Morgan and Michelle

Hope after disruption

Not all success stories end with a tidy happily-ever-after. Sometimes, the journey is its own triumph.

Like many prospective parents, Morgan envisioned a storybook outcome as she and her partner, Michelle, planned to adopt. When the Vancouver, Washington residents welcomed an 18-year-old from foster care into their home, they anticipated being a family forever.

Instead, the couple encountered an unexpected situation, known in the child welfare world as a disrupted adoption.

“I’d never heard of it,” Morgan said. “It hadn’t occurred to me that a placement could fail. I thought, ‘Well, they want a family, and we’re a good family, who is going to be loving and generous, so of course it’s all going to work out.’ It wasn’t on my radar at all that this could happen.”

While the majority of adoptions from foster care are finalized, an estimated 25 percent end in disruption. This means that after a youth has moved in with a family to officially pursue adoption, either the youth or parents halt the legal process. Some youth and families remain connected to varying degrees, while others opt against future contact.

As with any relationship, sometimes people aren’t a good fit for reasons outside of their control. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast, “There will be some circumstances where a disruption must occur, no matter how well-prepared, educated, or supported the families involved.”

Redefining success

Morgan and Michelle felt ready. They’d long discussed adopting before having the realization: “We don’t want to do this someday. We want to do this now.”

“And I wanted to do it right,” Morgan said. In addition to the tasks required for licensure, Morgan prepared as much as she could. “If there was a book, I read it. If there was a training, I took it. If there was a resource, I was seeking it out.”

One such support was the Northwest Adoption Exchange website, where the couple first saw the In-Depth Profile® of the teenager they attempted to adopt.

“Her singing drew me to her,” Morgan said. “She sang in her video, with this beautiful voice that was so vulnerable and sweet. And she had on a Nirvana shirt, and we love ‘90s grunge. She just looked fun.”

The videos and stories in the teen’s NWAE profile allowed the couple to imagine their future together as a family.

“It’s amazing how attached you can get just from a profile,” Morgan said.

The three met, and shortly after, the teen moved in with the couple and their pets. The first few weeks went well. However, after two months, the teen ultimately decided to become independent and leave the foster system entirely.

“I had maybe 24 hours of feeling like we were failures as parents,” Morgan said. “And then, I was like, you know what? I don’t think we were. With our whole hearts, we opened our home and were prepared to make her a permanent member of our family.”

Research shows that older youth who have experienced trauma longer than their younger counterparts encounter disruption at higher rates. Morgan recognizes that the behaviors and choices of their youth say more about trauma’s impact on the capacity to accept love than it does anything about the couple’s abilities or efforts.

“It’s easy to look back and say, ‘Oh, if I had done this or that differently…,’’ she said. “But that’s naïve. We went in with love and good intentions and made the best decisions we could with the information we had, and that’s all anyone can do. I don’t regret trying.”

Rather, they’re ready to try again.

After the couple took some time to process their first placement, they reached out to NWAE about facilitating another, and they recently welcomed a 15-year-old seeking permanency into their home.

“I want people to remember that trying is brave. Even if things don’t go as planned, that effort still counts,” Morgan said. “And that’s life, right? Things don’t always go perfectly right away. You try to do things that matter, and you learn while you’re trying, and then you try again, applying what you’ve learned.”

Showing up matters

One lesson the couple absorbed was to approach possible placements with more fluid expectations.

“For example, you might have really attached to something in their profile, and they’ve changed their mind or moved on from that thing,” she said. “You can be disappointed. And then you can say, ‘Okay, those are a snapshot capturing who they thought they wanted to be at that moment, and of course they want to present the most positive version of themselves just like anyone would.’”

She plans to approach future relationships with curiosity rather than assumptions and to view potential matches as an opportunity rather than a foregone conclusion.

“We really do have hopes there’s a kid out there who wants what we’re offering, who wants to be part of our home and family,” Morgan said. “We’re excited to get to know them and for them to get to know us. Then, with a lot of patience and love and effort on both sides, hopefully that evolves into an adoption.”

While the couple still want this outcome, they don’t view it as necessary to consider their adoption story worthwhile.

“We saw a need, and we showed up with everything we had in us,” Morgan said. “In the grand scheme of it all, trying is what counts, right? That’s the heart of it all. These kids don’t need perfect parents. What they need is people in their lives who try. And we tried. We bravely tried. And we’re going to keep bravely trying.”