I wrote this whole, great post using the Firefox extension "Deepest Sender" which I use for my other blog all the time...and it ate the post. I hit "post" and it just never made it here. Damn. Well, I'll just start over. It sucks to try and recreate something and it'll come out crappy if I try.
Anywho...since this blog is marginally anonymous, I'm going to use it to talk about stuff that I wouldn't necessarily want on my other blog. This time it's anger. Specifically anger towards our FD's parents.
Even more specifically, in this post, anger towards her mother.
Now, I can understand that she's had a rough life. I can theorize all the reasons that she's become who is she. I can rant about the lack of good, accessible services for people who need a hand. I can even hope that she and the father will surrender their rights rather than have them terminated, just so the baby will have the opportunity to know them before she's 18.
What I can't handle is the pre-natal drug use. I know, I know, addiction is a disease. But she's had 3 other babies who tested positive at birth and she's not raising any of them. Faced with #4, who she seemed to want to be able to keep, why not go into treatment? Why not do something, anything to save this helpless creature from the ravages of her disease?
I know it's hard. Probably harder than I can even imagine.
But you know what's hard? Raising the baby she SCREWED UP. That's HARD.
I don't think I'm a better person than she is. I just think I'm a better mother at this point.
How can I not look at that perfect little baby and not, occasionally, see who she might have been if not for the drugs, the premature birth, the 2 months in the NICU?
How will I look at her when she's 15 or 20 and tell her the full truth of her past? What will that day be like for her?
I would give anything to go back in time and give that woman the services she needed, the support she wanted, anything to get her clean.
Then Little Miss Cute could have been born full-term, without drugs in her system, without the need for the NICU...and without the need for foster parents.
And I would agree to that in a heartbeat. I would give her up in order to give her the body and mind she deserved.
Because I'm her mother.
"You know you are a foster parent when... Your heart is bigger than your brain."
Cast of Characters
We're two moms working with who have worked with the foster system and provided a loving home to each baby as he/she comes through our care. We had 9 foster babies including our FD "Niblet" (who we had for a year) who left us at the end of October 2006. She came back into care a year later and is living with relatives, hopefully permanently.
Our son, Squeak, came home to us in March 2007 (through domestic private adoption) and became ours in early April (legal finalization in June 2008).
Now we're "just moms", not foster moms. We're already planning on adopting our second child through domestic private adoption. But we'll probably convince ourselves to take up fostering again in the future. Because we're just crazy like that.
Other Foster Parents
- A DaY iN ThE LiFe...
- A Foster Mom's Journey
- A Special Family
- All Gawdess All the Time
- And Zen What
- Baggage That Goes With Mine
- Big Mama Hollers
- Buckeye Foster Mama
- cebii
- Celebrating All Families
- Dad's Highway
- Domestic Adoption Blog
- Finishing Off My Family
- Foster Adoption Blog
- Foster Care Blog
- Foster Mamas
- Fostering Pride
- Four Plus Four Equals Ten
- From 0 to 5
- Fuzzy pants make my feet dance
- Maybe I'm Psychic
- Mommadramma and the Hope Family
- My Chosen Child
- My Experiences as a Foster Parent
- My Life in a Foster Care Space Warp
- Navigating the Maze
- NDFosterMom
- one2four
- Other People's Kids
- Rambling through adoption
- Say That Again!
- Spotted Dog Turn
- Suck The Marrow
- The Good Enough Mother
- The Open Window
- Thoughts From a Foster Family
- Thoughts From a Foster Mom
- tipped uterus
- Upside-Down Adoption
- Wanting My House to be a Home
- WRAL.com Adoption Blog
- You Could Always Adopt
3 comments:
I'm so sick of hearing that addiction is a disease. She can make the choice to go into treatment and take care of her children.
Our FD was born so highly exposed to cocaine, she measured at the top of the charts so there was no way to tell how MUCH more exposed she was. She is a miracle - but my anger toward the Biomom who had 2 other children already adopted (involuntary termination) contunies to be something I must watch out for. I can't fathom doing it to one child - let alone 3 or 4.
dream mommy - I know where you're coming from, but to me calling it a disease doesn't get anyone off the hook. I believe it is a disease, but like many other diseases, you can take control of it and not let it ruin your life.
Fostermama likened it to high blood pressure. That can be genetic or "environmental" (bad eating/exercising habits, stress, etc.) but if you change your lifestyle and find the right medication, you can live out a healthy life.
Same with addictions. The desire might never go away, but if you work on finding other ways to deal with stressors, find friends who can support you, etc., etc. If you want something enough - like to be able to raise your child - then you have to choose to do these things. If it's too hard at the time, then that's a choice, as well.
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