Not the mom I thought I would be

When I was pregnant the first time, we chose not to find out the baby’s gender before birth. Although we didn’t officially know, we were both quite sure that the baby was a girl. And then the baby was born and instead of the little girl we had expected, we had a baby boy. And we were surprised.

And Aaron wasn’t just a boy, but a boy who didn’t sleep unless he was being held. And the combination of the exhaustion, and the postpartum hormones, and the surprise over him being a boy rather than a girl, all combined one day and I remember telling him, as I was changing his diaper, and he was screaming, and I was exhausted, and I was crying, “you are not what I expected.”

And he wasn’t.

And he hasn’t been what I expected his entire life. Almost all those ways have been good. But they have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to parent him. They have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to advocate for him. They have caused me to re-evaluate the type of parent that I needed to be for him. And the same has been true for Clayton, albeit without all the postpartum new mother freak out.

I am not the parent that I thought I would be when I first started this parenting journey 20 years ago. Because neither one of my boys has been the child/teenager/young adult that I thought they were going to be. So I’ve had to adjust. And I’ve had to learn to be the mother that they needed me to be, not the mother I thought I was going to be.  A mother who over the years has learned more about Barney, Veggietales, Thomas the Tank Engine, the US presidents, theatre, band, choir, art, and art supplies and techniques than I ever thought I would know or need to know.

I have also learned more about asthma, lung diseases, immune deficiencies, and all the treatments for all those things, along with how to deal with insurance companies and disability offices. I have learned to administer medications through a PICC line, administer percussive therapy, insert infusion needles. I have learned to conduct business from hospital rooms and waiting rooms and doctor’s office treatment rooms. I know more about the process of plasma donation and production of immunoglobulin and IGG levels than I ever thought I would want or need to know.

Because that is the mother that Aaron needs me to be.

I have also learned more than I ever knew there was to know about sexual orientation, physical, and romantic attraction, gender identity, gender expression, and gender presentation. I have learned about the history and the context of Bible verses that I had never before bothered to study. I have learned what businesses, churches, and universities are LGBTQ+ friendly and affirming, and which are not. I have learned to love and cherish an entire new village of people that I never had reason to believe I would even know much less come to consider some of my favorite people.

Because that is the mother that Clayton needs me to be.

And the truth is, becoming the mother that these two boys need me to be has changed who I have become as a person. It has broadened my view of the world. It has made me more compassionate, more empathetic, more kind, and more loving. It has also made me less fearful of change and confrontation, more outspoken, more sure of who I am and what I believe, and more articulate in stating those things.

Because that is the mother that they need me to be.

That is the mother I need myself to be. 

That is the person that I need myself to be.

And maybe most important of all, that is the person that God needs me to be in this world.

For my own boys, and for others God has placed in my path.

Perspective

As an Enneagram 9, routine is my happy place; but my #1 strength on strength finders is adaptability which means that typically I go with the flow and take things as they come. Those two things seem in conflict but for the most part they aren’t.

Except when they are.

I’ve been hearing rumors for the past couple of months of changes within the court system in some of our rural counties that may change the way that my cases are handled in my county. But they’ve just been rumors that I haven’t been able to find any clarification on, and none of my local people seem to know anything about them.

And then over the past week I’ve heard more detailed rumblings, and this morning in court, I heard things that made the change seem more definite. Still, nobody locally seems to know what is going on and if we are going to be affected and exactly how the whole thing is going to work.

And so my need for routine overcame my strength of adaptability, and I was moderately freaking out.

In the process of my moderate freak out, I was talking to one of the CPS supervisors about the situation, and I was just really complaining. “It sure would be nice if they got input from the people being directly affected,” I said. Followed by, “I just don’t like it when decisions are being made about my life without consulting me, and I have no control over it.”

And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, it was like a lightbulb went off.

I stopped and looked at her. Because it hit her about the same time it hit me.

“This must be just what it feels like for the kids we work with,” I said.

Suddenly everything fell into the proper perspective.

Because at the end of the day, whatever happens with this work situation, I still have my home to go to.

Where my family lives.

Where my pets are.

Which has all my clothes, my books, my things.

I get to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow and shower in my own shower  and dress in my own clothes out of my own closet.

I get to go to my own church on Sunday and see my own friends this week.

Unlike the kids in the court system who too often lose absolutely everything in their lives that gives them comfort and a sense of safety. The kids whose lives are affected by major decisions being made with often very little input from them about it. The kids who the system too often fails to consult about what is going on with their present and their future.

I don’t know what will happen with the court situation. Whether I will be affected or whether I won’t.

What I do know is this: the next time that I make a decision about a child’s life, I will try to be a bit more aware of how it must feel to have decisions made about your life that you may or may not be a part of or even be aware of until it’s done. 

All Rise

I’ve worked in the court system for more than 25 years. Whenever the judge comes into the courtroom, he or she is preceded by the court bailiff who says “All Rise.” And everyone stands up, and remains standing, until the judge tells them they may be seated. The same happens with a jury. When the jury comes into the courtroom from the jury room, the bailiff says “All Rise for the jury” and everyone stands up and remains standing until the jury is seated.

