Tuesday, July 31, 2012

up. down. up.

I called the foster mom of the three kids to get an update.

We talked along time. The kids have had a rough couple of weeks. They are disobeying and the middle child (girl) is peeing in her pants way more than she should.

You know, typical foster care stuff.

Well, towards the end she told me that the adoption worker had ruled out the one Grandma officially and the 2nd Grandma never called to try to get them at all. Then she asked if they had been looking for any families to adopt them. Foster mom was told that 2 families have been found and she was under the impression that neither was us.

I hung up more disappointed than anything. I thought I would be relieved if they ended up with someone else, but that isn't how I ended up feeling.

I told my husband and he had that say look on his face - ok, but disappointed.







Then.






This morning I got a call from foster mom. She had talked to someone a little closer to the case. Yes, the Grandmas are out of the picture (I am not 100% sure it is over over, but it looks like it is over) and yes, they had found one family for the kids...

and it was us.


So, if this is correct, we are truly "next in line".


I guess we will see what happens now.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Mama.

Today my husband and I took the kids to the park. They road their bikes and I went down all the slides with Lizzy.

Most of the time she calls me "Mom", but every once in a while a "Mama" will sneak out.

I love it.

I love it when she calls me "Mama".

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Honest.

Let's be honest. If you knew what you were getting into when you first thought "Hey, maybe we should foster!" you never would have done it.

Now, I'm not talking about your beautiful kids. I am taking about the hurt that surrounds them that you never knew you would take on as your own. I'm talking about the endless worry until they were permanently in a home that you knew was safe for them.

As it turns out, I don't scare as easily as I should...and as soon as I was far enough in to know just how scared I should be I had already fallen in love with a little person (or 3) and it was too late to run away.

I think this is exactly what the reason behind most people not fostering. They are scared...maybe a tad selfish too if I am going to go ahead and lay it all out there today.

I had reasons though. Not saintly reasons, but I did want to help a child and I did want to adopt. So, I didn't let the horror stories (which are true) scare me off. I dove in and acted like none of it would happen to us.



Of course we would be one of the ones who would get to adopt our first placement.

Except we weren't.

Of course if one of our kids shouldn't go home they wouldn't.

Except they did.

Of course we would be able to protect our kids.

Except we weren't allowed to.




From what I can tell I just wasn't smart enough to NOT foster. I don't scare easily enough I suppose.

I also would do it all over again. (apparently the smartness never kicked in)

Regardless of all the horribleness the kids are still there. The system isn't just broken, it is evil and backwards. There is not much that I believe more than that. The courts have to purposefully endanger the child all over again just to prove the parent should not parent.

When will we stop giving chances to people who just barely didn't manage to kill their children.

I would love to know.

When will "the system" stop tell good foster homes we are "too attached"? If ever I wanted to punch someone in the face it would be when that comment came out of their mouth.

We were a happy little family of three. There was minimal drama in our lives. No divorce or children from other people...it sure is interesting to see what it is like to share your child with another set of parents. But, we wanted more. We wanted to "save a child" (don't worry, I have come to realize that we are not saviors).

We have gained 3 little people that are either still here or that we are getting to watch grow up.



And regardless of what I should have been scared of, well, I'm glad I wasn't.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

No.

No, no new calls.


No, no news on the sib group of three.


No, no real plans to accept any new placements.


No, we have no idea what foster care will look like in our future.


No, we don't think three kids is all the kids we will end up with.


No, we don't think adding one, two or three more would be too many.


No, I don't think I have any idea what we would be getting into.


No, I don't miss visits, caseworkers, paperwork, court dates or any of that.


No, it's not over yet.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Three.

Lizzy is so three years out itis not. Even. Funny.


Heaven help us all.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Sad.

i am sad today about all foster parents that have been wrongly accused of things while having children in their home.

i have one friend going thru it right now and one that is a story for another day.

if you think of it pray for justice for these people who are being false accused.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Hallelujah.

There is something about hearing you adopted child sing "Hallelujah" along with this song that makes you want to fall down on your face and cry out to God in thanks for what HE has done.

I could have been like so many others that said "I just couldn't do it, I couldn't give them back", but instead I said YES! I will do it, even if I get hurt in the end.


And look what God did when I did that.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Lists.

You know what I am NOT missing today?

I am NOT missing taking little ones to a visit and dreading their parents changing their diaper and then complaining about the diaper rash they have that STARTED RIGHT AFTER THEY GOT SICK FROM THE CANDY FOOD THESE PEOPLE GAVE THEM DURING THE LAST VISIT.

Yeah. Not missing that today.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mourning.

I ran across a boat load of pictures on my cell phone of the last two foster kids that left our home who we had grown very close to.

I got them on Dec. 17 a year and a half ago. They were part of a sibling group, 2 boys 2 girls. When I got the call for them I said I "would love to take the two girls" and then promptly called my husband and asked "Can I have two little girls for Christmas?"

