EP 35 There are NO Unwanted Children - Pamela Thomas

After a decade of gathering women together for prayer, we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is iRefresh. Welcome to iRefresh, where we are ordinary women doing extraordinary things for the power of prayer and encouragement of God's Word. And today is a wonderful day for me to introduce actually one of our iRefresh members that we've gone back quite a few years, and her name is Pam Thomas. Pam Thomas. Hi Cheryl. Good to have you here. Thank you for having me. So this has been a journey that I learned a few new things with Pam is I knew she has a business called Visit Solutions. Had an idea of what she did, but all of the background and the story of what even brought you into that business and then about fostering and adoption was fascinating. So Pam, why don't you just give us a background? Okay, well, I started being interested in foster care when I started working at Star Commonwealth for Boys. And Floyd Starr had this massive place, and his belief was there was no such thing as a bad boy, which translated later to there's no such thing as bad people. But these boys were bad. And when they came, they lived there, and they worked very hard to become men. They went to chapel. They dressed in suits. They had a wonderful program for them. But the thing that always bothered me was the parents never came to pick them up. So many times they would be in the program, and we'd have worked with them, and they would be packed and waiting for their mom or dad to come and get them and no one would show up. Because of that, it alerted me to the fact that there were no homes for these children. Later on when I moved to Tulsa, I decided that remembering that there were no homes for children of that age. And these were 14 to 18 year old boys. These were the older ones. And so I decided after working in a group home here that the same thing was occurring, that they were just being dropped and social workers had no place to really place them, that I would be a foster parent for delinquent teenage boys. So during that... Because you were in the fostering. You were a social worker. Right. Yes. Right. And so during that interim time, we fostered probably about 42. Wow. That's amazing. 42. I cannot tell you, I should win an award for how many times I sat on a bench going, come on, you can do this at a football practice. Because that was part of what we did was we supported what their endeavors were. We had, and it sounds like nothing, we had nine children. really graduate and go on to college. And generally they were already dropped out of school and we had to get them interested. But there were so many problems and so little, there was not very much help. And so pretty soon we became discouraged as foster parents because there was really nothing for them to do. If you have a foster child at that age, when they age out of the system or when they turn 18, everything is dropped. So there are no programs for them? No programs at all. And they don't transition them? No, not at that time. So at that point in time I was involved with another home and we did a program called the Coach House Program. And it was an actual coach house on the back of a great big place on the north side and we tried to help them be independent. But these kids were so in need of support that that program was very difficult. So I decided, well, okay, I really need to change to younger children. That's what I thought. I have to be really honest. I wasn't the mothering type. I never wanted to hold a baby. I thought they were boring. So you never wanted to have your own kids? Absolutely not. I never wanted the responsibility. So what made you even want to foster if you didn't want your own kids? Well, let me tell you that story. Okay. I never wanted to do any of that because I liked being able to converse with a child and talk with them and be active with them. And the thought of changing diapers and all that stuff, that was just not going to be my bag. That was not going to be my bag. I didn't want to do it. So I had a friend who was a social worker, and she said, I have two children and there's a problem with the current foster care. Can you just take them for just two days? And I said, no, they're too little. One was two and a half, one was six, and the two and a half year old was having problems. I said, no, two and a half is too little. And she goes, okay. Then she called me back and said, I really have no one to take these children. Could you take them for? I said, no, I really can't because they're just too little. She called me the third time and I said, okay, where are they? Went to pick them up and brought them home. And this little boy said to me, who later I adopted, who are you? And I said, I told him my name, and he said, well, now you're gonna be called Mimi. You're my Mimi. And I said, Immediately. Yes, that's something that happens at foster care. They want so much to be a part of a family, they do that. So, brought him in, got them clean, started getting ready for him to go into the bathtub and there was a boot print in the back of his back A big bruise where someone had taken him and kicked him across the room. And that's why we took him. Well, after that happened, then, of course, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't let him go out into the world because he had a boot print. And I've got to really help him. He's got to, you know, you just feel bad. You feel bad. Right. So we so these two children came into our home. The next child was, the social worker called again, and she said, I know you don't do babies. And I said, thank you very much. You're right, I don't. I'm not going to do it. She goes, well, we have this baby at Tulsa Regional Medical Center, which is where we are today, Tulsa. And she said, would you just come and look at her? And I said, no. No interest at all. There's no interest. I don't want a baby. There's just no way. And so she called three or four times, and I finally said, okay, what is, I went to my friend and I said, okay. If her name shows hope and promise and it's biblical, I'll take her. I don't know why I did that. So I go back and I say, what's her name? Has she been named? Yes, she's been named. What is her name? And she said, Sarah Tomorrow. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I was like... Okay, I'll take her for a couple days, but that's it. And this was, I have to tell you, not a baby that you really wanted to look at for a long time. She was probably drug exposed. Sarah had a big soft spot in the middle of her head because drug babies have platelets that form differently and a big bulb on her forehead. I brought her home, showed her to everyone, and the first comment from the little boy was, did you know she was black? And I said, no, but that's okay. She's just going to come to visit for a couple days. So with an apnea monitor, no one told us about the apnea monitor. There we are. Here I am with a baby. No, thank you. With an apnea monitor, you've got to be kidding. And... a polydrug exposed baby. This baby cried for, I don't know how, like eight months, and she only slept for two hours. Wait a minute. Okay, pause. You just said eight months. I thought it was two days. Well, I'm going to tell you that. Okay, here we go. She, they never came back to pick her up. I was like, hey, you know, uh, uh, uh, Did you remember her? Well, what happened with her was that she cried continually. She slept two hours at a time. But I figured out I could pay the next-door neighbor lady to come over and flick on the light switch, and she would watch the light, and I could sleep. If you have someone in your community that's fostering a special needs child, you can do things to help. And one of the things you can do to help is something as simple as flip on a light switch. You don't have to spend money, you just have to spend a little time. So the neighbor lady did this for me so I could sleep. And the last night I remember that she did this, I was holding her, rocking her, saying, God, I just can't do this anymore. I'm tired. And I just can't do this anymore. I don't like babies. I'm the one that doesn't like babies. And I was falling massively in love with her. And that bothered me a little too because I thought, I'm not trying to get rid of her anymore. And here she is still a baby. She's not, you know, and she had so many things wrong with her. But you said you had two other children at the time. Uh-huh. That was three. Okay, so that was your three. And so they were kind of, were they wondering, like, why has Sarah not gone back? They were calling her sister. Oh, they did that right away. Yeah, right away. Okay, so they helped you out. Yeah. Okay, so that night, I didn't hear any crying. And I woke up in the morning, and I thought, she died. she had to have died because this is the first night this has ever happened. She couldn't have possibly slept all night long. This couldn't be the end of this. The doctor said this would last for two years and I looked over and she was smiling at me and from that point on she never did it again. The night I said God I can't do it anymore. Well but the problem was I could do with the other and So the same social worker called me again and said, we have this girl that's 12. She's had three failed adoptions and we need someplace for her to go. And I said, absolutely not. Don't even bring her here. Don't even. And all of a sudden I looked at a furniture. I don't have the room. No, I'm a bed. All of a sudden I look and a furniture truck pulls up in front of our house. And a bed comes in. And I'm like, wait, what are you guys doing? Well, someone's purchased a bed for you so you could, and then she shows up with a garbage bag over her back. And that's one thing that you'll see with the older kids, they travel with a black garbage sack. Their wife is in the garbage bag. So I have two kids, I have a baby that's polydrug exposed, and I'm not gonna have a 12 year old because that's close to teenage and I wasn't ready for that because I have a baby and teenager, okay? What ends up happening is they all stay. They all stay. And we start the adoption process. Now what made you decide to go from, because you'd had them for a little bit now, the three. So what would have been the point where it made you think, or were you getting phone calls or pressure to go ahead and adopt them? From the children. Oh, so the children wanted, they were asking you. Yeah, you're my mom, right? Yeah. So even when they're that young, they understand. I would take Dustin to preschool and he'd say, Miss Presley, this is my mommy. This is my new mommy. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm not going to be. I'm not your mom. That's what I was thinking in my heart. I was thinking, I can't do that. No. Oh, isn't he cute? He's cute. I'll bring the cookies next time. You know, things you get involved with in schools. And I would come home and think, how can you tell a child that they don't belong? And one of the things I learned in this whole process is that human beings belong. And regardless of what we would pick out, a lot of times the Lord has a completely different idea. So I said, okay, we're going to start the adoption process. And everything was, except for the oldest one, she said, I really think my name is cuter than yours, so I really don't want to take, I don't want you to adopt me, but I'm not leaving now. Really? So what made her, I mean, do you know? Because her mom was still alive at that point in time. Okay, so she felt guilty? And they still hope that things are going to work out. Okay. So you ended up going through the process of the other three. Yes. To go through the adoption process. And then there's... And honoring the other one. Yes. To not be adopted. Right. Now, what did they do? Did they not give pressure to the big sister? Yeah, of course. And you have the adoption party and they get the little presents. And when you're a foster parent, when you start adopting a child usually, no one gives you showers. You're figuring out how to make all this stuff happen. No one has the shower with the cake that says, it's a girl at all. You don't have those things happening. You are funding everything yourself. Everything yourself. As a fostering. When you go from fostering to adoption. Okay, when you go through the, okay. Because you're losing a small stipend, it's not very large, and going into nothing. And they don't help transition. They don't really, so there's really nothing that they're promoting to encourage you to. That's correct. To adopt. That's correct. That's correct even today? Yes. Okay. Yes. There's no reason to really, I mean, financially you'd be better off not adopting. But, okay, so here we are in this whole situation. I get ready to adopt the baby. She, they told me she never could walk, and she was walking. One day I was holding her, and this is the strangest story, I was holding her, and all of a sudden I hear click, and her skull moves together. And they said that may happen, that would be great if it did because then she would be really, this big soft spot in the middle of her head was a problem. And I was like, I have never felt anything like that. Is this a natural baby thing? I'm calling my friend and I said, do baby's heads click together? Because this is really weird, her head just clicked together. And it was a really bizarre thing. At that time, Children's Medical Center was a big deal here in Tulsa, and I took her there. She went, yay! She's her her brains coming together. Her skulls coming together. And I'm like, OK, OK, here we go. So I said, OK, I want to adopt her. And I got a call from the social workers union. They said, you cannot. Really? And I said, why? Because you're the wrong ways. Oh, really? Yes, and I said, okay, well I want to pursue it because I'm her mom now. Now she's two and a half years old and she's my baby and you're not taking her. And they said, oh, but you are, we are. Wow. So social workers kept coming. They didn't warn you in that process when you were fostering? No. They wanted you to keep her, Yes. But not adopt her. But not adopt her. They wanted her to go to an African American home, which I have no problem with that, but that's not where we were at that time. So what ends up happening then, Cheryl, is they say, now you're going to take her to the picnic. And I'm saying, what picnic? Well, it's the picnic that they had. So people that may want to adopt her could look at her playing. Right. Now you're gonna take my baby, because it's my baby now, to a picnic, and I don't think I can do that. Well, so I started to pray. I thought, I cannot do this. There's just no way. I hope she acts so terrible. I hope she's just so, it stormed so bad. There were tornado warnings that the picnic was canceled. I was delighted. So then what happens is we keep going back and forth and back and forth with this and then a social worker comes and says we've decided that you can't adopt her because you are the wrong race. And I said I've decided that you are wrong. And she said no we have authority and we've decided that and I said oh it's not going to happen that way but okay. And I cried, I was so upset. And I'm like, here you are crying, acting like a crazy woman, when you didn't even want to have a baby. Now you have this baby, and you're just so militantly fighting for her. So what ends up happening is, the next day when I go to work as a social worker, I look up and that girl has transferred to the desk across from me in her practicum program. So every day she can hear what I'm saying. She knows everything about my life. I have to just completely live differently. And so all the other social workers said, we know she's here, but this is going to go through, and we're going to have the biggest party, and we're not going to invite her. So all the stuff was happening all the time, and she was watching me. And every day I went to work, I was just going, oh. That is so wild, though, because you're working with the person who's trying to fight you. Yes, yes, yes. Wow, that had to have been hard. That is amazing. So she calls, and she says, we're coming to pick up Sarah. And I said, no, you're not. So I called my attorney, who's now a judge, and she said, you have another one more options. It's not going to work. They're going to come and get her. So there's no legal, you didn't have a legal backing at that point? Absolutely nothing. And so what I did was I started, of course, to cry, and I threw a fit, and I prayed, and I said, God, I'm just going to write the president of the United States. This is not fair. This is