Jason

It was a full out sob.

One of those deep-down uncontrollable sounds you make when your heart has been permanently shifted.

I used my coat to muffle the sound in the hospital hallway. I knew I had lost control and needed time to get my shit together.

I wasn’t prepared for how I would feel, it was just a regular MRI. But they had to sedate him to keep him still. As I watched his shaking body try to fight the mask going over his face while his grip on my hand went limp and he eventually surrendered to sleep, it became too much. I turned away so no one would see my eyes water, grabbed my coat and left the room. I could feel something inside fighting to get out and I couldn’t control it.

I had to be stronger, but true strength is not just the battle, but the distance.

Everything is a marathon.

What causes a child’s brain to stop emotionally and intellectually developing?

We needed to know what we were dealing with, was it biological in origin or environmental? Was it something missing genetically, or something extra? Or was it a moment or many moments that shocked the brain into saying… “here, this is where I’m staying.”

We have all the questions but no answers.

When Jason arrived, his medical issues had not been investigated and nothing was present in the file presented to us. He is part of a trio of siblings we were adopting. They were about to separate the boys for a better chance at finding permanent homes, but we decided to take on all three. To say they were all amazing is an understatement. It became clear we would offer them a forever home, but we could not afford the budget required to deal with all their medical and psychological needs. So adoption was not an option.

This defined our never-ending struggle with the agency that represented them.

Our struggle with these agencies is not new.

My partner and I fought for years dealing with the needs of children in our home. We have four permanent kids, now teenagers and one young adult. Their mental and physical needs come first. Everything else is secondary. When you are unable to adopt due to the high cost of these needs but decide to keep the children permanently, as their chances for adoption for almost non- existent, you become an enemy of the agency your child is attached to. You are a financial burden.

One of the many benefits the agency experiences with adoption is the removal of the child from their budgetary needs. Their goal then becomes a planned strategy to cut your funding. There is only so much money in the pot and you are seen as financial leak.

The caseworks assigned to our children are left with the unenviable task of being part of a larger plan by the agency to reduce the costs of caring for the children.

This has been a fight from day one for us.

But luckily my partner is well versed in the art of managing bullshit and will only agree to what is best of these children, nothing else.

This is why, while I am trying to contain myself in the hallway of the hospital, my child’s caseworker is trying to talk to me about reducing and or eliminating Jason’s one on one support. The one-on-one support is essential not just for Jason to thrive but for our family to survive.

Every intrusion from the agency comes with a hidden agenda.

I am always fooled by the smiles and looks of concern, but my partner isn’t. After decades in politics, he is no stranger to the flawed structure of most large institutions, and he doesn’t care how much we are hated by them.

Most kids don’t have advocates like my partner and me. Most kids will age out without a hope in hell.

Policy must change.

The entire structure of the system must change.

But right now, all I care about is ending this day and taking Jason home.

When he wakes up in the recovery room, sick but less terrified, he knows he is going home to safety.

Every child alive should have that, it is not a privilege, but a right.

Regardless of how much it costs.