Friday, March 09, 2007

One wait about to come to an end

Well, it's official - we're going to court on March 23rd, 2 weeks from today, to have this forever family formally finalized!

We got word on February 23rd and I just haven't had a chance to blog lately. I've become much more active in community and church activities, that's eaten up a nice sized chunk of my time. We're so excited though that this is finally about to be "real" to Zoey. It's been real to me since Day 1, since the day I made my claim to Zoey. Zoey on the other hand needs that legal reassurance that we're not going anywhere. It was so rewarding to see her in those first couple of days after getting our finalization date calling people to excitedly tell them "I'm finally getting adopted!" She was claiming this as an important day in her life, one that she's been waiting for for so long. It was such a beautiful sight. I felt so blessed to be the one that has given her this experience and to be experiencing it in return.

Within those first few days things were going great and then we started to notice a "bad vibe" creeping in here and there. Zoey started getting a little more agitated and defiant again. Behaviors that have been extraordinarily absent or diminished were coming back. I recognized immediately that this must be a RAD dream - sorry, I couldn't help it! LOL No seriously, this was RAD stuff pure and simple. It all came to a head on Feb. 27th. She began by getting upset about small things that normally wouldn't invoke such a bad attitude and quickly escalated into negative attention seeking behaviors, nearly having a tantrum. Which, thankfully, is something we haven't seen a long time. I had to take my brother to the airport 70 miles away that night and was not wanting to see this get as ugly as I know she's capable of. It wasn't life or death that I was facing that night, but I had someone counting on me to get them to their plane on time! I felt the pressure, let me tell you. After going around and around with her and getting nowhere, finally I just said "look, you have 2 minutes to drop this crap and tell me what's really going on here because I have somewhere to be and I don't have the time to play 'guess what's bothering Zoey!' " Almost immediately, she began sobbing and PTSD-like behavior just jumped to the surface. She rocked back and forth, was in "another place" and even at times said to me "you're not real" She was ABSOLUTELY convinced in those moments that we were going to leave her like everyone else has and she just cried and cried "this isn't going to happen, you're going to leave me. EVERYONE SAID THEY WANTED ME AND THEY DIDN'T!" She screamed. She sobbed. She let out some real crap that's been hanging around in there. It was hard to watch. It always is. Yet it almost always ends in relief. Torn between my responsibility to her and my brother relying on me to get him to the airport, I needed to get her under control before I could leave. I didn't want to leave Dan to deal with her if she was spinning out of control and needed to be hospitalized. It occured to me to try this tactic - I said "sweetie, this has been final all along for Dad and me. All we need from court is the judge to sign his name on some papers. If you don't believe me, let's do it right now. Let's finalize! Dan, do you take this child to be your daughter?" Dan said yes. I motioned to him to ask me the same. "Absolutely, without a doubt, YES!" I said. Then I patted her back and said "Congratulations, we're final. You're ours and it's forever. " I was super casual, almost glib about it to try to lighten her up. "There's no getting rid of us now!" I joked. I pronounced to friends that were going to the airport with us, "hey everyone, we're final!" Everyone played along and clapped and congratulated Zoey. She seemed in a daze and continued to tell me I wasn't real. I insisted that I was real, or that I certainly hoped I was real, and before long she was calm and apologizing for holding up the trip to the airport.

Since that night, she's gotten occasionally a bit more agitated and defiant, but overall it feels like the progress that we've seen is nothing short of a miracle. She quickly apologizes now when she's been rude or short with someone. She can get mad at us one minute and then laugh about it the next. She's developed that kind of family intimacy that allows us to be mad one minute and laughing at each other the next. Typing that just now brings joyful tears to my eyes because I can see this journey has passed through it's darkest days. Zoey is never, ever, going to be alone in this world again. Even if Dan or I are no longer here, she has a sister that squeals with excitement to see her, extended family and friends that have taken her in just as much as we have, and most profoundly, she herself has begun to feel that someone really does want/choose her.

On March 23rd, we will affirm this choice to Zoey and to the world. Zoey Rose is finally home.