David's Story Part 1: The Beginning

Yep... I decided to reconstruct this story too. I will not though be putting up information nearly as fast! I also won't put up everything. We had him for 18 months. I will give you the highlights, but I promise that won't mean just all the difficult moments. It was not all sunshine and roses, but it was a good placement and David is still an active part of our lives.

One thing worth noting: Carl is very much one of my sons. He is the only one of the three boys who calls me "Mom." I was lucky in that he wanted a mother. Evan is definitely my nephew. Both of those relationships are have a clarity that my relationship with David ever did. I wanted to be his mother; it would have been better if I had aimed for aunt instead.

6/16/03
To my friend

The family devloper came by on Friday for our re-licensing visit. She told us that there is a boy coming in that she would like us to meet. His name is David, he is fifteen, and (of course) he is gay. She says that the only thing she knows about his personality is that he is very direct, which is a relief. Hubby and I said that we wanted to start off with getting as much background information as possible. He is new, so they do not have a complete file on him. His social worker will be Ruby, but she is out of town this week, so Robin will set up a meeting with us and his state social worker. I had this one moment of panic as I was going to sleep on Friday. I had this flash of David coming in and acting just like Ann. Of course I don't think that is true. I know that they would not have suggested Ann live here. We asked for her because we had a relationship with her.

So the plan is that we will meet first with his social worker to get more information, then we will meet him. If everything goes well we will set up more visits. We will take this slowly. We are going on vacation from July 22 to August 5, so we told Robin that if it works out it would be best if he moved in when we got back. That is a long stretch though. He is currently living with a state foster family in a small farm in the country.

6/17/03 Morning
To my friend

I spoke with Robin last night and got more information about David. He has had no problems with aggression, drugs, alcohol, or the law. He also has had excessive absences from school, not done his work, and failed most of his sophomore year classes. He says that he likes kids, has no history of failing to get along with other kids in the home, and is described as upfront about what he thinks. He was nearly adopted until he came out, although no one knows for sure that that is why the adoptive family backed out. He was subjected to emotional abuse from his foster father (I am unclear on whether it was the foster family who were considering adoption) who thought that if David just applied himself he could get over it. He currently lives in a state home with many kids and little structure. Our family would be a significant change for him. We are a small family with a lot of structure and intense togetherness. I don't experience it that way, but the foster kids who stay here do.

Today we go to the agency office at 2:00 to read all the information they have. Robin wants for us to read the file today and to have a sit-down meeting with David on Thursday to discuss our expectations and his history.

6/17/03 evening
To my friend,

So we spent two hours at the agency's office. We learned that David came into care in 1999 with his two brothers. If I have it right, what happened was that in 2001 or 2002 David came out, and a adoption plan fell through. David’s foster father became abusive. David was moved to a different home while his charges were being investigated. David's charges were confirmed, the family lost their license, and the brothers were also moved, but not to the same place David was. They were all put up for adoption again, but David insisted that his brothers be separated from him since they would not get adopted if they were tied to a teenage, gay brother. They are now in a pre-adoptive placement in another state.

David has requested a home in The City. His thought was that if he could access the resources and community there it would not matter what his foster parents thought. Robin has suggested that he consider living with a family who will support him even if it does mean that he will have to live all the way out in Our Small Town. He has agreed to consider it.

Robin says that though he certainly does not have RAD, he has been through a lot and might not be ready for a family like ours. She wants us to be prepared for him to choose not to live with us.

David's Story Part 2: First Meeting