not right. And I did send a fax. I saw it in the phone book. I'm not telling anybody to do this. We're not endorsing this. No. So what ends up happening is they're coming up my walk to pick up Sarah. The phone rings. I walk over to the kitchen. I'm just like going, my body is shaking because I don't know how I'm going to do this. And someone says to me, is this Pamela Thomas? I said yes. He said, well, this is Senator Kennedy and I have Senator Metzenbaum here and we have your paper. A page went by, picked up the wrong fax, which was my fax, took it into the Senate committee hearing on transracial adoption They stopped them from picking her up. I was able to talk to the Senate about my experience and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act is what became of that whole thing. Really? Really. That is so amazing. That's how God can move in your life. Because I was at the end. Prayer makes total change. I was at the end. Wow. I was so at the end and I thought, not only did I do just a complete turnaround on my feelings about that, but God made a way where there really wasn't a way. We were at the end. And even when I think about it now, I just think, It was an amazing situation. Well, of course, all the people at work heard about it, and she's sitting there, and they all said, did you hear about Pam's adoption? Did you hear that she's adopting Sarah? It was just like a big party in the workplace, and everybody brought in little cookies. We love Sarah, and she's sitting there and can do nothing. Because the law is changed. Because it's like the enemy is silenced. That's the whole great thing about it, though, is the enemy is silenced when we pray. And he protects you. And he makes a way where... Yes, there wasn't a way. Which was the great thing about the testimony is you can't take anything for it. It was totally God. Oh, no. Because the options were gone. They were gone. Yeah. And the biggest, the most... They told me that she would never walk. They told me that she would never learn. They told me that she would never be normal because of all the drug usage from her birth mother. She was the 12th child of a woman that was just someone who really needed help and we prayed for her birth mom a lot. But she speaks three languages. She, I was in New York City, I was sitting at this big dance contest. She won world champion hip hop dancer. Really? And when I'm sitting there, they're going, Sarah Thomas is a world champion. I'm sitting there going, and my niece is going, And I'm like, never dreaming that she would win it. Never thinking, and then she's up there on stage and all these dancers from all over the world, and she won. The girl who couldn't walk. The girl who couldn't learn. The girl who couldn't remember. So that's what God can do. I would encourage people that think that there's no way to adopt or foster, to realize this world needs you. And there's a component of it you can do. That's right. I mean, so after going through the adoption, like what would you say highlight, like the good and the bad a little bit? Give them, like warn them in a little bit of a way what the cost is because really... It's a serious situation of what you have to do. I think it's amazing though if we look at the process of what you went through and all the challenges and all the fostering that you went through and yet it was those kids that you ended up adopting. What could you do to really give people, one, to start with, what would you say to people who might even be interested in fostering? What are some things that would help to prepare them and what they could expect to prepare them to make a family decision? Well, I think that I did not have to make a family decision because there was not, this became my family. And that's one of the things that was so beautiful about it is the Lord made a family where there was not one. Now, if I had children and my own children You know, some of the children that we brought in our home would not have been appropriate in a family system. They hadn't learned family. But younger children that you bring into your home You have to remember that they come with baggage. And you can prepare your family with, there may be some baggage. We're going to have to teach Mary how to share. We're going to have to teach Mary how to eat properly. We're going to have to teach Mary our house rules. Everybody has house rules. You know, one person, your kids may know that that's dad's chair. Well, someone coming in doesn't know that. So you have to go through all those house rules together and just say, what's really important to us and how loving can we be? That's the problem because when kids start messing with your things when you're another kid, it doesn't work well because they've been independent. So you have to be able to spend some time really, really... talking with your children about that. There's also a lot now of kinship placement where the family isn't working, they'll call the next of kin and they'll bring the kids to the kin. The same thing. You have to open up that door of communication and let the other people in the family experience that. Because I can remember myself thinking, People are inviting me to a baby shower that didn't even bring me a box of graham crackers. I had those feelings. I had those feelings. It's kind of like the bridesmaid. It's always the bridesmaid. It's never the bride. Well, so then, so one of the things that might be great even for friends around you. if there's a time when you're really looking at fostering, or you know someone who's