Reunification & depression lead to magic

Hope & Jesse

Jesse: [00:00:00] Until that last day in the court, when it's all finalized and this is your adopted son, wham, uh, you're always kind of nervous. So it was extremely emotional for me, especially during the court proceedings, they ask you to say and spell your own name for the record. I couldn't, I was crying. I couldn't get it out.

It's the Foster to Forever podcast. Happy stories of nontraditional families born through Foster to Adopt. I'm your host, Rachel Fulginiti.

Rachel: Hello and welcome to the show. We are here today with Hope and Jesse Mackey. Uh, these two, this is a full circle. moment for me because these were two of the first people that I spoke to when I decided that [00:01:00] I wanted to go on this journey of foster to adopt. I wasn't even a hundred percent. My husband and I were like, we're scared out of our minds.

We're considering this. And we had a friend, I have a friend through voiceover who told me, Hey, I know somebody who did this successfully. twice. Uh, would you want to talk to them? And I was like, um, yeah. So I remember calling, and I remember Hope saying, like, okay, what you're going to do is you're going to come over, we're going to have some dinner, and we have to have some wine, because whenever you talk about the county and fostering, like, you got to have a little wine, and, uh, you know, we'll tell you everything that we know.

And I was like, okay. So we went over and again, like just feeling so vulnerable and so weird about it. And you guys were so kind and so nice. And your kids were like, I've never seen such beautiful children in my life. They are so adorable. Yeah. It really just that, that was what made us be like, okay, I think we can do this.

Like these people are like us, like they're artists [00:02:00] like us and they're, you know, they're, they figured it out and we can do this. So. My sincerest thank you now that I've just finalized on the adoption of our, our son. So now we have two through foster to adopt. And um, anyway, I'm just so happy to talk to you today.

Hope: We've mentored dozens of families through in different aspects, just having people over for dinner like you and telling them and then they go off or, and sometimes we mentor all the way through to like. you know, we are there in the courtroom. So it was so amazing to find out. I think you had texted me.

Wow. Halfway through with some questions and we chatted so I didn't know. So to come back and find out the rest of your story has been really special for me. I

Rachel: know. Thank you. And it's been seven years because my, my daughter just turned seven and we got her when she was three and a half weeks old. So that's crazy.

Like just that aspect of it. Um, first I want to hear just about how you guys came to this [00:03:00] journey foster to adopt. And I kind of know your story, first of all, because you shared it with me seven years ago, but also you did this beautiful movie, which we'll talk about in a little while. But, um, yeah. Just so that the listeners know what your story is, uh, how did you come to it?

Is it something that you always thought you were gonna do? Was it a shock? Tell

me.

Hope

So we got married a little later in life. So But we knew but I mean we knew right away. We want to have kids I thought it was done because of my age, but Jesse was like, nope, we're gonna be parents so We pretty much started trying right away and within a month or two of getting married we went to a fertility doctor and found out that this wasn't the path for us. One of my best friends is, was it was years ago a D. C. F. S. Social worker and said, you should look into this. That kind of started the whole journey for us. And we went to classes and we were like, this [00:04:00] is what we want to do. We also are of limited means.

Uh, and we knew we didn't want to spend everything we had on an adoption and then not have everything to raise our kid or give our child whatever it needed. Um, so that's sort of what started this path. And then, uh, we started the licensing process and within six months we were placed with a six month old boy named Landon who Um, well, fortunately and unfortunately, because, you know, foster adopting is all about reunification.

Uh, nine months later, nine months later, he went back to his mom. We were there the whole process, you know, weekly visits, overnight visits, helping her become a better parent. He thankfully went back to, um, you know, a home where he could thrive. And then within a week and a half, we were placed with Lewis and Lewis was supposed to be a sailor.

[00:05:00] Rachel Let me stop you right there.

Hope Cause I talk a lot.

Rachel I just want to stop and ask you about, uh, no, no, no, it's great. I just want to ask. There's so many interesting things I want to just pick up on before we move on. So you guys always knew that you wanted kids. Yes. Always knew that you were comfortable with adopting, or was that a hurdle that you had to cross?

Jesse

I always had the thought it might have been wanting to have biological children, but then also adopt, uh, on top of that. And so when the biological thing turned out to not, you know, work for us, it was just an immediate pivot. Like, okay, well, here's what I'm doing now. And she went along with it.

Hope: So we had conversations.

We had conversations about like, Hey, you know how old I am, right? You know? And so he's like, Oh, I don't care. We'll adopt. So I, you know, we sort of knew going into it was, I mean, it was devastated. It's always devastated. It was devastating. But we were able to pivot, [00:06:00] right?

Rachel: Gotcha. And do you mind? And if you don't want to say this, I totally get it.

But do you mind telling us how old you were? Just because a lot of people have this barrier about age. And I I'm an older parent too. And they'll say to me, I'm too old to do this now. I can't do it. It's too late. And I'm like, no, it's not. So, um, you could just give me a ballpark or whatever, just so that listeners know.

She's

Jesse: in my late thirties. She was in her early

Hope: forties. I think I, I said just turned 41 when we got married.

Rachel Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, that I was in my, I think I was, by the time we got Izzy, I think I was 44. So I, you know, I was late. And when we got Dominic, I was 49 by that point. So I am like really old to have like an almost two year old.

But like, I always say like, you know what, it keeps me young. It is exhausting. You know what? Like life is exhausting. You know, pick your poison. [00:07:00] Anyway, uh, getting back to you guys. Um, so you went directly through the county. Is that correct? So there's two different ways that you can go about fostering to adopt.

