Another Family Torn Apart

I hardly slept last night.  It wasn’t because I went to bed at midnight, or that I had to get up so early to get  my boys from the airport.  It wasn’t even the newborn squeaking hungrily every so often from the bassinet beside my bed.  I couldn’t get my mind to stop replaying the scenes of the day, scenes of heartbreak and loss.

That evening I picked up a newborn from the hospital, not that unusual for foster parents, but this case is different.  This baby is the brother of our other foster baby, and over the last months I have come to know the birth mother very well.   The day after the new baby was born I brought Baby J to visit them in the hospital.  Bonnie was so pleased and proud.  She posted a hundred pictures of him.  She hugged and cuddled, nursed and fussed over little Jason.  We had all waited to see if CPS would intervene, and it appeared they were going to hold off and allow Bonnie to try to parent.

When they called me yesterday morning to say they were getting a court order to take the baby I cried.    This baby coming into foster care is a guarantee of heartbreak.   Heartbreak for Bonnie as her baby is wrenched from her.  Heartbreak for a baby who can sense something isn’t as it should be.  Heartbreak for us to love again and lose again.

Of course we said we would take Jason.  He’s J’s brother.  I knew that Bonnie had asked that he come to us and would feel better knowing he was here.  But, I hated to be a party to her heartbreak.  I hated to be asked to be the person who would take him from her arms.

Bonnie was there when I arrived.  Weeping, she nursed her baby one last time, then dressed him in a tiny outfit and buckled him into his carseat.  She walked to the car with us and gave him one last kiss, reminding me to feed him, to change him, to drive carefully.  Then, at last, she turned and walked away.

I felt ill as I drove home.

I know that CPS and the judge looked at the case carefully as they made their decision.  I’m not saying that they made the wrong one.  I wasn’t there; I don’t know their reasons.  But, I think there is a tendency to believe parents whose children are taken into foster care somehow love them less or aren’t as effected as you or I would be if our children were taken away.  Bonnie’s heartbreak is very real and very lasting.

This scene is played out across the country everyday.  It is the necessary and sad reality that is foster care.