8:30 the next morning, and the agreement was made. Our daughter was in our arms thirty-six hours after we learned of her existence.
—adopting dad
PEOPLE BECOME foster parents for a surprisingly small number of reasons that tend to fall into a handful of broad patterns: couples who are unable to have children of their own; empty nesters who want to do the whole parenting cycle again; those who want to do good in the world; and people interested in money, free labor, or other things besides the best interests of the children they take in.
Although that last group hogs quite a bit of bandwidth in the public’s perception, social workers unite in saying that first among equals are the couples unable to conceive. In many parts of America, childless hopefuls look not only to costly infertility treatments (such as in vitro fertilization [IVF]) but beyond the country’s borders. Russian orphans and baby girls from China head this list in American public awareness, but IVF and international adoptions are rare in Coalton, mostly because both require serious cash. Coalton’s people tend to be poorer than the average working-class person, the bulk of salaries hovering at around 120 percent of poverty level,1 except in University City. Costly paths to becoming a parent are out.
This includes third-party domestic private adoptions, which can be expensive and explosive to navigate. “Third-party” here means outside of one’s extended family; a woman’s adopting her sister’s children is not a third-party adoption. Domestic adoption inquiries are the first crossroads where Dale’s hopes meet those of infertile couples because fostering a child can place you first in line to adopt. The difficulty of getting information out to people, not to mention the understandable fact that most couples want infants, is the main factor that seems to stymie the process of getting children without homes into homes without children.
“People who can’t have kids go into the system until they find the children that fit what makes them feel like a family, and then they adopt them and get out,” says Beth, a former social worker who left after five years on the job. “But they go in looking for babies, so they either wait a long time, or they fall in love with an older child they foster while they’re waiting.”
Beth works now as a legal secretary in sleepy little Riverside, a town of about two thousand residents where Main Street boasts more lawyers and hairdressers than retail shops. Historic buildings sit empty or have pop-up thrift stores spread in their showcase windows. Behind the row of nineteenth-century buildings sits an ancient mountain wall, bright green in the spring, powdered white in winter. Beth and I saw both as we met week after week in a family-owned bakery on one corner.
Beth suggested that location because she could walk to it from her office and got only an hour for lunches. The first time I walked into the bakery, the large sign on the back wall caught my attention: “Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts.”
She laughed when I pointed out the sign to her. “I never thought of that being portentous. I like their salads.”
Beth reiterated that she was participating in the interviews because of Dale’s desire to recruit foster parents. She thought it important to get out the word that foster kids may be eligible for a modest-to-significant stipend through a legitimate state agency, something the general public doesn’t always grasp. Not only do prospective fosters and adopters not pay service fees in state adoptions, they might also receive financial help for the child’s care. The amount depends on the child’s age and needs. The needs classification that Beth worked with most often was “therapeutic.” This means the child has special needs, usually based on medical fragility, developmental delays, or the behavioral health effects of long-term bouncing through the system. Therapeutic designations can raise monthly support to as much as three times what a child without one would receive; for teenagers, the monthly therapeutic stipend would be $1,800, as compared to $671 for teens not considered to have the same needs.
It’s one of those ideas that looks good on paper, Beth added, but a discerning reader can see quickly where inappropriate attraction might occur. The stipends pay more for people to keep “undesirable” kids who are considered less adoptable, in hopes that the foster parents will fall in love with that troublesome young’un as time goes by. People fostering because they can’t have children of their own want babies, or at least kids under six, but they also want to love someone. Sometimes they do fall in love with an older kid while waiting for a younger one to become available.
That’s what happened with Abby and her husband, John, people Beth suggested I talk to. Abby agreed to meet me at my bookstore in Great Rock and tell her story.
She and John married at age eighteen for her, nineteen for him, in a little wooden mountain church with a steeple, full of friends and flowers. Let’s call their sprawled-out hamlet of eight hundred residents Valleyfield, since it climbs the slope of one of the prettiest valleys in Coalton. Excited at the prospect of a family Abby fully intended would bloom with a new child every other year, she miscarried twins thirteen months later. Her family doctor told her after a barrage of tests that she would be lucky ever to carry a baby full-term.
A haze of confusion and questions followed. Devout Christians, Abby and John wondered if her condition were a test from God of their faith, and if they just needed to believe He would send them a child after all. Or could something be done medically? The undercurrents of Abby’s physician’s warning tugged at their plans: it wasn’t impossible for her to conceive; it was dangerous. And if she could give birth, the infant would probably have significant health issues.
The young couple went numb. Abby heard the voices of family and friends, the prayers of her community, and her own frantic thoughts as a long tunnel of words and sounds, far removed yet claustrophobic, encasing her in noise. From this miasma a few voices emerged with clarity, those of friends at church who told them about foster care.
Those friends probably said several things then, but John and Abby heard one specific and succinct message: fostering would be the quickest way to adoption. That began to feel like a combination of their last hope and Divine Guidance.
Abby and John moved from tiny Valleyfield to Walker City (population 3,500) where John’s career prospects improved. They didn’t it know yet, but that relocation probably also increased their chances of fostering. Valleyfield’s ancient water and sewage systems contained lead pipes, straight pipes, and suspect wells. Other would-be foster families in towns similar to Valleyfield had seen their foster home applications rejected over water quality.
The requirements for fostering include far more than good sewage systems. Abby and John underwent a psychological profile and answered personal questions about their finances, marriage, and mental-health backgrounds. They submitted to a criminal background check. They had blood tests (to rule out tuberculosis and HIV). And they attended night classes in CPR, blood-borne pathogens, and parenting. Another home visit ensured they knew how to work their fire extinguisher and didn’t have any porn magazines lying around, among other things. The inspectors measured the crib-slat widths because the couple had asked about getting an infant, and the bedrooms’ dimensions because they’d agreed to take more than one child at a time.
“It was invasive. We didn’t have anything to hide, but it still felt like getting turned inside out,” Abby recalls. “We knew it was important, and it wasn’t personal; but some stranger sits asking you questions about your husband, you’re going to get antsy.”
Eventually, all those tests turned into the piece of paper they coveted: a license to be foster parents. Abby left her job to stay home and wait, and soon the phone rang. They took in boys and girls, babies and ten-year-olds in rapid succession, most being what is called “temporary placement” kids—that is, children who need a safe place for a time but aren’t available for adoption. The few who were available didn’t seem to fit John and Abby’s home style.