You can use a foster family agency, and that's what I did. Or you can go directly through the county. Can you speak to that experience?

Jesse: Basically, we didn't know any better. That's why we did what we did. We just went straight. We didn't know about FFAs. We didn't know about the support that you can get through an FFA.

We just were like, okay, I guess this is how you do it. And we went straight

Hope: into the county. So we, we have since learned since we've been on this, you know, path for a long time and since we've helped so many people and one of, um, our social worker who placed us with my son, Louis. Has become a really good friend and like an auntie in our house.

So she has helped us with questions But so so through DCFS just means that, you know, a DCFS social worker is connecting you, [00:08:00] you take your classes and you go through that way. The FFAs, uh, it's so DCFS also, so uses straight, straight, um, people like us who are working with them. And then, you know, there's not enough foster families.

So they also then use the FFAs. Right. And they funnel to, you know, choices to the FFAs, which is why when you work with an FFA, then you get the call. There's really no rhyme or reason for it. There was a period a few years ago where Hillary had told us, don't send anybody else to DCFS. We're overwhelmed.

Send them to the FFAs because they're helping more. And now, and then recently she's just said, Oh no, no, no. It's better to go straight through DCFS. There's a lot of pros and cons, which was probably. You know, in an entire other podcast. Um, it worked for us because we also then have access to ties for families, which is an amazing resource and a wraparound service through UCLA that has helped us from infancy from our first [00:09:00] foster son.

All the way through therapy we get now for both my kids for different issues that have come up

Jesse: and group therapy for us. We went to group infant group therapies where we met other parents that were in the same boat with their kids talking about it was the meetings were for the Children's issues, but ultimately it ended up being a source of nation for us just being in a room with other foster adoptive parents.

Hope: So that's actually

Rachel: great. I've actually heard of U. C.

Hope: L. A. Ties. That's why I actually now people call me and are waffling. I sort of steer them to D. C. F. S. Because the extra support from ties has been pretty much why we went back in. Why we when when our first foster son went back and we were devastated, they they just took us in a big hug.

And that's why we find a lot, you know, now we have two amazing Children. So they do they

Rachel: act at like a foster family agency in that regard? Like, are they there for you? Um, did they give off? They [00:10:00] don't offer you the placement that

Hope: comes straight through the county. Basically just there for wraparound services later.

If things come up mental health services, I see. Okay, yeah. Yeah, like regional center sort of center, but like 1000 times, but like, just, you know, just more, more accessibility. They're, they're fun. They're funded. So, you know, it's just, it's, it's been an amazing resource for us. So that's, I've heard

Rachel: great things.

And it's funny. I actually tried to get in there, uh, when I heard about them this past year and, and I couldn't, I couldn't get in getting back to Landon.

Hope: Mhm.

Rachel: So you had him for nine months, did you say? Eight

Hope: months, nine months, nine

Jesse: months from when he was about 15 months old. No, was it six and a half months to

Hope: 15?

Yeah.

Rachel: Did it look like reunification was kind of going to happen? So you were somewhat prepared as much as you

Hope: could be probably about halfway [00:11:00] through. We started realizing that this was not going to be a permanent, permanent situation. It was and it was, it was hard for us. Mhm. It was hard for us to wrap our mind around that because, you know, we, you know, we were DCFS.

Well, any, anyone who gives you a call, they just want to place the child. So there's a lot of talk of. You're a fast tract or this one looks really good because they just want the child to be placed with a family. Uh huh. Um, so we learned that the heart, you know, like every other family does. And, um, so we thought in the beginning, this was a looked like it was going to be a permanent, immediately permanent situation.

And it was, we were aware that it didn't look like that very soon. And then it got worse. So about halfway through, it was like, Oh, no, this is This is just us getting him ready to go back to mom. Uh huh.

Rachel: I can't even imagine what that would be like because you're just, especially with an infant, I mean with [00:12:00] any child, but you're there every step of the way, every second.

And then to just have them removed, I can't imagine that, that

pain.

Jesse: We both managed, at least I think we, we were able to sort of, at least I guess I should speak for myself. I was able to sort of take solace. afterwards in the fact that we were able to give him a fresh start and to allow his mother the time to become a better parent.

And we watched it all happen. I mean, she did every single thing they asked her to do. She wasn't, you know, a horrible person. She just was in a bad situation and she Jumped through everything because she wanted her son back and then she ultimately earned that But we were able to give him sort of a restart and her at the same time So that and yeah, it was very abrupt the end was like, you know, okay you have it's done now It's over you have an hour bring him to this place with all this stuff and you're done

Hope: It was, that was pretty horrible.

They had moved up the court date without telling us because I'm loud. And so I had [00:13:00] voiced concerns. So I think they were trying to get, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of broken in the system. Yeah. But you know, the whole process taught us about what, you know, we thought we were like foster to adopt.

We're going to foster this child, you know, Pollyanna going into it. Um, and this taught us the importance of just, Oh, this is about the kids. This isn't about me becoming a parent. This is about placing a child. And us to serve it and and become and being coming up and just loving that baby or older child or whatever child in order to for them to have a better life and it doesn't.

And we became less important in in that placement. So we, we learned more about reunification and what it means and why and Then it became a, we became a better parent for our subsequent children that became permanent.

Rachel: Exactly. I, I've talked about it a little bit in some of the interviews, but I'll just mention briefly in case listeners don't know that the goal, the primary goal of [00:14:00] any foster case is reunification with birth family.

Um, and that really stays that way until the parental rights have been terminated and it takes a long time to get to that. They don't terminate those rights, um, easily, which is a change from how they used to do it. And, and rightfully so. So, uh, you know, a lot has to happen for them to terminate those rights and then the child becomes available for adoption.

