Here we are, a year after dd6 and ds6 arrived at our home. In some ways this year has gone so quickly but at the same time, it’s been full of intensity and opportunities to stretch myself as a human.

Last week I had a meeting with the therapist who I’m mandated to meet with for parenting guidance. Since neither of us feel that would be a beneficial use of our time, what she’s instead helping me with is to navigate the logistics of dealing with a system that seems more adept at making life difficult for foster parents and foster children than supporting them. I need to build a paper trail to protect myself when the next committee meeting takes place, and these meetings are an important part of that.

I didn’t know when I first met this therapist that she was the expert involved from the first day the twins were removed from their biological home, who provided guidance and direction to the social worker in their first foster home. I assumed on meeting us it was her first experience with them.

She’s made a couple of comments that indicated she knew much more about their background than I do. At our last meeting she said something more specific about the harm they experienced than what my statements to her would reflect. I told her I specifically asked about details regarding their background before they came, and was told they didn’t experience what she seemed to be referencing.

She replied that she understands why I was told that, because it’s not written in their paperwork outright. She explained that she’s seen every report and evaluation on the twins from the time they were removed, and combined with her expertise with the foster care system and knowledge of who the parents are, she is able to fill in the blanks of some aspects of their previous home life. She told me the reason I was given for their removal is only a contributing factor to a child being removed, never the exclusive reason.

She is working on writing a detailed narrative that will accompany their file to fill in these blanks so all the professionals involved better understand what their history is. Right now the official story is much more mild than the reality and that is important to correct because there is currently active discussion taking place about letting the twins visit their parents outside of the supervised environment that they now meet in.

A number of times I’ve wondered what was the cause of their significantly delayed emotional and intellectual development. The background described to me didn’t seem to account for what I was seeing. The therapist’s statements confirmed my suspicions that the home environment was much more damaging than I was told.

I’ve been told by several people involved that the twins’ situation is considered unusually complex, and this therapist told me the only thing that gives her any hope about them is that they came to our home. She is matter of fact and even understated when she speaks, not given to hyperbole. She stated it was “a literal miracle that that they were placed with you, because you have the capacity to hold all of their complexities and there are very few people who could do that.” I understood she wasn’t using the word ‘miracle’ casually or lightly.

She went on to explain that eighty percent of children in Israel who are removed from their families are placed into institutions. (In most countries the statistics are reversed; eighty percent go into foster homes and only twenty percent go into institutional care.) This would have been the expected placement for the twins. She said that absent the emotional care that they need to heal, many children from hard places become sociopathic and end up in closed institutions/mental wards; this is what she described as the predictable trajectory for the twins if they hadn’t come to us. She soberly concluded, “When you agreed to take them, you saved their lives”.

Obviously there was a lot I didn’t know when I was approached about taking the twins, but what I felt then and continue to feel is that this is the mission that G-d sent us. At times it’s asked more of me than I wanted to give and at times it’s been more gratifying and enjoyable than I anticipated, but from the very beginning and every day since I’ve felt we’re partnering with G-d.

Avivah