fostering, is it sounds like to me is rally around the families and help them to, when you go from fostering even to adopting, is have a shower or do something, bring over a meal. Because you would do that, you know, for a newborn coming home. You'd help the parents to transition into that. So those would be some really good tips, I think. Even that is our community around being able to help you transition into a whole, well, you have quite a few. I mean, a lot of them, do they only start with one child at a time, make sure it blends? But once they find out that you can do it, and here's the other thing that I think you have to understand when you're adopting, I switched the subject a little bit, but when you're adopting, they're going to come in and do a home study, and they pick you apart from top to bottom. What do you think about this? Did your parents spank you? All this kind of stuff, and I think about that so much, and I think, I had to earn the right to be a mother. I had to earn that right. I wasn't just a mother. I had to earn the right to be a mother. So when people are adopting or fostering, realize that, you know, how you feel. It's like, what if they say, what do they say, that I'm not a candidate to be a mother? Wow, that's interesting. I didn't think about that. Yeah, so that kind of support is really helpful too. It's like, hey, your social worker is coming over. Do you need help with cleaning anything? What will make you feel better? Because that kind of emotional support isn't available. No one does that. I don't think anybody knows to do that though. Yeah. I mean, that's what I think is great is giving those little tips of people rallying around you and what's a practical way to help. So even helping to make sure the house is in order before the social worker comes for the interviews and all the questions you end up getting. I remember when they came to do my home study, I didn't have a crib yet. And I was like, oh. Well, you've never had a baby. You don't think about getting a crib. I mean, you think about getting a crib. But I didn't have a baby yet, so I didn't think about getting a crib. And a friend of mine showed up at the door with a crib. She goes, you don't have a crib. you have a bassinet, you have to have a crib. I was like, oh, okay. So there's a lot of different things, like really practical things. Is there even a place that they can go to on the web where they could even learn that kind of, like helpful items to begin to prepare for? Not that I know of, but I do know if you look at what happens in a shower, that kind of preparation, if you have that same mindset and forget the age of the child, that it's a new person coming into a new family, then you can become very creative with the things that you need to do. Yeah, and I think that's where, too, is you have to have other people helping, like with play dates and stuff, because you said you're bringing in baggage. And I'm sure other moms and stuff, like, I'm not sure how to handle it. I think there's got to be a good, safe place of having a conversation. If you had friends who had similar age bracket, it was like getting an understanding of how to help each other. I think that would be good for the transition, because they do need to get more familiar how to interact with friends. children their own age in a healthy way. Right. Well, just for example, Sarah had to have therapy in our pool for four hours a day. She had to kick her legs. She had to get them moving again. So I take her out of the pool and I think, there's no floaty here. I don't have a floaty. Oh, you need a floaty for a baby. Okay, here I am. So I would hold her until I had time to go. But I didn't think about, I needed a floaty. Right. Just little things like that. You don't think of those things or the things that you would normally have. Like maybe I didn't have one of those thermometers that just didn't have it. So we need to have a tip of like we need to find out resources. And, you know, I think what would be great is have a continual conversation in the days ahead because there's so many things we could even put on our website on iRefresh.net. So I want to have, since Pam was a part of iRefresh Ministries, I think those would be some great things. And you also even gave me one other thought in closing of that there were some new things that might help out people who are interested in adopting. Is there a new? Yes, there's a new grant available, but it's a quick thing. Helpusadopt.org has appropriated $700,000 to give to worthy families that can't afford adoption. They'll help with them, and they'll be a great resource for them. Okay, so I thank you Pam for sharing so many great testimonies. I think it's so fascinating when you think about how God positioned to only he could have answered that. And that's the beauty of prayer and trusting when we put our things before God that he truly does hear what we say. What we'd love to do is have a continued conversation with you. So we're going to be putting things on our website at iRefresh.net. And we're going to have Pam involved with this, where we can give you some practical tips on the process of fostering as well as adoption, kind of the pros and cons to help you think through the process. And also make sure that you subscribe, whether it's on our Facebook, Instagram, our YouTube and our podcast. We would love to hear from you. Find out if you have questions or if you just want to say, hey, that was an amazing testimony. And maybe you have one just as great. Until then, go change your world.