So I always try to tell people, you know, every foster to adopt case is really just a foster case. Until it's an adoption case, so that's a really important thing and what you're saying is exactly what I came to. It's like, how do we wrap our heads around this? How do we do this? The only way I think to be able to go into this and survive it emotionally is you do it for the child.

It's, it has to be not about you. It has to be about, you know what, we're going to be in service to this child and their life path and journey. And if that life path [00:15:00] includes staying with us forever, then that's Great. And that's what we hope for. But if it's not, that's great too. Like they're, they have a life path.

They have a journey that they're here to, to, to fulfill. Right? And so I just think it's, it's the biggest and most amazing gift that you could give anyone is to provide just safety and love for however long it's you're meant to be with that. human, right? So you had to say goodbye to Landon. Were you able to stay in touch with him at all or or not?

Hope: We didn't. You

Jesse: wanted to. We originally there was some some desire to maybe but it just the way things ended was very awkward and uncomfortable and it just didn't end up happening.

Hope: It was just devastating for me and I was worried about my mental health and her family was pretty toxic and had gotten involved and I thought maybe it was dangerous and if we got a new placement, I didn't.

You know, it was really my decision. He wanted, you wanted to, at one point she [00:16:00] had said you're going to be his godparents. And I just thought it's not, it didn't, it didn't feel appropriate to me.

Jesse: Her family didn't really care for us and felt like we were sort of Interlopers who were imposing our view of child rearing on them somehow, and that we know what we're doing, and who are you to tell her, even though the social worker had been telling us to tell her, like, make a list of all his things and tell her what you do, and we did all that, but it wasn't, you know, the family sort of frowned on that, uh, and so it was just, you know, an uncomfortable situation, and once he went back, we got our son Louis a week and a half later.

So we didn't have a lot of time to sort of green. Wow. And it was, that was a little awkward, but it was, it's just the way, you know, the time worked

Hope: out. So Landon went back. It was devastating. Um, we started getting phone calls from our social worker Hillary and The first one we got, I said no to because I was still like I [00:17:00] just put his clothes, like the clothes that we kept that in the dryer.

I was like, I cannot have another baby. I wound up giving them all away because eventually I couldn't do it. So we said no to the first baby and she was like, okay, let me just keep you off the list for a minute and we'll Take a break. And then it was Easter Sunday. We went to like an event with like with the kids thing and everybody was shocked that we were at a kid's event.

And then we decided to go to Bed Bath and Beyond. And on the way to Bed Bath and Beyond, we saw, we saw a bassinet on the street, like, and I was like, on the easement on the side of the road and I'm kind of a trash picker. So I said, well, if that's still there, but

Jesse: it was like a gleamingly unused bassinet that someone was

Hope: just put on.

We pulled over when we came back and we were like, What? This is weird. I'm looking around like did

Jesse: someone move into an apartment and forget this was here because it's too nice to be

Hope: sitting. It was totally right. So we put it in the back and I start sobbing. This is like his five or six days after. So the [00:18:00] next morning we call Hillary like we're ready.

She's like, Okay, that's really quick. And I said, How about that baby from? No, that it doesn't work that way. So right that Wednesday we got the call for Lewis and we went God went and got him. It was like, we were like, Oh my God, it was another one

Jesse: of those. I don't know if yours went like this, but this was okay.

There's a baby. He's in Long Beach at St. Mary's hospital. You have an hour to decide whether or not you're going to do this 40 minutes, whatever it was like, whatever. I don't know. So I was at a voiceover at my agent's office and she called me and said, this is happening. And I was like, let's do it. So I drove home, got her, we drove down to Long Beach.

shoveled sandwiches in our face in the car and then went upstairs to the labor and delivery ward and picked up our son.

And when we got home, we getting home and I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe this happened. I pulled out all the paperwork. I found out he had been born an hour after we found the bassinet.

So

Rachel: get out of here.

Hope: [00:19:00] So I was like, Oh, okay. When you're talking about full body chills, you're supposed to happen. Things are, that's what it was. We weren't supposed to have the other baby, we were

Rachel: supposed to have the first. I, I, that's right. And I, I find that in every single story, there's this meant to be aspect, even if there was loss previously, it's like, when it's right, it's right.

And the universe delivers, like the universe like shows you the signs. And so that was something I'm sure that you could hold on to through the whole process. Like, well, this. This, this had to have been right.

Jesse: Like the irony was that because of his health issues for the first nine months of his life, he wouldn't be put down.

So he was never able to sleep

Hope: in the best way. He never slept in that . God,

Rachel: did you, did you keep it anyway? Yes.

Hope: So Rose slept in,

Jesse: slept later, but not him. He was like, oh magic bassinet, I'll show you and then we couldn't, if you sat him down he would [00:20:00] start screaming and vomit. So he's like, okay, well I guess he's not a magic

Rachel: so how long did it take to finalize and did you have to have visits and all of that?

Or was it just you never had contact with the birth parents?

Hope: When Hillary called us, I was like, hey, this time can we just figure out a situation? I know it's reunification, but I just. Maybe that doesn't have the, you know, the parenting, like the, the, I just don't know if I can deal with a mom right now. So maybe it might be a more dangerous placement, but Lewis's mom.

Had some mental illness and some drug stuff happening and walked out of the hospital with a c section went like a day or two after it was born. Yeah, a day or two, yeah. She had said she wanted him to be a safe surrender, but because they didn't get down there to have her sign the papers because it was the hospital, then they had to go searching for her.

