PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Carol Hernandez said her adopted daughter, Diana, has thrived in school and as a budding singer in the past year. Hernandez said she has become an ambassador for adoption. |
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Diana had big plans for this morning.
“I'm going to make my mom breakfast in bed – scrambled eggs with bacon and toast,” the 10-year-old proclaimed during a recent dinner at an Italian restaurant, “because I know how to cook now.”Cooking is just one of many things Diana has learned since being adopted a year ago. She also has learned what it means to be wanted, to feel secure in a “forever home,” and what it feels like to be loved.
Carol Hernandez, a middle-aged, single mother with a grown son of her own, said she had been thinking about adopting a child for several years when she saw Diana's photo and brief biography on a San Diego adoption Web site.
“I saw Diana and just knew she was meant to be my daughter,” Hernandez said. “I saw in her a special light, and I thought, if that child had love and the proper support behind her, she could fly.”
Raising her own son had been the best years of her life, Hernandez said. But this second bout of motherhood “is totally different.”
She said she has been tested by a child who had been emotionally devastated by adults.
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A special day
PASSAGE
Carol Hernandez, a middle-aged, single mother with a grown son, looks forward to Mother's Day with her adopted daughter, Diana, 10.
DIANA'S DESIRES
“I would love to take singing, dancing and piano lessons, and I really want to go ice skating.”
QUOTE
“I love the adoptive-parents support group. It's really nice to talk with other parents about the joys and problems I'm experiencing,” Hernandez says.
ON THE WEB
Photos and biographies of San Diego children waiting to be adopted are available at www.iadoptu.org.
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“At first, there were tantrums and acting out. This girl had a horrific background,” Hernandez said. “Diana had a lot of anger, and she had a right to be angry and to feel insecure about staying with me. But I was prepared for that.
“The joy she has given me has been more than worth any troubles we might have had.”
On this Mother's Day, Diana said she is eager to join in the national tradition of honoring the sacrifice and devotion and bedrock role a mother plays.
She knows something about mothers.
This precocious girl who loves music, theater and learning has had several mothers in the past three years, none of whom stuck.
Diana was placed in protective foster care when social workers and the courts determined in June 2003 that her biological parents were unfit due to drug addiction, abuse and neglect.
Then three times she was matched with adoptive parents. For various reasons, none of the placements worked out. Diana was left feeling unwanted, unloved and highly mistrustful of adults.
Then a new mother came into her life, though in a roundabout way.
After seeing Diana's picture on the Internet in October 2004, Hernandez said, she tried hard to put the child out of her mind for the next two weeks.
“This is, after all, a very serious decision. Plus, I was concerned that maybe I was too old to do this,” said Hernandez, 58, who is self-employed and works two jobs.
But the child with an endearing smile and saucer-sized brown eyes haunted Hernandez. She inquired about adopting Diana.
A social worker told her that other prospective parents also had inquired about Diana, and that by the time Hernandez completed the required classes, physical, home inspection and the rest of the qualifying process – all of which usually takes six months – the girl undoubtedly would have been adopted by someone else.
“I told the social worker I was going to try anyway,” Hernandez said.
She was in the midst of her home study when she learned that Diana had indeed been matched with another family.
“I tried not to be too disappointed,” Hernandez said. “I told myself she was the catalyst, and I was going to go through with adopting a child who needed a good home and a good mother.
“But Diana's adoption was not yet final. I always kept her in my heart.”
Whenever she talked with social workers, Hernandez asked about Diana and her new family. Things were moving along, she was told: The visiting phase went well; Diana had moved into her new home; things were going well.
Then things changed.
By April 2005, it was clear that Diana's adoption was not going through. Her adoptive family was ready to give her up.
“It just didn't work out,” Diana said, simply. “We just didn't fit in together.”
Hernandez stepped forward immediately, and social workers examined the files and declared her and Diana a good match. A series of visits was arranged. Diana moved into Hernandez's home last May.
But the child had been through this before. With painful memories of three failed adoption placements, Diana tested her new mother.
Hernandez was ready.
“She was very insecure at first about staying with me,” Hernandez said. “I'd learned in a class about attachment issues. They try to push you away before they get too attached because they don't want to be hurt again.
“When you raise your own kids, you teach them values and discipline, and they adjust naturally. But when you adopt a child, she has to learn to adjust right along with you. The key is patience and understanding.
“Those other placements didn't work out for whatever reason, but it was not her fault.”
Diana, whose adoption was finalized in February, said it's difficult to believe how her life has changed in just one year.
The fourth-grader has won two Outstanding Student Awards at her new mid-city school and has sung solos in school musicals and in a performance by her church choir (a drawing by Diana was used on the choir program cover).
“Things are very great now,” Diana said. “I really love my life.”
As dinner wound down in the Italian restaurant, singer/guitar player Lisa Campbell set up and began entertaining the Friday night crowd. Diana, who aspires to “go to Harvard, and then become a singer or an actress or a great piano player like Beethoven,” was transfixed.
Between songs, she approached the singer on her makeshift stage, and within moments – in a clear and quite pleasing voice – Diana was singing a duet with Campbell: “Bless the Broken Road” (“that led me straight to you”) by Rascal Flatts.
As the entire restaurant joined in applause, Hernandez leaned forward and said, “She is amazing, this child. So resilient.
“My Diana is just going to soar.”
