Tragedy and Privilege Nicole Lavoie
November is National Adoption Awareness Month in the United States. The month is set aside to raise awareness about the urgent need for adoptive families for children and youth in foster care. We always wanted a family larger than what we were biologically able. With the number of children in state care that need foster and adoptive families so high it was never a question to us which path we would take to grow our family.
As I watched this young woman confirm with the judge that she understood what she was legally committing to I found myself overwhelmed with emotions. This young mother, who had been taken away from her own biological mother at birth and then lost her adoptive mother to cancer at a young age now had to put her trust in us, almost complete strangers, that we would take good care of her son and give him the life she could not.
In the time that we have been licensed we have had two children placed in our care. When the determination was made that reunification would not be possible in either case, the biological parents planned to voluntarily terminate their parental rights and agreed to an open adoption with us.
A child born to another woman calls me mommy, The MAGNITUDE of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me.
When the actual day came for the biological parents to go before the judge there was a sense of relief that this roller coaster ride was coming to an end but the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach the first time I sat in that courtroom is something I will never forget.
ADOPT If you can’t adopt, FOSTER If you can’t foster, SPONSOR If you can’t sponsor, VOLUNTEER If you can’t volunteer, DONATE If you can’t donate, EDUCATE
~Jody Landers
Nicole Lavoie is an aspriring children’s book author who wants to focus her stories on the relationships between biological and foster children. When Nicole isn’t designing the Mom’s Favorite Reads eMagazine she is busy using her graphic design and project management skills to help other authors get their books from concept to completion. You can discover more about Nicole here: www.JustSayingDezigns.com - 12 -