They couldn't. So we were called ostensibly a safe surrender, which was not, and it took [00:21:00] 22 months. A mess ups right after mess up after mess up publishing, searching for mom, searching for dad was ridiculous.

Jesse: In the DCFS system, if things aren't done in the pre stated amount of time, it gets continued. Yeah.

It gets continued. It gets continued.

Hope: It gets continued. Yes.

Rachel: Yeah. We had to do publishing too. And again, for listeners who are like, what is publishing? Um, so if they can't find the birth parents, and this was the situation with my daughter, they were homeless and they, they had no way to serve them papers.

So you cannot. Terminate parental rights or do anything like that if you can't serve the people because legally they have to be served. So there's this other process called publishing where they have to publish like an ad and it's some particular publication and it has to only be a certain amount of days.

It's, it's crazy. It can be no more than this, but no less than [00:22:00] that. And the rules are insane.

Jesse: In today's modern world of emails and websites, it feels very antiquated to have to publish something in a

Hope: newspaper. There was one time where it continued, they hadn't published by one day. They hadn't, it's just dumb.

And then another time they had left out a word, the actual paper had left out a word, like an end. Like what? Yes. No, we just kept getting contacts. Yes. Yes. It took 22 months. It took 22 months. And so. There was

Jesse: no, there was no disruption of that. Yes. nobody popping up. There was no, he never went anywhere. We were, we had him with us for the whole 22 months and it was fairly seamless.

I mean. Yeah. This was going on in the background.

Rachel: And it still took that long. Yeah. To give context, Dominic, my son was a safe surrender and it still took. 22 months. Oh, God, months. 21 or 22 months. Yeah. Can you believe that? And he was actual

Hope: safe surrender. So that's crazy. We have another friend. I think it took like 13 [00:23:00] or 14 months and I thought that was crazy.

I hadn't heard that there was one like 22 is crazy. It's the same thing.

Rachel: Oh, yeah, he's almost to nobody is attached to his child. Yeah, it's almost harder in a weird way. I mean, not really, but it's yeah. It's weird. Um, it, it makes me, I always tell people, so you've got to be somebody who is, or behooves you to be somebody who's very like, not relentless, but it's like that, like you have to be somebody who's just, you've got to be able to like, Yes, dogged is a good word, and you got to notice all the little details and kind of provide oversight, but without being too pushy, because if you're too pushy, forget it, then they're going to hate you, and then they won't do anything for you because you're, you know what I mean?

So you have to really walk that fine line of, of like being helpful and being polite. But, you know, not overstepping and like, it's, it's a dance

Jesse: also being unafraid to ask for what you need or advocate for the [00:24:00] child's needs.

Hope: But you are also seen as the interloper who's trying to take the child away from the rightful family.

That's that is your role all the way. That's what we came up against every time from social workers, from the court, from parents, like you're seen as the person trying to take the kid away. You know, it's being a foster parent. Being a decent foster parent is challenging because I know we get a bad rap in some ways, but it's really like you really have to be strength.

You have to have strength in your convictions.

Rachel: 100%. Okay. So you finalize with Lewis. Uh, talk about that day. What, what was your, what was your adoption day like?

Jesse: Uh, it was like, it was so emotional because it's, You're always sort of on your, you know, tiptoes until the moment when the judge finally slams down the gavel and it's all official.

That's right. And done. You're always sort of worried about somebody popping up out of [00:25:00] nowhere going, I'm a long lost uncle. I want this baby until that last day in the court when it's all finalized and this is your adopted son. Wham. Uh, you're always kind of nervous. So it was extremely emotional for me, especially during the court proceedings.

They ask you to say and spell your own name for the record. I couldn't, I was crying. I couldn't get it out. The lawyer had to say my name and spell it for me because I was like, So it was extremely emotional day. Uh, and it was wonderful. You feel the love. You have all the aunties like, you know, 2030 40 people crowded to this tiny little courtroom all there to love you.

And that's it. It's really you feel the weight of that. It's pretty amazing day.

Hope: I do have to say, though, alternately, I had a little I actually wound up going to therapy for a little bit. I had a little depression right afterwards because I had a worry, although that the day itself was joyous. It wasn't. I was like, mhm.

We didn't go right into like, Yay! Everything's [00:26:00] okay! And I couldn't figure out why I couldn't, I still had, um, just that nagging worry in the back of my head, and finally came to the realization through some, some, through a little course with some therapy that, uh, even, even though the judge slams the gavel, This is your child.

You can breathe. You still are parenting. So everything is not Pollyanna. Everything's not all okay. Because my expectation, I think, in the back of my head was that everything, oh, yay, it's going to be final and we're, we're a family unit now. And there was a little bit of like, why don't I feel more relaxed about this?

And ultimately, it's like, oh, wait, God, now, now this is permanent. This is my kid. I'm a parent. And forever and ever, whereas before it was like, maybe that's your kid, maybe it's not. So for me, as joyous as the actual day was, and it's like, this is so crazy. I had sort of a, a [00:27:00] crisis right afterwards, which, you know, I had to work through.

Thank you. Thank you

Rachel: for sharing that because, um, I don't think a lot of people. Share that. And I think it's it's almost akin to postpartum depression, you know, in a weird way. Uh, you know what I mean? The other thing I think what I'm really resonating with in what you're saying is it's so emotionally exhausting.

Like the fostering journey is really, really emotionally exhausting. And then Okay, you adopt, but like you really, there's no, there's not, it's not like all of a sudden you get to go on like a, you know, a month long vacation in Tahiti and like relax and just, you know, like go off into the sunset. It's like you're saying, it's like, yeah, okay, now business as usual, you're still parenting and you still got a lot to hold.

