The Visitation Stage

If you choose adoption through your state’s foster care system there will inevitably be a period of visitation with your child before you finally get to take him home. During this time, you have scheduled visits with your child. You pick him up at his foster home and he spends a predetermined amount of time with you. Then you return him to his foster home until the next time you are scheduled to visit. Parenting a child through foster adoption begins at visitation.

I’ve found this stage of foster adoption to be one of the most difficult times for me as a mom. When we adopt, my children become mine the moment I am first shown their picture. For me, the visual image captures my heart. I know what their face looks like, what color their eyes and hair are. I have a connection instantly. I am aware that this does not happen for everyone but it does for me. At that moment, I become maternal toward this person. I want to sweep him up and bring him home. I want to end his suffering, his waiting. Before I can do anything for him though, I must follow the rules and have our period of visitation. I must pick him up and drop him off over and over again. Each time is more painful as I fall in love with this child.

With our first son, the foster home he was living in was not a loving, therapeutic place. He had a very hard time returning each and every time we brought him back. I felt as though I was abandoning him once or twice a week. We would always try to reassure him that we would be back but you could see in his eyes that he was pretty convinced we were lying. We were frustrated with the parenting style of his foster parents and their complete lack of genuine concern for him. It was like dropping him off with people he didn’t know. Each time we would drive the hour home without saying much to one another. I felt empty without him in our home. His bedroom was empty every night and I would go and lay in his bed, smell his sweet little boy smell on his pillow and pray to God that we could bring him home as soon as possible.

Our second son’s visitation process was a bit different. We loved his foster parents and would often spend hours visiting with them upon dropping him off. It was easier because we knew he was in a safe, loving environment. I still missed him though. I still felt like a piece of our family was missing constantly. I wanted him home with us so we could all begin our lives as a real family and so he could stop living his life waiting. Even though we loved his foster parents, it was still very hard to learn to parent alongside them. We had to be sure not to step on their toes. They knew more about our child than we did. It was hard to admit that they might know more about what was best for him at that time. We were essentially sharing our son with other parents.

Visitation was not something I was prepared for when we launched into the world of foster adoption. I thought it would be fun, and it was at times, to get to know our child at a distance before we had to parent him 24/7. I had no idea how heart-wrenching and difficult it would be to give my child back to someone else so many times. I had no idea how to co-parent with the people who were his parents 5 days out of each week. I was not ready to see the empty bed and long for it to be filled. No one prepares you for this part of the journey. The system is busy trying to do paperwork and ensure that everything is going at the right pace. No one seems to notice that your heart is breaking once a week.

With every adoption we pursue, I know that visitation will be the part I dread most. We are over a year away from our next adoption process but I still think often about visitation and how little I am looking forward to it. At the end of the day though, visitation is what is required just as labor is required to finally see my little baby. I am not looking forward to either process but I know the reward will be sweeter for having endured the pain.
Photo Credit.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.