Dad writes about saving - then losing - foster triplets

Brian (left) and Kevin Fisher-Paulson (right) and adopted sons Zane and Aidan gather at the kitchen table in their S.F. home. Brian (left) and Kevin Fisher-Paulson (right) and adopted sons Zane and Aidan gather at the kitchen table in their S.F. home. Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Susana Bates, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Dad writes about saving - then losing - foster triplets 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The story starts in July 1999, when Kevin Paulson and his future husband, Brian Fisher, were having dinner at Yet Wah in San Francisco's Diamond Heights neighborhood. Glasses of cheap blush wine were raised to Paulson, whose 41st birthday was the next day.

At the end of the meal, Paulson picked up the cookie pointing his way and read the fortune: "Your children respect your wisdom." It was something he had mulled over and silently debated, something that tugged at him with increasingly frequency.

"Brian, I want to have children," he blurted. "I think I'm meant to."

It was an acknowledgment that changed their lives, sending the two on a journey of love and loss, and turning the formerly "witty gay couple with time for cocktails" into "two sleep-deprived middle-aged men" parenting triplets. It also was a journey that exposed the blessings and risks of being foster parents, and the added hardship that the two say they faced because they are gay.

"There are so many children who are lost angels, who need someone to care for them," said Fisher, who has written a book about the experience, called "A Song for Lost Angels: How Daddy and Papa Fought to Save Their Family."

Fisher added, "This is a song of hope, and it's a song of mourning."

Two years after filling out the massive amounts of paperwork needed for foster parenting and adoption, and moving into a cottage in the Crocker-Amazon neighborhood that would be suitable to raise kids, the men got a call. On April 1, 2003, the Fisher-Paulsons - who had become domestic partners in 1991 - were told there were three week-old babies who needed a home.

They were triplets born prematurely, at 32 weeks. None weighed more than 5 pounds. All were hypertonic and medically at risk. One of the babies was born with a punctured intestine and was undergoing surgery for repair of a heart valve.

The Fisher-Paulsons, who married in 2008, had a history of rescuing stray dogs and people. They had nursed friends dying from AIDS, and helped others detoxing from drugs. When they had moved from New York to California, they had two adult Pekingese dogs and six puppies in a rented truck. Along the way, they found homes for all of the puppies.

Within three hours of getting the call from a foster care agency in Oakland (after registering with and being vetted by Alameda County Social Services), the couple said yes. They would take two babies home, with the idea of fostering them toward adoption. The third baby would undergo heart surgery, and doctors said they weren't sure he would make it.

A crash course

The two men - Paulson is a captain in the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, and Fisher is a dancer and dance teacher - had no idea how to care for a newborn, let alone two newborns. They took a crash course in parenting, learning from relatives, neighbors, colleagues and kind nurses. They named the children Vivienne, Joshua and Kyle. Fisher would be called "Papa" and Paulson would get "Daddy."

Kevin Fisher-Paulson writes in his new book, to be released this month: "When we got home, we started fashioning new routines. Our dancer and cop friends had little useful advice, but we became the darling of the neighbors. After a week of not sleeping, Papa and I get into a routine of baby care: feed the baby, burp the baby, change the baby, put the baby to bed, wash baby's clothes, rinse out baby's bottle, and make more formula, just about in time to start feeding the baby. Oh, and that process was in duplicate, with a third kid in the hospital across the bay. I often found that I was still in my bathrobe at three o'clock in the afternoon."

Slowly, the two children at home grew stronger. Fisher and Paulson took turns visiting Kyle in the hospital every day, sitting next to him and singing songs. By June, Kyle started feeding on a bottle and was healthy enough to leave the hospital - once the dads learned how to change an ileostomy bag, the pouch that collects the waste.

The men had been told from the beginning that the triplets' birth mother was a schizophrenic drug addict who had walked out on them in the hospital. One social worker with the Alameda County Department of Social Services told the men that it was "very unlikely" that either the birth mother or the birth grandmother would ever regain custody. On occasion, the Fisher-Paulsons would meet with the birth mother and grandmother. At one such meeting, the birth mother brought slushies for the kids when they were still on formula, and wanted to know when they would start drinking soda.

Months went by, and the children began to hit developmental milestones, including turning over and getting their first teeth. The dads got used to going without sleep, and taking care of the kids' daily medical needs. Just before the triplets' first birthday, a close family friend told the men: "The miracle is not that the babies have changed. It's that you have. You and Brian. A year ago, your biggest worry was what appetizers to make for the Oscar party, and now you're getting hernias repaired and intestines sewn together, and you don't even blink."

Push for 'reunification'

But soon, the men learned they had a new social worker - their 11th. Theirs was her very first case, and she stated up front that she was going to push for "reunification" with the babies and their birth mother. Paulson said the social worker told them: "Surely you know the kids would be more loved with their birth mother."

Paulson asked incredulously, "Have you read the notes on this case?"

"Oh, yes," the woman reportedly replied. "But I think they are exaggerating the schizophrenia. Who would have had sex with her if she was that crazy? Besides, the love of two men can never replace the love of a woman. A woman knows that kind of thing."

(The Alameda County Department of Social Services would not comment on this case.)

Eventually, reunification services stepped in, and a court date was set. The men hired an attorney and said they would spend their life savings. Paulson, a practicing Catholic, started prayer circles and novenas across the country.

But in March 2004, they lost. The children were to be reunited with their birth mother and birth grandmother, even though the mother had not met the requirements of the court.

"Genetics trumps all," Kevin Fisher-Paulson said.

In his book, he writes about the afternoon they were asked to hand over the babies they had nursed back to life - and fallen in love with. The social worker arrived at the door and kept the engine running.

Fisher-Paulson wrote of the tear-filled afternoon: "There would never again be another session of drinking formula in the rocking chair near the fireplace. Never again would the two of us sit in the dark at three in the morning, singing 'Gilligan's' theme."

Another try

Nearly 10 years have passed since the social worker drove away, after announcing, "Now they will have a real mother to watch over them." After a short period of mourning, the Fisher-Paulsons agreed that they would try again with foster care.

"I said, 'We can't give up,' " Kevin Fisher-Paulson recalled. In June 2004, they took in a baby named Zane, who was born crack-addicted. Two years later, they agreed to foster a baby named Aidan, born addicted to methamphetamines. Zane is now 10 and Aidan is 8, and they have both been adopted by the Fisher-Paulsons.

The triplets were eventually taken away from their birth mother and grandmother and placed in foster care or a group home in Fresno.

Kevin Fisher-Paulson said they were never notified to take the triplets back. "We fought the system, and challenged the system." He vowed, "Eight years from now, on March 12, 2021, the triplets will turn 21. I'm going to hire a private detective and find out what I can about them. I want to send them a letter to let them know how much they were loved - and are still loved."

Fisher-Paulson added, "I have now worked in the jails for 20 years. The biggest reason why people go to jail is they have a broken connection to their family. What I tell people about fostering a child or adopting is to look to us as a story of caution, but ultimately a story of love and hope."