And it really took me that first time. It took us a good year, I would say, just to, um,

like you're saying, to be able to really breathe, to be [00:28:00] able to just let go of some of that stress. And it's almost like I had PTSD, like from, from going to the courthouse all the time and like all of that. And, um, there was a spontaneous healing I felt on adoption day.

At the courthouse with all of our friends gathered, and it was so different from all the other times we had been at court. And I did feel like there was like a spontaneous healing that happened that day. But again, I will agree with you. We felt that exhaustion. We started right away. In fact, we were having a party for The adoption celebration so that my family from New York could come because they couldn't make it to the court because it happened so fast.

It was all of a sudden, it was like, okay, your court date's in a week. We have been waiting for months and months and months. So we ended up having a party, um, like a month later. And as I'm driving to go pick up my mom and my sister at the airport, I get a phone call. There's a little, there's a baby girl.

Who needs a home. And I know you guys just [00:29:00] finalized and I know, you know, but I just wanted to call and her name was Angel and I never forget. I always think about Angel and I just, I couldn't, like you were saying, like, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. We weren't ready. I just was so exhausted. And I was like, there's just no way I can start this process again.

So we said no to that placement. But I always kind of still think about Angel and hope that she's doing good and that she found a forever forever. family. I

Hope: really do to jump on that. Um, we, so after, since we're about to talk about Lewis's finalization, once he finalized, we were, we decided to go right back in right away and because we needed to do a new home study because Um, because Lewis was now, you know, a part of our family.

You had to do another study to get another placement. But we were still on the emergency list because we had an empty bed because we were so still licensed. And we during that process Um, we in two and a [00:30:00] half weeks after once we went on the emergency list, we got 42 phone calls. What? 42? It was the emergency list.

And I think about those kids all the time. Just like you said about Angel. I think about, we still remember like there was a, there were the twins. One was in the hospital. The

Jesse: problem with being on the emergency list is they see that you have an open bed, an open foster bed in your house. And that's all they don't read farther to see.

We're looking for an infant. Do we want a girl? Right, they see open bed and they call you immediately because they have So many kids that need a place to stay, right? And so we got calls about teenagers. We had calls about eight year olds. We had calls about the set of twins, one of which was in the hospital, all these things that were beyond our scope of ability.

And so we had to keep saying no, and it was just heartbreaking. And then

Hope: we got to The two and a half weeks I was at, I remember I was at Sandy's, I, and I, we got what [00:31:00] they usually called the home line and they had called my cell phone this time and I was in this woman's, I freelance, so I was in this woman's pantry and I get this phone call and I hung up and I had said no and I called Jesse and I was like, that's it, we got to get off this emergency list.

I'm hysterical. And he's like, okay, tomorrow morning, mm hmm. We'll call and get off the emergency list. It was

Jesse: like a Sunday, I think, Saturday or Sunday. It was an odd day, because we had to wait till like the next business day to call. I was wait till Monday. We'll call,

Hope: say no. The next morning, we got the call for Rose.

Wow,

Rachel: before you took yourself off. The last call we received. How did you know that was the call? Like, how did you know

Hope: the last call was it.

Rachel: She just checked the boxes of what?

Hope: No, like some of the boxes. And then, so we were like, and then I had, they, she was in the hospital for four weeks before we got her.

So we didn't meet her until three weeks, but she was sick. She was going through withdrawals and [00:32:00] during that time, the social worker who had called us didn't, was like doing other things. And I had to track her down. I had to call our social worker to find our name in the system to see if we were connected with this baby.

I tracked like Rose was meant to be ours. I tracked her down, so we wound up going to see her in the hospital.

Jesse: We were allowed to visit her in the hospital before we like 100 percent committed.

Hope: Yeah, we found out uncle had been there a grant. She, on paper, we should have never said yes because it was way too iffy.

We walked in and I saw her in that bassinet. And I, thought that is, there's, I, there was not a doubt my, I'm like, that's our baby. I had no doubt. Another, another meant to be story. So we had this little, we were placed with her. We had this whole thing like, what should her name be? And we had this argument about, I wanted Lily Rose.

And he's like, that's two names. It should just be, you know, so we decided to just name her Rose. But I kept saying it should have been Lily Rose. It [00:33:00] should have been Lily Rose. And then when we finalized. We wound up getting in touch with the grandparent, her grandparents, we keep in touch. I sent pictures.

Her maternal grandparents. Her maternal grandparents. The reason that they. Nice. When we. Oh, that's great. When we first emailed her, she said, Oh, I'm so glad to find out that she's being taken care of. The only reason we didn't take care of her was because I was taking care of my mother at the time who has since passed.

And her name was Rose. Wow. She was named the Red.

Rachel: And that was the name that you guys. Yep. You guys picked out Rose.

Hope: Grandmother's name. It's so insane. Yeah. So anytime I'm like, it should have been Lily Rose, he's like, it should have been Rose. Yeah. Wow.

Rachel: That's incredible. That's the story that I have is a very similar story where Izzy was, um, she was in the hospital, three and a half weeks old.

She had had open heart surgery. She had was Dealing with a lot of different stuff. So [00:34:00] yeah, so we were finally like, okay, we're going to go pick up this baby and they're giving us all the information, UCLA, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then, um, I said, oh, I forgot to ask, does she come with a name? And the social worker was like, um, yeah, let me see.

Uh, let me look. Uh, yeah, her name is. Isabella, Isabella Rose, and I just screamed, my husband and I, it was on speakerphone, screamed because I had been pregnant back in 2012, and if it was a girl, the top name for us was Isabella Rose, and I am not kidding, I have a journal entry. Isabella Rose was our top name, and this child was named Isabella Rose.

