Think, Think, Think

I'm an overthinker.  If my friend Kelly hadn't already staked her claim, this blog would have been called My Overthinking.  Okay, maybe not but it's still apropos.

Almost a year ago, we received our first available-child flyer about a 17 yo girl.  She sounded great (but so does every house on realtor.com...not that a kid is tantamount to a house, just that descriptions for both are written to highlight the best, which you discover only after being in the thick of it for a while) so we submitted our profile.  Her adoption recruiter was excited about us, her DHS worker was not and, after a few months, we forgot about it.  In October, Brenda received her flyer again and called the recruiter who said, "I LOVED your family!  Please resubmit them and let me talk to the DHS worker."  By now, I was irritated that this poor girl had been sitting around for six months with no other families on the horizon because a DHS worker had concerns about our family dynamics and never bothered to ask us a single question.  Grrrrrrr.


The DHS worker relented this time and the recruiter sent us her profile and talked to the girl about us.  She has never had a good family.  Ever.  After reading the profile, my Momma Bear claws were showing.  Where do they find these people?!  Because of her flaky families, she's open to meeting us but hesitant and, frankly, we were, too.  Okay, I was.  Guitar Hero is more go-with-the-flow-let's-see-what-happens.  This girl has been consistently let down her entire life by people who seemed to forget that they were the grown-ups and, as a result, her behavior reflects it.  The big question for me is how she would acclimate to a normal family experience.  She's never had the opportunity to try and, at 18, that's a big gamble for a family to take.  That was my hang-up.  It's not that I don't want to adopt her, it's that I want to make sure we have counted the cost of doing so because, if we say yes, we're all in.  She's not going back.  No matter what.

Our caseworker suggested a no-strings-attached meeting with her but my mommy-heart took over and told me that there is no such thing with a girl who's never had one person fully commit to her in her entire life.  How do you go to a meeting to "see how it goes" with a young woman who just wants a family?  Still, her worker, Brenda and Guitar Hero want the meeting so I agreed.  Honestly, I DO want to meet her.  I'm intuitive so I want the chance to get a read on her but my overthinking can be my downfall.  I don't want to hurt her feelings if the meetings don't work out.  At some point, though, you just can't have all of your questions answered without a step of faith and once Guitar Hero said he felt we should meet her, I was all in because, ultimately, we're in this for the kids who need a family and no one else wants her.  Some of them have told her as much.  And, that's not okay.  We all need a mom who gives a crap about what happens to us.  You're never too old for a mom...even if she does think too much.