Bulldawgy

Sometime back in February, my wife approached me with news of a two year old who’s birthmother was interested in placing her for adoption.  In case you don’t know, we already had six children.  Seven was not on my agenda.  But after meeting this little girl, and hearing her story, I was convinced that I needed to seriously evaluate my agenda.  We had the means to support this little girl, and give her a family.  She did not have a father in the home, he was in and out of jail.  We didn’t know it at the time, but mom would soon end up in jail too.  So, I literally took a leap of faith and my wife and I brought this little girl into our family for a “trial” on February 11th. 

Today, to make a long story short, I took her back to her grandmother.  After months and months of trying to figure out if the birthmother was ever going to surrender her rights, the grandmother decided that she would need to upgrade her custody from temporary to permanent.  The grandmother wanted us to adopt the little girl, but that wasn’t on the birthmother’s agenda.  Our attorney confirmed this through the jailhouse visitor’s window yesterday in a face to face meeting.

My wife is very sad, along with some of my more emotional children.  She couldn’t actually be a part of the transfer, so I had to handle that.  It was hard and I didn’t pull it off without tears.

It’s funny, I’m sure I need to put my self-righteousness aside.  But, I just can’t understand someone who has spent almost no time with their child, has not supported and is not able to support them financially, who has a drug problem, has multiple children with multiple fathers some of who are in prison – I just can’t understand how they could say I’m never going to surrender my rights to this child.  Especially, when the new parents have the means to love, support and educate the child in an environment and in a way that the birthmother never could.  Just don’t get it.  It makes no sense.  None.

But then again, I’m not sitting in jail right now.