Hope: So like Crazy. That's so specific. I know. I know. But that's Oh my god.

Rachel: This is what I'm talking about. Yeah. It's

weird. It's so crazy. But there's, these things happen. So I knew. I was just like, okay, [00:35:00] we're good. This is our kid. Like, there's no way this isn't our child. Like, that's just, so anyway. And then my son was born on My husband's birthday, which was our sign that that was our son.

They were like, yeah, he was born two days ago. And I was like, wait a minute on the 10th. And they were like, yeah, and I was like, dude, that's your birthday. Yeah. So anyway, um, meant to be, I love it. So after, so you, so you went through the process and how long did you foster with, with Rose?

Hope: She was only 17, she was about 17 months.

Her mom, her bio mom was in the picture. Um, she had a history with DCFS. So, any TPR, that's termination of parental rights, if they terminated parental rights much sooner because they could find her, they knew who she was, and she had actually said, That bio dad was dead. [00:36:00] So that Made everything a little smoother on our end Right, we have since found out that that probably was not bio dad, but it does not matter Uh,

Jesse: the mom her mom was an active a very active addict at the time and and A lot of what she may have told them, you know may or may not have been true It's it's hard to sort of suss out what was true or not.

Hope: She would show up and like try to, you know, she would show up to the D. C. F. S. Office and then just walk out. But we never wound up having having any visits with her at all, even though she was in the picture. Gotcha.

Jesse: But because they knew where to find her made things easier to notice her and to keep the process moving.

It made it a little bit quicker because they were able to find her and actually, yes, kind of speak to her and Also, it made it easier to rule out any bio family, uh, that could take

Rachel: her. Right. Yeah. Um, I want to backtrack just a little bit, um, because you've mentioned it, about the, the drug [00:37:00] piece, because a lot of people, when they're coming to me and asking about fostering, Fostering to adopt.

They're really nervous about, and understandably so about the exposure piece, right? Like the, but all these children are, you know, like, I don't want a child who's been exposed to drugs. And I remember, I remember in our, um, classes that we took when we were getting certified, they were very upfront with us.

They were like, look, if you're waiting for a child who's never been exposed to anything, you're going to be waiting a really long time because that's just not probably going to be the case. So. You know, whatever. So you gotta, you gotta choose. And then as we, we became educated, we discovered and found out that, oddly enough, the, the, the drugs that seem like they're the hardest drugs and like the worst drugs, oftentimes those drugs, someone can recover from completely.

And it's other ones, ironically, are like the legal ones, right? Like alcohol and [00:38:00] nicotine, oddly enough, that are like the most devastating thing. Yeah. Like long term. So I just was wondering if you could speak to that and your feelings about that and anything like that. Because

Hope: we, you know, we've been fostering for so many years now, uh, mentoring for so many years now, excuse me.

And this is exactly what we would explain that really, you know, alcohol. syndrome is probably the hardest to come back. Come back. I mean, it's a weird way. But, um, but there's never there's never not an issue. Both of my Children are on. Well, one is on meds. The other one we're talking about meds. There's a D.

H. D. That we have all the letters in our family. There's many, many letters. Um, you know, lewis has anxiety.

Rachel: Uh huh.

Hope: And this is what we talk about with. We have, we have dozens of friends who have their own kids who birthed them out of themselves. Almost every kid right now has something. There's [00:39:00] autism spectrum, there's a D.

H. D. There's a D. D. There's if you're a parent, you're going to be dealing with something I would rather us deal with, no, because we were looking for it. All of, we had all the early intervention. Our kids are thriving now. It's challenging. I never want to be Pollyanna and say, Oh no, we're fine. It's effing hard.

Parenting is hard. And then parenting from a foster adopt situation is another level of hard, but

Jesse: we end up like to, to give it like very You know, specific description. Our daughter was born addicted to heroin. Like she had withdrawals at birth. That's why she spent a month in the you. When we were visiting her, I would watch nurses squirt morphine into her mouth because they step her down from the heroin until she was totally free and clear.

And that's when we were able to take her home was after she had been stepped down. And, uh, she's now thriving and whip smart and sassy in the whole nine yards. Very sassy. [00:40:00] So I mean, she has issues, but all kids have issues. It's never like An open, you know, like it's I

Hope: mean it doesn't see the thing is is we have We have wraparound services.

We have So much more we can avail ourselves. We we have a friend who adopted straight through open adoption. Um, private open adoption and She's having very similar issues, but doesn't have access to some of the help that we have. So Yeah, so I mean Good point. Yeah. I mean, there's if you're in it, you're in it.

So this is what I say to people. It's like if you're parenting, you're, that's it. You're gonna, you just have to do it and you've got to grit your teeth and whatever comes up, you're going to deal with. And yes, there could be issues or there could not.

Jesse: Every group or individual we've ever spoken to, you know, the main sort of takeaway, I think, is that [00:41:00] if you're going to do this, you and your partner or if it's just you by yourself or whatever it is, has to be very frank and specific about what you can handle in your family situation.

And if that's not a lot of drug exposure, if it's no history of violence, if it's You know how much families involved before I say yes, whatever that thing is, you have to know what you can handle and be willing to say no. If you know that's something you can't

Hope: handle. Yeah, you have to be the best

Jesse: so hard because you don't want to say no to a child that needs a home.

But at the same time, if you take a child that is on your means, then you're not doing either of

Hope: you a service.

