Turning 21

Our youngest daughter, Victoria, turned 21 today. In honor of the occasion, she drove us the twenty miles south of Gering to the old Hilltop Cafe, now re-imagined as the Double L Country Store and Cafe. We enjoyed a marvelous, diner-style lunch, along with some good conversation, before she drove us home again.

Driving hasn't come easily for Victoria. She is finally beginning to be a confident driver, and will soon be ready to graduate from her third learner's permit to a full-fledged driver's license.

Victoria's life hasn't always been easy. As a young child, she was shunted from one caregiver to another until she was finally placed with a nurturing foster family when she was almost four years old. The following summer, I spotted her picture on a Nebraska HHS website for adoptable children.

Early in our marriage, Bill and I had discussed adoption as a way to expand our family, but it was more than twenty years later before we were able to pursue that possibility. I remember checking various online adoption sites for a couple of years, with Erin and Meagan looking over my shoulder, oohing and ahhing over the cute kids all over the country who needed forever families. We had recently completed a rigorous home-study process, and were approved by the state of Nebraska to adopt a child. Then, in June, I found Victoria's picture online, and showed her profile to Bill and the girls. We were all excited about submitting a letter of application to adopt her.

The first picture we saw, online. 

But, that letter was just the first step. We received a call from a case manager who informed us that we were "in the running"--in other words, we had made the short list of potential adoptive families for Victoria, out of over 100 families who had applied to adopt her. We still had plenty of hoops to jump through: face-to-face interviews and meetings, numerous letters of reference, piles of paperwork, and foster parenting/adoption classes.

In August, we drove to Sidney to observe Victoria in her daycare setting, and we met with her case manager and therapist so they could answer all our questions. Then, in September we finally met her when our whole family joined her foster family for a picnic lunch at the zoo. We began regular visits, first in her foster family's Sidney home for a few hours at a time, then at our house with Suzanne, her foster mom, there, too. Finally we began overnight visits, followed by visits of a few days at a stretch. I became very familiar with the road to Bridgeport, where Suzanne and I would meet to shuttle Victoria back and forth between her two families.

We had initially planned on a six month transition period to help Victoria become acclimated to her new family, but six months changed to six weeks when we found that the constant movement from one family to another was really hard on our almost-five-year-old. So, on November 2nd, Bill received an amazing 46th birthday present when we went to Sidney for Victoria's early birthday/going away party; that was the evening we brought her home for good.

She cried all the way home. 

It had been an overwhelming day for her, with packing up all her stuff, and a party with all of her friends and foster family, and presents and games and cake and too many good-byes. But we soon settled into a new routine. Victoria came with me every morning to Faith Lutheran's preschool, where I taught. Bill enjoyed shocking people by introducing her as his daughter, with no further explanation.

Erin and Meagan were 17 and 14 then, and were so excited to have a new little sister. And, she was definitely little, wearing size 2 clothes, and tiny, infant-sized shoes. Since she was so small, and because she spoke mostly single words or short phrases in her tiny, high-pitched voice, most people assumed that she was still a two year old. Erin and Meagan, and their friends, toted her everywhere, like a diminutive mascot, to the high school for early childhood classes and basketball games, and to the park, and out for ice cream. And Victoria soon settled into her new normal life.

Her adoption was final in August, 2001. Since then, Victoria's life has been full of normal, and a few not-so-normal, ups and downs. Children who are adopted after infancy always carry some excess baggage from their past. But we have all survived years of therapy, and several surgeries, and much teenage angst, and now here it is, sixteen years later.

We made it! Victoria is an official adult, with all of the rights and privileges that come with this milestone birthday. We can't imagine how boring and lonely our lives would have been without her! She has enriched our family in ways we could never have imagined.

Happy Birthday, Victoria, and may God continue to bless you wherever you go and whatever you do. We will always love you, and God loves you, too!