A foster child remembers

I was one of 3-month-old triplets when I was taken from my mother and placed in the foster-care system here in Philadelphia. My mom was addicted to crack and couldn't take care of us.

I think my mom's plan was to get better and come back for us, but she didn't get herself together as well as she wanted to. And when she finally did overcome her habit a few years later, I think she didn't want to disrupt our bond with our new family.

My brother and sister and I were kept together and placed with a foster mother who eventually adopted us. It was good having a home and getting to stay with my siblings.

But there were other issues for me. I have cerebral palsy, so I had my own challenges to overcome. My disability is not who I am; it's just how I was born. It takes some time to do things, but I can get things done. Still, you can feel forgotten if you are waiting for a permanent family, and even more so if you think there is something wrong with you.

I didn't know my real dad and didn't have an adoptive dad. When I was about 16, I started to feel the void of not having a male role model in my life. I reacted violently when faced with emotions I couldn't handle. I got in trouble, and I was sent to an emergency shelter for 30 days, and then another.

I was eventually placed in another foster home, where I stayed for about three years - long enough to graduate from high school and start community college, where I am today. I am majoring in criminal justice and hope one day to be a social worker and an advocate for children. Because I've been through a lot, I feel I can help other kids.

To me, adoption was the best option when it seemed my siblings and I wouldn't be reunited with our mom. But we need to make sure adoption is stable, so kids don't reenter the system the way I did. After years of stability, it was rough to be pulled from my home again and tossed into shelters. I didn't know where I would live, and that was scary.

Today I have a relationship with my birth mother as well as my adoptive mother. But I feel stuck in the middle. I want the two families to come together.

If my two families had come together years ago, maybe there would have been more stability for me. I often wonder how things could have been different for me if my mom had gotten the help she needed when we were first taken from her, or if the families had come together to discuss our problems.

I know there are things in the child-welfare system today, such as family conferences and group decision-making, that weren't there when I was younger. Things like that help foster families, adoptive families, and birth families work together. And I know more can be done to keep biological and adoptive families together in difficult times.