Rachel: Yeah, I remember you telling us that, and um, I was so grateful for that piece, and I think a lot of people don't know that. I had a friend who was trying to do this in, um, I think it was Georgia or something, some other state, and they were telling her, she was working just directly with the [00:42:00] county, and they were telling her like, No, you have to say yes to everything.

Like you have to just, and I, she called me and it's like, is this true? And I was like, no, like, absolutely not. I mean, I don't know how Georgia works their system, but like, no, you have to, as you said, like you, you got to know what you're signing up for. And, and even when you think you know what you're signing up for, you still don't totally know what you're signing up for because things can emerge, right?

Different things will emerge over time. A lot of

Jesse: cases, social workers need to place that kid. So they'll try to sell you a little bit or soft pedal things that may be bigger issues for you. And cause they need to place that baby. So it's like, Oh, uh, you know, and you have to be willing to dig as much as you can.

But on the other side of that coin, as much as you may have educated yourself and as much as you know what you can and can't handle, a lot of times they don't have a lot of information when they're trying to place a baby. So at some point you just have to say, Okay, we're doing this, right? Yes, [00:43:00] please. And go from there and then deal with what happens.

Because if you hem and haw, you could spend your whole life not taking a placement, but so it's a kind of a fine balance between, you know, knowing all the information, honoring yourself and what you can handle. And also having that gut feeling of okay, we can try it. Well, let's try this. This sounds like a good situation.

You got to jump

Hope: at some point. Jump in. That's

Rachel: right. Yeah, I love I love that. I said no five times before I said yes to Izzy and the way the way that it works. Um, with at least with our agency is that you don't even get an hour they you designate one person if you're in a partnership you designate one person to be the phone call taker, and that was me, they call you and you say yes or no, you can't even check with your partner because you need to already be on the same page as your partner, because they don't have time, they need to find this child a bed so it's, I felt so much [00:44:00] pressure of being that person like, you Oh, God, like what?

This is so much pressure. And I went to a healer before this happened, um, trying to work through some of my, my fertility stuff and just have a fresh, clean slate so that I could do this. And I shared with her, this is the thing I'm the most nervous about. is getting this phone call. And I want to pick the right child.

I want to pick the child that's going to be in our forever family forever. Like, I don't want to have to go through this if possible. I know there's a kid out there that's supposed to be in our family. And she said, okay, when you get the call, put your hand over your heart. And just close

Hope: your eyes

Rachel: and just feel.

If it's a yes, say yes. If it's not a yes, don't say yes. So literally five times I got a phone call, I put my hand over my heart, I closed my eyes, and I was like, I'm just not gas. I'm just, it's not a yes. So I said no all of those times. And then with my daughter, [00:45:00] Same thing, I was going to a voiceover audition, I pull over on the side of the street, I take this phone call, put my hand over my heart, close my eyes, there's a baby girl, you know, blah, blah, blah, start giving me the details, and I'm like, I think it's a yes, I think it's a yes, like, can I call my husband, please let me call my husband, just let me call him, and, and, she, she, the, the social worker was like, okay, You have like three minutes call him if you don't get him.

You got to just call me back. I call him He's at work. Usually he would never pick up during work. He happened to be right there. He picked up I start telling him. Okay, there's a baby girl and he goes. Yes, it's a yes like right away and I was like Yes, so that is how we handled it. But it is it's a lot of you You kind of have to and you told us this like get as much information as you can But they might not know A whole lot of information and they might spin the information a little bit.

So yeah, you got to go with instincts. I think at the end of the day,

Jesse: you have to be willing to say [00:46:00] no. But also you have to be willing to say yes, if the right thing comes

Hope: along

Rachel: awesome So now you guys are a united family of four. Do you ever think about doing this again?

Hope: That's so funny. Somebody just asked recently.

Um No, I live in fear that Phone call from a bio parent because you know, you're attached to those kids. So we're again, you have to be the best parent you can be. And I think we're the best parents we can be to our Children right now that would not involve another child. But that being said, we have this fantasy and we have a tiny little house.

Um, each kid has their own small room. There's no room for anybody else. But the fantasy is, is once they go off to college or continuing education, whatever, that maybe we do respite care. or have a straight foster. So there's a [00:47:00] fantasy, you know, who knows in 10 or 15 years if that will be something we could do.

But that's the, that's the theory. So the reason why we do mentoring and we did the movie and stuff is because we still want to keep, we want to give back. Um, but there's no way I can't give back anymore by being a parent to another child. So that's sort of our These two

Jesse: keep us plenty busy right now, and the idea of bringing another child to that is not appealing at the moment.

But yeah, we would like to maybe foster, you know, when these two have gone off to college or what have you. Uh, but also keep doing what we've been doing throughout, you know, because this is an easy way for us to give back is just sharing our experience.

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, it's such a gift. Um, tell me about the movie.

How did you make the movie? Tell the listeners about the movie, where they can see the movie and what the movie is.

Hope: So the movie came about [00:48:00] because of it was when the the ridiculousness of the whole thing with Lewis and with Landon's placement and realizing that this was so difficult and that people there's such a need for foster families and people need to see the reality.

So, um, we decided we met a. who has now become a friend of ours. Sarah Pickrell, who is an amazing filmmaker. Um, she was sort of new to it at the time she had done a couple commercials and she was dabbling. But we talked to her about like, this is my idea is to to to to film. The path all the way once replaced with a new baby.

This is before we got rose. So it was right at the end of Lewis. So she came and filmed Lewis's adoption day to that end because we thought, oh, we can use that and have that be a bridge. Lewis's adoption day video is incredible. [00:49:00] It's on Vimeo. If you look up Lewis Mackey adoption day, I believe it is.