Both are a way of showing respect to those who are going to be making hard decisions.

While I’ve been a part of both of those experiences literally thousands of times over the years, I’ve never really thought much about either of the practices.

Until two weeks ago while sitting in a jury trial with particularly difficult facts.  It was a criminal trial, a companion case to one of my CPS cases, involving the death of an 8 week old who had starved to death. The testimony was heartbreaking, causing, on more than one occasion, tears both on the witness stand, in the gallery, and in the jury box. It made me think of the many ugly trials I have been a part of over the years, and how hard it must be for most jurors to sit and listen to things so far outside the scope of their everyday lives.

I thought about how hard it can be for those of us who do this work for a living to see and hear the things we do day after day after day. I wondered about the ability of many of us to compartmentalize the things we hear and see, as a defense mechanism, to allow us to live the rest of our lives without the constant effects of the PTSD that we ourselves sometimes develop as a reaction to all the secondary trauma we experience.

I thought about those times, like two weeks ago, when after listening to the trial of the starved 8 week old, I listened to the beginning of a sentencing hearing on another criminal case a companion case to one of my cases, with another child, this one older, who too had been starved to death. In the middle of watching these two trials, I observed one of the most emotional goodbye visits I’ve ever observed. And despite all the years I have done this work, and all the skills I have at compartmentalizing the trauma, the week was just too much. It was one of those weeks which occurs from time to time when there is just too much to compartmentalize effectively, and too much to be able to mentally and intellectually and emotionally process, and the only reaction a person can possibly have is to just shut down or fall apart. I did a bit of both, to be frank.

And so as I reflected on that week, and I reflected on the practice of standing as the judge or jury enters the courtroom, I began to wonder if maybe the significance of the “All Rise” isn’t just about the respect for the office of the judge or of the juror. Maybe it’s more than just an acknowledgement of their important role as decision maker. Maybe it’s a recognition of the fact that hard stuff is about to happen. Important stuff is about to happen. Stuff that most people know little or nothing about is about to be discussed and decided. And there is gravity to that. There is honor in that.

So for all my fellow prosecutors, investigators, law enforcement, support staff, attorneys, caseworkers, CASA advocates, court reporters, bailiffs, court clerks, and judges, I honor and respect the job that you do, in hearing and seeing hard things. Keep up the good work.

And the next time you hear and respond to the command of “All Rise” do so in deference to the judge or the jury. But do so as well in recognition of your own role in what can be an incredibly difficult job.

Holding hands

It was the image of their hands entwined that broke my heart the most. My boys tell me it’s called “waffling”, when you hold hands with a person that way. And that it’s much more personal than “pancaking” where your palms touch but your fingers stay apart. Waffling is reserved for only those you really love, they tell me.

And this little boy really does love his mama, despite the anger and the confusion and the sadness he is feeling on this day, his last time to visit with her after she has given up her parental rights to him.

I am grateful to see him finally sitting in her lap, this last time, when he had spent the 20 or so minutes before, by himself, sitting across the room, his head down on the back of the chair he sat straddling. He had been so angry and in so much pain that the waves of both emotions radiated off his little body in almost visible waves.

But finally now, in these last minutes he will be with her, he sits in his mama’s lap. He’s a little big really to be sitting there, his legs hanging all the way to the floor. She holds him as she must have when he was a toddler, in her arms, kissing his face. He doesn’t wipe the kisses away this time as he did two weeks before, when he didn’t know what was coming, but when I wanted to badly to go in the room and tell him, don’t wipe away the kisses, sweetie. You’re going to want to keep them. You’re going to want to keep them always.

He sits there, his fingers entwined with hers, as she whispers in his ear, as she did with his two sisters, all the things that she needs to say to him while she still has the chance. This little boy who once grew in her body and under her heart. This little boy for whom I’m sure she once had great plans and big dreams. This little boy who will grow up with a different family because the hold methamphetamine has on her is stronger than the hold her little man has on her hand.

And tears leak from my eyes for the 5^th time this visit, my heart breaking as I wonder, how many more times must I watch this play out? How many more times will I have to witness children saying goodbye to their parents because of the hold that drugs or other demons have on their parents? How many times? And the answer is as long as I am here. As long as I do this work. However long that may be. Because I owe it to these children. I owe it to these parents. I owe it to my workers. And I owe it to myself. 

May I never forget the heartbreak that comes when I ask a judge or a jury to bring a legal end to a family. May I never forget the image of two hands entwined, for the last time, as a little boy says goodbye to the person in the world who is supposed to love him most and put him first. 

May I never stop praying for his healing, and for hers, and for new healthy lives for them both. So that some day, when this little boy looks for his mother, as I have faith he probably will, he will find her healthy and whole. And he will be able to build a new relationship with her that is life giving and love affirming. And that one day she will have the opportunity to waffle hands with her grandchildren, the way she once did with this sweet little boy, on the day that they said goodbye.