” I assured her.

  Still laughing, she picked up the phone. Ward and I looked at each other and knew we were in. After she hung up, she told us someone would be down. She also asked if we would consider adopting her.

  The woman who came down was Linda, the most awesome foster care worker, ever. She complimented us on our novel ways, and in the months that followed, she gave us some great advice, held our hands through this Byzantine system, and found us Thorin.

  That first meeting with Linda was in September. On November 15th, I had a dream. I heard a voice say to me, “We found your son.” I knew we had to hold tight. After w
e got Thorin, I would discover in his DHHS notes that the state’s original plan of reunification had changed to termination of parental rights after his mother stopped visiting him. Their decision happened within a week of my dream.

  On January 5th, Linda left that voicemail and put us on the road to Thorin. Three weeks after that, she sent me an email. The subject heading was empty, so I wasn’t prepared when I opened it and saw the photo of Thorin. The text read “Here’s a preview!”

  “Oh,” I whispered, “oh, look at you. You’re absolutely beautiful.”

  I forwarded the email to Ward. While I waited to hear back from him I stared at Thorin and went through a half of box of tissues. I was struck by how much Thorin looked like Ward’s brother, Andy: both had red hair and green eyes. It was the first thing Ward commented on when he called me a few minutes later.

  “He looks like Andy!”

  When I talked to Linda later that day I gushed, “Thorin is beautiful! And, he looks like Ward’s brother!”

  “Does he have Down syndrome, too?”

  “No, he has red hair and green eyes.”

  Very emphatically Linda replied, “Kari, Thorin has blond hair and blue eyes.”

  “Not in this photo.”

  “Let me look, hang on a sec.” After a pause she said, “You’re right; it must be the lighting, but trust me, he has blond hair and blue eyes.”

  Hearing blond hair and blue eyes made me catch my breath. I was jolted into a forgotten memory. I cut the call short. On the first night Ward and I slept together, I had a dream. Like a film clip playing in front of me, I saw Ward holding a boy who was less than a year old. The boy had blond hair and blue eyes, and I knew he was our son. I didn’t say anything the next morning. After a single night of passion, I assumed Ward would likely think I was Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction rather than Susan Sarandon in anything.

  Now as I looked at the photo of Thorin, I knew he was the boy from my dream. Even though Thorin was two-and-a-half years old, at twenty-one pounds and thirty-two inches he would be mistaken for being much younger. I felt that calm again.