Jesse: If you look up Sarah Prickrell on this, P R I K R Y L,

Hope: L L,

L L, and Sarah, S A R A H, his Adoption Day video is there, and then of course her, she wound up doing one for her.

She's amazing. And so this started it, and so we went from here, and we were like, okay, we're going to start filming all the way through. But Sarah doesn't live with us. So they're and you get these phones, right? Get random and like, oh, you know, social workers coming over now. Oh, you have to do this. Instead of her filming all the way through, I started using my cell phone.

So we filmed like walking into meat rows doing the whole thing. So we had this whole fantasy all the way through that. This is how we were going to put together this documentary about our path to becoming a family of four. Um, And then once as it was going, [00:50:00] you know, she's like, I can't be there always. So let's sort of towards the end, she's like, let's just start doing interviews because of course it's cell phone footage.

Maybe I can intersperse some of your cell phone footage, but it's not really news. And I was doing it, you know. Or, you know, both ways, landscape, horizontal. I was not, um, I was a little dumb.

Jesse: It was the idea, the idea of being able to film yourself with your cell phone all the time was fairly new at the time.

It wasn't as widespread as it is now.

Hope: Nine years

Jesse: ago. So none of us knew how to do it very well at

Hope: that point. So at the end, we had, we had finalized on Rose and she started just sitting down. She's like, let's just do some interviews and see, you know, because it'll, maybe it'll take on a life of its own.

And That's what she did. So she came back to us and she's like, you guys, I think you guys just talking about the story. is our story. She's like, it's very powerful. We don't need two hours. She's like, it can be a short. So she, it was everything. She created everything. So she basically did it. [00:51:00] You know, we put together footage, she would send it to us.

We would say yes, no. Um, I mean, work listed as producers, but it's, I mean, Sarah was the mastermind. And then we did a go fund me, right. Or, you know, the whole go fund me and everybody, you know, thanks, thanks to Facebook, everyone knew. I'm, I'm one of those who uses Facebook as therapy, so everyone knew our story.

So once we were like, we're trying to do this and we write, well, fund me. And so we got all this money in order to finish it. And we got this, you know, amazing music for it. And um, that we started putting in festivals and we won a bunch of festivals too. So, and now I think there's a couple other factions that use it for training purposes.

Oh, great.

Rachel: Yeah. What is it called and where can

Hope: people see it? Oh, you know, I should put it in a better place, but I, uh, it's called family colon a love story. And it is, if you [00:52:00] want to see it now, I'm an actress also. So it's on my, it's on my website, Hope Shapiro, H O P E. S. H. A. P. I. R. O. dot com. And so just ignore all the rest of the acting stuff and go to the documentary tab.

And it's and it's there.

Rachel: And if people did want to speak with you about, you know, to sort of, uh, not necessarily be mentored by you, but it just have a conversation. Are you open to that? Or can they reach you through your website? Or how do you feel about

Hope: that? I mean, that's what we do. So, yes. And I think there's a way.

Okay. I think, I think you can probably reach you through their

Jesse: website. Yeah. If anybody has questions or, or

Rachel: great. Last question. Do you have any advice for people who might be considering this path? What would you say to them?

Rachel: Something that Hope Always ends up saying to people is if you think you can do it, you can do [00:53:00] it.

Like if you, if you're already on this path and you're already looking into it and thinking, I don't know if I can do this, you can do it. Yeah. However, it's also okay to realize you cannot and find another way to help, you know, it's not the path is not always for everyone. And I know we live in a world where, you know, having Children is, you know, looked at as such a must by a lot of people.

But it's also okay to not do this. I mean, it's If you were going through the whole process and you realize, I don't think I can do this, then you, you can honor that as well, but also know that you are strong enough to make it happen.

Hope: Just my, my biggest advice, just be honest with yourself. And if you're like, if you're going into this and you're, you know, you're signing up for classes and you're doing it and you're like, I think I can do this.

Then you can then trust yourself. If you're signing up for, you're doing all of it and you're all the way through, you're like, why am I doing this? Then don't do it. Mm

Rachel: hmm. Mm hmm. I appreciate you saying that [00:54:00] because I had this thing where I. I really was so terrified to do this, but there was this little voice inside of me that was just like, we can do this.

Like we can do this. I know we can do this. And, but, but even though I was just terrified, so it was hard to, like, I had to connect into that. And it's hard to know what the truth is. Right. Sometimes it's hard to like, just decide for yourself, like, is the fear the truth or like. You know, anyway, um, boy, it's been a pleasure talking to you guys, and I'm so happy for you and your family, and um, thank you so much for, for sharing your story with us.

Rachel,

Hope: I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Full circle. I'm so excited to hear your story, and that you're doing this. It makes me feel like I had a I know. It's really awesome. I love it. It's like my friend Jamie, who is, she was on the board at Extraordinary Families and she, you know, she does a bunch of stuff at Extraordinary Families.

She talks about all the time because she started [00:55:00] mentoring people through and helping people. And she always says, she's like, you're the mama bear. You started it and now you gave birth to all of us who are going to now keep it all going, all of this amazingness going. So it's very special to be here and to talk to you.

Thank you guys. Thank you.

Rachel: This has been the Foster to Forever podcast. Happy stories of non traditional families born through Foster to Adopt. Produced by Aquarius Rising. Edited by Jason Sarubbi at Split Rock Studios. Original music composed by Joe Fulginiti. For more information or to stay in touch, visit FromFoster2Forever.

Com. That's FromFoster2Forever. com. And stay connected with us on Instagram. At Foster Two Forever Podcast. That's Foster2ForeverPodcast. We'll see you next

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