The journey to adoption...
Late on a Saturday morning in November 2010, my life changed forever. I picked up my first foster placement, a brother and sister. I will never forget the first time I saw Jaylin. He was in a state of shock, void of any emotion and completely disconnected from the world around him.
Over the next ten months, I watched this boy transform in every way.
Ten months building a relationship and something happened in my heart, I knew this was my son. Once their situation of removal from birth mom became permanent, he had to leave me because the County didn't want to split the two up and I knew that I could not take his sister on permanently. He spent a year and a half in another foster home where he was not cared for except by his school. Hard to describe what it feels like to have 'my son' not only away from me, but in a place that was damaging him. When he came home in 2013, there was no guarantee that he would be able to attach to me as his mom or survive without his sister.
About three months after he returned to me, the outbursts began. In order to protect Jaylin, I will not go into detail about the behaviors that have been most challenging.
Fighting for the care that he needed in order to heal was an uphill climb, crawling at times. First hospitalization in the Fall of 2013 and then subsequent residential treatment. I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. At that time, I was seeking God as to whether or not I could commit to this. I heard him clearly say, "If you don't do this for him, who will?" There was a song on the radio at that time written by a dad who found out that his unborn child had defects and may not survive. This song resonated with me and became my anthem. All of Me by Matt Hammitt
Still not receiving the intensive therapy that was needed after returning home in December, 2013. In March of 2014, he started calling me mom. The following June, I sat in a court room where they terminated the rights of his biological parents. The lawyer who had overseen the case since it opened, turned to the judge and said, "There is only one person who has cared for this child since he entered foster care and that's this woman(pointing to me)".
Second hospitalization in Fall 2014 was one of the hardest things I've ever done. With a good friend driving us to the hospital, Jaylin was in the back seat crying and screaming all the way to Milwaukee begging me to take him home. In the weeks that followed, I remember feeling numb. I was not the legal guardian and could not make any decisions regarding his care. Yet I was the one receiving the calls late into the night begging me to come and get him.
I'm not sure whether those hospital stays helped or hurt us. After five years of knowing each other, three straight years of living together and the adoption being finalized, he still struggled. The trauma to his brain from the severe neglect in the early years of his life is real. Officially he has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but there have been many other possible or assumed diagnoses because of the complexity of early trauma caused by severe neglect. It is likely that he falls into a category not yet officially recognized by the Psychiatric world, called Developmental Trauma Disorder.
Last year, after another stay at the hospital, balancing of medications and intensive therapy that followed, Jaylin started to heal in ways I had not seen up until that point. He has grown so much.
We still have mountains to climb, but not every day. It has been a lonely road, but so incredibly fulfilling to be his momma. My heart fills with so much pride when I see him experiencing new things and enjoying life. He said to me recently, "I don't know where I would be without you mom" and I said, "I can't even think about it".
Late on a Saturday morning in November 2010, my life changed forever. I picked up my first foster placement, a brother and sister. I will never forget the first time I saw Jaylin. He was in a state of shock, void of any emotion and completely disconnected from the world around him.
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| The day I met Jay |
Over the next ten months, I watched this boy transform in every way.
Ten months building a relationship and something happened in my heart, I knew this was my son. Once their situation of removal from birth mom became permanent, he had to leave me because the County didn't want to split the two up and I knew that I could not take his sister on permanently. He spent a year and a half in another foster home where he was not cared for except by his school. Hard to describe what it feels like to have 'my son' not only away from me, but in a place that was damaging him. When he came home in 2013, there was no guarantee that he would be able to attach to me as his mom or survive without his sister.
About three months after he returned to me, the outbursts began. In order to protect Jaylin, I will not go into detail about the behaviors that have been most challenging.
Fighting for the care that he needed in order to heal was an uphill climb, crawling at times. First hospitalization in the Fall of 2013 and then subsequent residential treatment. I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. At that time, I was seeking God as to whether or not I could commit to this. I heard him clearly say, "If you don't do this for him, who will?" There was a song on the radio at that time written by a dad who found out that his unborn child had defects and may not survive. This song resonated with me and became my anthem. All of Me by Matt Hammitt
Still not receiving the intensive therapy that was needed after returning home in December, 2013. In March of 2014, he started calling me mom. The following June, I sat in a court room where they terminated the rights of his biological parents. The lawyer who had overseen the case since it opened, turned to the judge and said, "There is only one person who has cared for this child since he entered foster care and that's this woman(pointing to me)".
Second hospitalization in Fall 2014 was one of the hardest things I've ever done. With a good friend driving us to the hospital, Jaylin was in the back seat crying and screaming all the way to Milwaukee begging me to take him home. In the weeks that followed, I remember feeling numb. I was not the legal guardian and could not make any decisions regarding his care. Yet I was the one receiving the calls late into the night begging me to come and get him.
I'm not sure whether those hospital stays helped or hurt us. After five years of knowing each other, three straight years of living together and the adoption being finalized, he still struggled. The trauma to his brain from the severe neglect in the early years of his life is real. Officially he has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but there have been many other possible or assumed diagnoses because of the complexity of early trauma caused by severe neglect. It is likely that he falls into a category not yet officially recognized by the Psychiatric world, called Developmental Trauma Disorder.
Last year, after another stay at the hospital, balancing of medications and intensive therapy that followed, Jaylin started to heal in ways I had not seen up until that point. He has grown so much.
We still have mountains to climb, but not every day. It has been a lonely road, but so incredibly fulfilling to be his momma. My heart fills with so much pride when I see him experiencing new things and enjoying life. He said to me recently, "I don't know where I would be without you mom" and I said, "I can't even think about it".
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