Broken System?

Last week I stumbled across a sibling group of two adorable brothers (age one and three) on a "waiting children" photolisting online. I was pulled in as I saw their picture and after talking to hubby about it and getting a very positive response from him, I sent in an inquiry via the contact form on the state website where we had found the boys' profile. I would normally just have waited at that point to see if I heard back fromt he boys' caseworker. However, the website said they would only be accepting home studies through Monday June 22, 2009 at 4:30 pm. I knew that we'd have to get ours sent right away, so I only gave it one day before I called the worker. No answer...then the voicemail picked up but said the inbox was full so I couldn't leave a message. I tried back several times that day and the next with no success, so I finally contacted the supervisor of the worker (her name and number were included in the voicemail message).

It took a few days and several more calls before I actually heard back from the worker. She asked me to tell her about our family and to start by telling her who was in our family. I explained that my hubby is 29, I am 28, and we have a son that we adopted as an infant that will be three next month. Without hearing ANYTHING else about us, she said young children tend to vie for attention. I agreed. My husband and I have served in the nursery at church on and off through our eight years of marriage. In nursery, we tend the group of about 10-20 18-month to three-year-old children for two hours each Sunday. I kind of chuckled to myself about how well I knew that young children "vie for attention." I waited to hear what her next question would be. Instead I simply heard her say that since we already had a young child we probably wouldn't be a good match for these boys seeing as how they would all want attention. It took me a moment to realize she was done with me.

I was dumbfounded to say the least. I literally was speechless. All I knew to do was to politely thank the worker for calling and hang up feeling like my stomach had wedged itself up inside of my throat. I began to think about all the things I should have said. Maybe something like this:
"Is there a specific reason these kids would struggle with another young child in the home beyond regular kid stuff?" Or maybe "Um, with all due respect, I don't agree that just because we have a toddler already we should be excluded from consideration. Is there something you aren't telling me? Do these boys have specific needs that require them not to have another similarly-aged sibling?"

When I told Shane, he was mad too. He said something like, "So pretty much it sounds like a broken system. We keep hearing that kids need us, but when we inquire about them we are shut down and ignored. Are they really making this about the kids?"

I've been stewing for a few days now. I can't stop thinking about the boys today. Home studies had to be in three hours ago. I think I have finally come up with what I really want to tell the worker. I hope you don't mind me venting it to you:

How about, "Well, wouldn't you like to learn a bit more about us before you so hastily judge us? My husband has 10 siblings, I have five, and we have dozens of nieces and nephews we have grown up loving and taking care of. Oh, and both of us come from not only big but also happy stable families. Don't get me wrong, we have problems like everyone else, but we understand that it's about love, not perfection. In addition to our son, five more children have been adopted by three of our siblings. All of these adoptions have brought children of different backgrounds into our home and we absolutely respect and celebrate those children and their heritage. Even my father-in-law is an adoptee and understands and expresses gratitude for the love of a family who took him in as a teenager and has never looked back with anything but love and acceptance.

"I babysat almost every weekend of my life between the ages of 10 and 21. So did my husband. When we were dating in college, he still stayed home with six of his younger siblings one weekend night a week so his parents could go out. In fact, that was what we for did our second date -- hung out with his siblings. He rocked and sung his little sister to sleep that night and I fell for him a little more because of it.

"My majors in college were Marriage, Family, and Human Development and Home and Family Living. Shane took several of my classes with me (Marriage Enhancement, Child Development, Strengthening Families, etc.) so that we could be on the same page as a partnership in parenting. Shane majored in Elecrical Engineering and has a minor in Spanish. He can speak and write fluently. He has a great job and I am able to stay home to be a momma, all I've ever wanted to be. While waiting for our opportunity to be blessed with children, we volunteered and worked as weekend house parents at a children's crisis nursery. We worked as foster and adoption respite care providers, got calls from CPS and took in children who had just been removed from their homes and some who had to be "detoxed" at the hospital because they were removed from meth houses. We spent nights tending kids who were potty training, throwing up, acting out, scared, sad, and lonely. There were children with disabilities, children who screamed or cried for hours at a time, children who needed constant one-on-one undivided attention to be manageable, children who stole and hoarded food because they knew what it was like to really be starving, and there were children who had been abused. We cared for up to 10 children at any given time of day or night and did just fine, all by ourselves. We had to say good-bye to kids who begged us not to go, who had no "home" to speak of and had become attached to us. They are the reason we decided we needed to look at waiting children in the first place. When I went home crying, wanting to take these kids home and care for them myself, I knew it would be painful, but that I would one day be a foster parent.

"Do you still think we might not be able to handle three young kids?"

What do you think? Should I have said something to her?