My parents, Mark and Maribeth Diamond, got married in February 1993. By 1995, it was still only the two of them. Despite their desire to start a family, they struggled to carry a pregnancy to term. It was at this time that my dad's sister and her husband had become foster parents to a young boy through Catholic Charities. So, two years and more than one miscarriage later, they began to consider fostering. My dad was in his residency at Advocate Christ Hospital, and my mom had recently left her job at the American Medical Association. They were both nearly 30 years old, and although not wealthy by any means, they had a steady income. And so my parents made a call to Catholic Charities and applied to become foster parents.

There are different options people have when it comes to fostering. In my parents' case, they decided to become "emergency" foster parents in which they could be contacted to provide immediate, short-term care for a child who has been placed in protective state custody (Howard, SAFY). They jumped through all the hoops: paper work, fingerprinting, background checks, and DCFS-sanctioned parenting classes. In the end, they passed every checkpoint with a "clean bill of health," so to speak. They started this process in the fall of 1995, and by May 1996, they finally got their official license. After only about a week of being in the system as registered foster parents, they got a call from Catholic Charities. My mom answered the phone. There were two children in need of emergency placement. The first: a newborn Asian female with little possibility of staying with her birth mother. The second: a one-year-old Hispanic female with other siblings in the foster care system who DCFS was trying to reunite with their birth mother. My mom vividly recalls her decision. Before the Catholic Charities worker was even finished speaking, she knew she wanted to foster the newborn baby. Little possibility of staying with her birth mother. Somewhere inside her, she knew that this infant, an innocent ward of the state, needed a mother. And she could be that for her.

My parents had about three days in between the phone call and when the social workers were to bring the baby to their town house. They didn't have the typical 9 months to purchase what they needed and prepare for a baby. In fact, they didn't even really know what they needed. My dad's sister Brigid had just had her second baby, and so they ran to her with all sorts of questions. She and her husband guided their purchases and helped ease the overall chaos of a three-day turnaround. Equipped with the necessities, they waited all day for the arrival of the baby. The social workers kept calling and saying that they were on their way. It was only after the fact that my parents learned why it took so long to finally arrive: the nurses at the hospital didn't want the baby to leave. Many of them even offered to adopt her themselves. At around 6 in the evening, the social workers finally arrived. At exactly one week old, the little baby girl had been dressed in a Mickey Mouse onesie by one of the nurses. And so this delicate, curly haired infant was no longer a "boarder baby." She no longer slept in the hospital nursery full of small glass cradles. She had her very own crib.

As soon as my parent's eyes met those of the new baby, they knew they this relationship was going to be anything but fleeting. She was placed in their care on Friday, and as soon as the agency opened on Monday, they were filing to change their status from "emergency" to "permanent: filing for adoption." Little did they know that the entire adoption process would take a long two years. Two years full of ineffective and fruitless court dates. Granted, my parents didn't actually have to go to court; all the legal proceedings were handled in juvenile court by the public defender and the guardian ad litem. However, it was stressful nonetheless. After only a week of fostering their new baby, my mom found out she was pregnant with my oldest brother, Mark. Her previous pregnancy experiences guided my parents' decision. They weren't going to give up on the adoption. They wanted a family, and who knew what the outcome of this pregnancy would be? But with each passing month came the increased likelihood that this unborn baby would be carried to term. So for nearly six months, my mom tried to hide her pregnancy from the social worker. Fear motivated her actions: they didn't want DCFS or Catholic Charities to find any reason to take away the infant with whom they had already formed a familial bond. It grew more difficult to hide her growing stomach under baggy clothes at the monthly wellness checks. When my parents finally told the social worker that my mom was expecting, their fears were dissipated. As it turned out, the social worker was hiding her pregnancy too. Although for different reasons, my parents were met with sympathy in the form of a similar situation. The babies were safe.

Another fear loomed over my parents' heads during these two years. What if a relative comes out of the woodworks and wants custody? No matter how unlikely, anything was possible. The likelihood that the baby's biological mother would be granted custody was exceptionally low. Severely mentally ill and residing in a halfway house, every caseworker and medical professional involved in the situation maintained that she was not fit to care for an infant. Miss T., as I will call the baby's biological mother, had come to the United States from Saigon, Vietnam at about the age of ten. At 19, after being assaulted by her uncle, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. He, too, was given up for adoption. It was around this time that Miss T.'s mental health began to deteriorate. A prevalent history of mental illness in her family made her susceptible to certain disorders. She was nearly 30 by the time she got pregnant again. The baby's biological father remains unknown, though he was reported to be another resident at the halfway house where Miss T. lived. She was transported from the halfway house to University of Illinois at Chicago Hospital when it came time to give birth. On May 24, 1996, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She decided to name her Kevin. To this day, no one really knows why Miss T. gave her Vietnamese baby girl an American boy's name. In any case, the nurses at UIC Hospital were not fans of this decision, and so they called her Suong. Pronounced "song." One of my dad's friends from medical school was Vietnamese, and he told my parents that Suong translated to "morning dew." Although this wasn't her legal name, it made it easier for individuals working with DCFS and juvenile court. Apparently seeing Name: Kevin and Sex: Female on the same document was more than a little confusing. And so Baby Kevin, AKA Suong, came to be.

My parents, during the 2 year adoption process, had time to figure out what they wanted to name the baby. Admittedly, Kevin was never an option. They liked Suong, but they weren't married to the idea of making it her legal name. They tested out Melissa, but that didn't seem to fit. Finally, they settled on Maria. It was fitting that this May-born little girl, innocent and with unique origins, should be named a variation of the name Mary. They gave her the middle name Brigid, after my dad's sister who had helped them gather their wits and prepare for a newborn. Her name was only officially changed from Kevin to Maria Brigid after the adoption case was moved forward on a total stroke of luck. Tired of the case's slow progression, my parents decided to take Maria to one of the court hearings. They wanted the attorneys and judge to put a face to the name. In the elevator on the way out of the courthouse, my mom ran into one of her friends from law school. As luck would have it, she worked alongside the public defender for Maria's case. She made a call, and within a few months my parents were set to become Maria's legal parents. It turns out that this particular public defender had purposely been stalling several cases so that he wouldn't be assigned any new ones. I suppose he needed someone to give him a wake up call.

On November 25, 1998, the day before Thanksgiving, a parade of Diamonds made their way to the Daley Center in downtown Chicago for their final court hearing. By this time, my parents already had 3 children, including Maria. My mom was even pregnant again with my sister Claire. Despite its unorthodox origins, my mom and dad finally had a growing family. And it all started with Maria. Maria, who would officially be adopted at the age of 2 and a half. Maria, who would be the oldest of eight children. Maria, who would grow up to be an artistically gifted and extremely genuine young woman. Who would graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the college of the hospital where she was born. Who would forge a career path for herself. Who would visit Vietnam, the birthplace of her biological mother. Who, just like the morning dew, brought hope and renewal to a childless couple. Who gave two worthy individuals the titles of "mom" and "dad."

Howard, Alex. “The Types of Foster Caregivers and Foster Families.” SAFY, 25 May 2018, safy.org/foster-care-and-caregivers/.