When I went to the office to pick them up (yes, with my agency I have picked up all most all of my placements from the office, they did not bring them to me) I was a little overwhelmed. I had Lizzy with me, who had actually turned 2 years old the day I picked up these girls, and was picking up a 2 year old and a one year old.

The one year old was SO adorable and SO SO SO small. She was 15 months old and fit best in 6 mo. old clothes. When I saw her in the arms of the worker I was in shock because I was expecting a 1 year old...not a child that looked like an infant. She was swimming in the 18 mo. clothes that had been put on her. She honestly looked like she might have been a "little person" or something.

The two year old was "normal size" and acted almost ferrel. In months to come I would find that she most certainly acted like no one had ever really cared for her or tried to teach her how to act at all.

They both had very little hair and were most comfortable eating pretzels and the two year old was constantly stealing the one year old's bottle. I eventually got the two year old her own bottle because her obsession with the bottle was driving me nuts and I could see when she was sucking on her sister's bottle that she still had the tongue action of a child that took a bottle.

For a few weeks both girls had digestive issues constantly. The one year old had very very hard poop that would sometimes have white in it. I experimented with her diet and found that if I either gave her soy milk or lactose free milk her bowels finally acted normal.

The two year old had massive explosions all the time. I think she wasn't used to having much normal food to eat. She would blow out her diapers every day and it was so gross. Eventually she got used to eating more than pretzels.

The girls were with us for 5 1/2 months. The one year old was just the sweetest, funniest little thing ever and we all were in LOVE with her.

We had a harder time with the two year old. She was very wild, fought with Lizzy constantly and acted crazy 90 % of the time. We would put her in a crib to sleep and she would climb out of it a bazillion times and scream and cry when we tried to make her stay in there. She would see a toy someone else had and scream immediately for it. She was a wild one. She had the best laugh though. I can still hear it. I haven't thought about that laugh in a long time.

My favorite memory of them is the Easter we had with them. We had gone on vacation at the beginning of April and had not taken any of our foster kids with us. Because of how odd the 2 little girls' case was we didn't know if they would be there when we got back or not.

Before we left I had bought all the girls easter dresses and in my heart was sure I would get to see all my sweet little girls in their matching dresses. We went on vacation and came home to all of our (very sick) little girls.

On easter I went crazy and got them lots of toys, these kids definitely did not need any sugar. I dressed them in their adorable dresses and cute little shoes and sweaters and off to church we went. I smiled the whole time because God had told me that He was going to give me that day. I knew after that it was only a matter of time before they would leave.

The girls' case was horrible. Basically, the girls were taken from their bio mom while they were all living in a homeless shelter. Mom was on drugs. As soon as the kids were taken bio mom ran back to the state that she was originally from, not our state. That turned everything into a complicated mess. Our state wanted to turn the girls over to the other state's foster care system...but they wouldn't take them.

On June 1st the girls had a hearing THAT MY AGENCY NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT. At the hearing our state told CPS to give the al the kids back to their bio mom because they didn't want to deal with this anymore. If the other state would not take the kids into foster care it was too bad. Mom had seem the kids once or twice in those 5 1/2 months and had had the opportunity too way more than that. She even came up for a hearing and had a visit scheduled that she flaked on. Our agency sent her money for a bus ticket (yes, cash) that she never bought and never came. The agency never got their money back and there were no repercussions for this.


Anyway, on June 1st I received a phone call telling me I had 4 hours to pack up the girls and bring them to the agency because they were being returned to their bio mom...who was never even require to take a drug test. I called my husband and he came home. I had been doing laundry all week so all the girls clothes were clean. It was very easy to pack. I sent them home with TONS of clothes, diapers, toys, ect...they had come with nothing. We spent our last two hours with the girls as a family. We went out to lunch and played at the park. I dressed them in adorable dresses for the last time and we took lots of pictures.

When the time came we took them to the agency. I put them in the social worker's car who was going to drive them down to the DHS office where mom waited. My girls, especially my little one, cried and reached for me to get her out of the car and take her home with me.

Worst feeling ever.

So they left. That was about a year ago. And we have never heard or seen them since.

I was told that the bio mom had gotten a ride with some friends and their was no room for the kids stuff so out of three duffle bags filled with stuff they only took one and the diaper I had packed them. I got all the other stuff back. I threw it in the basement and couldn't look at it for months.

That was one of the worst experiences of my life. One of my worst experiences in foster care.

And, no, I'm still not over it.

Monday, July 9, 2012

little beauty.

Lizzy in our back yard getting acquainted with the new neighbors.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Snail pace.

In case I made it sound that way, it definitely isn't over for us.


It is HIGHLY unlikely that either grandma would be able to get approved to take the kids, it just draws things out longer.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Of course.

Now the other grandma wants them too.

She is on record as saying "I raised my kids, I'm not raising anyone else's" and "I could never adopt them because I could never keep them from their mother" when she was asked if she would take them when they needed a foster home two years ago.

She has seen them twice in those two years.

People are awesome.