Why I Don't Feel Like I Have a Choice

Thank you, my three readers :), for your comments and support. I'd like to attempt to answer the questions.

I do, technically, have a choice. And Anthony is supportive of whatever choice I make, but it is, in all honesty, my choice.

We can disrupt, if we do it before finalization. We can say, "No, we can't handle this. Sorry." Max would go back into foster care. They would try to recruit for a family to adopt him again. His chances would not be good for finding another adoptive family. He is a black male and would have a disrupted adoption on his record. In reality, he'd be looking at aging out of foster care. I can't imagine that his life would go on any sort of good path.

Even if he was lucky enough to be adopted, he'd be further down the path of attachment issues for us having blown his trust. We've told him over and over again that he is here to stay. To then not follow through would be devastating for him. We have had the best of intentions when we've said these things to him. We keep hoping that he'll settle in and trust and things will be easier. Any (highly theoretical) family that might want to adopt him would have to overcome all of that.

We've talked about asking if we can turn into a long term foster family while they look for an adoptive family for him, which would at least save him from having to change homes an extra time or two, but we'd still be bailing on him. Plus, what if they don't find anyone?

We have hopes that finalization will bring with it some calm, but I'm trying not to get too invested in that hope. It could get worse. Sometimes that happens.

I could go back on Prozac. He seemed better when I was on Prozac and I felt glad then that we'd kept him. A lot of the glad feeling is just how guilty I'd feel for tossing him out on his ear. However, that was the only good thing about Prozac. Lack of sex drive, weight gain, no real joy. I don't want to go back to that.

We could delay the adoption. We've already done that. We sat on some paperwork this summer for quite a while because we were having serious doubts. We went through the whole disrupt or not decision making process. We decided not to disrupt. We had several reasons for that.

The above mentioned repercussions to Max were definitely some of those reasons. However, also, we were looking at the impact on us. Max's therapist, who, of course, doesn't want to see us disrupt, told us that even though it seems like it will be a relief when the child leaves your home, it really impacts families as more of a death of a child and can be devastating. Now, the sensible thing is to take that with a grain of salt, as her primary interest is in keeping Max in the family, but it does make some sense to me.

In addition, I don't know if I can live with the guilt. I don't know if I can face people and say, "Yeah, we sent him back to foster care." What if his life tanks and we could have made the difference if we'd stuck it out?

I don't want Davan to think that people are disposable. I don't want her to wonder, "How bad to I have to be before they send me away?"

So, the short answer is, yes, there are choices and we've already made them. I still feel trapped and like I don't want to do this. I wish I could turn back the clock and do it differently by saying no after the first day we met Judea and realized he wasn't a good match for us. Or by saying no before he moved in when we realized that we were going to be miserable. Or even by sending him back to live with his foster family after a month or two when the impact would have been less. Each time, we kept thinking, "It's just the stress of moving and a new family for him. It'll get better." Or by saying no when we got the full influx of his paperwork before we'd met him. We messed up when we didn't say no then, but we were worried about if we'd be able to adopt if we said no and we'd been verbally told that he was doing fine.

If I knew that he could go to a family that would stick by him and appreciate him for who he is and was brown like him, I'd step aside for that family. But, there is no dream family like that. We're as close as it's going to get, even with me dragging my feet the whole way.