Brendan

Before I delve into some of our challenges and rewards and more challenges, let me tell you a bit about our little guy. We learned that we had been matched with Brendan Michael (what we named him) on 12 October 2011. On 18 October we went to diclosure, which is where you read the child's file, including medical history and all known facts surrounding the birth parents and the termination of parental rights. On 22 October 2011, we met Brendan for the first time, and by 25 October, he was staying at our house on a daily basis.

Life was a whirlwind. We basically had two weeks to do what most parents do in nine months. I had to research car seats and strollers, buy clothes and completely rearrange my schedule. Life quickly became an emotional rollercoaster...and then the "transition" period began, and it was more like an emotional tornado.

Returning Brendan to his foster home 10/28/12

In foster care, there is a period where you transition the child from foster home to adoptive home. Under Florida law, once the child is placed, he must live with the adoptive family for a minimum of 90 days before the family can go before court to officially adopt. I am not a "transition" type of girl--I am more of a "rip the bandaid off quickly and let's get on with the healing" type of person. This period, for me, was just awful. It seemed that Brendan didn't really belong to any one.

During the first two weeks, I would drop Aidan and Cole Patrick at school, then drive to the north side of Tampa to pick up Brendan. Then he would spend all day with our family and after dinner and bath, we would return him to the foster home each night. This is when we first learned that we really had to advocate for Bren. It reached the point that he would kick and scream every time I put him in the car seat because he didn't know where he was going. The adoption agency kept telling us that we couldn't "rush" it, that already the adoption was moving faster then most, but we insisted that the back and forth HAD to stop. On 04 November, Brendan spent the night at our house for the first time, and we never took him back to stay at the foster home. By 22 November, he was permanently placed in our custody, which started our 90-day time clock. 

One of my personal beliefs about adoption is that it is the best possible answer to human problems. God intended Brendan to be with his birth mama and daddy, but for whatever reason, when they couldn't answer that call, God called us up to the show. I have no doubt that Brendan's life will be 100 times better because we adopted him, but I do not believe that we "saved" him or that he was originally intended for us. But he IS ours--just as much as Aidan and Cole Patrick. While they came to us by birth, he came to us by adoption, but his adoption is just that, an action of the past--not a definition of who he is. Brendan WAS adopted, and now he IS our son.

I don't know much about Brendan's first 2-1/2 years. I tend to feel that his story before 22 October 2011 is just that--his story, not mine. I believe that as far as coming to adoption, he had one of the best possible scenarios. As best I can tell, his birth parents were largely unselfish--they seemed to recognize their inability to parent quickly, by two weeks he was in foster care and there was not a long drawn out fight to keep parental rights, and a huge factor in adoption: he had been with the same foster family since he was two weeks old, so he had developed healthy bonding and attachment skills.

Once he was living with us full-time, and the honeymoon was starting to fade, it became apparent that his foster family ran their home differently than we do, and the struggles began. I tend to imagine that before us, he spent a lot of time at day care, a lot of time in front of the television, and a lot of time just figuring it out for himself. I don't say that to judge--I don't know their situation, and I haven't walked in their shoes, but I think it is fair to say there were not many boundaries or a great deal of one-on-one interaction. Now break to the Wright Place, which one might call a wee bit structured.

I am what many would call a "rule-follower" and with that, our home has a variety of family rules. On top of the rules, I am also a bit strict about food. So take Bren, who we have determined did not have boundaries and calls pretty much every thing either juice, chicken nuggets or fries, add him to our equation, and we were about to begin what consumed much of our first six months together: a period that I call "The Food War."