Adam - our foster child - is fifteen months now. It is the middle of August. By Rosh HaShanah - just a month away - Adam will have been with us for a year. And while it is my gut feeling that the state will make a decision on whether he will be eligible for adoption or whether he will be reunited with his birth family, things are still up in the air.
Last night, my husband was asking me what I thought about a future four year old Adam finally adopted, finally undergoing circumcision in preparation for a Jewish conversion. Wouldn't that be traumatic? he asked. I told him that no, Adam would be under anesthesia and probably wouldn't remember anything and anyway, I explained, I'm sure a decision will be made one way or another much sooner than that.
But my husband's fear comes not from the procedure itself, but the current fear of the unknown - what will happen with Adam? I think that my husband and I were much better with this emotionally when it looked like it really could go either way, or when it looked for a while like Adam might go back to biological family. But now it looks like he'll be staying with us. It looks like he will become available for adoption... but no official decision has been made.
I think as much as we may not look forward to putting an older child through a ritual circumcision, I think we are both deep down looking for some finality on Adam's case.
If and when the time comes, we will find a Mohel - a person trained both medically and in Jewish law to perform circumcisions - who specializes in older children.
And hopefully by then I will have found a good way to explain what we are doing to Anna.