adopting through foster care

Squeak is 4! And, how to talk to current and potential foster parents?

2011-02-09T13:14:00.003-05:00

So I just saw the comment on an old entry asking if anyone was still around to update.

Unbelievably, our little guy is four now.
He's doing great.
He's brilliant and sweet and creative. He says mind-blowing things on a regular basis. He's still kinda clingy but he's doing well socially with his peers too. He's obsessed with Toy Story. And our kiddo does obsession well! It gets boring fast. Ah well...

I came back and took a peak at this blog after a long time away because a member of my community is in the process of getting licensed through the county we worked with. I wanted to share some of my perspective, so she could be as prepared as possible for the terrible realities of the system. And possibly choose not to take her family down that road.

Another community member posted on FaceBook a few days ago a link to an article claiming (like a recent commenter did here) that counties are stealing kids for foster care because it brings money in. And then in the discussion that spurned, another article by a social worker in the foster care system who knows the iffiness of what she does for her job but thinks "better me than someone else."

The morality of being involved in the foster system in any voluntary way (meaning case workers and foster parents, rather than birth parents or children) is such a fuzzy grey area thing. I can't make heads or tails of it. And I can't judge others for which side of the line they land on, as long as they're seeing the line with their eyes open.

However, there's another whole level of ethical concern to consider when there are already children in the home. I would never foster through the county again now that I have a kid. The mismanagement and meanness is too risky to my family's health. Would I do it through a more competent private agency, which would still be subject to some of the limitations that the county has as far as getting a decent outcome for the children in its charge? Maybe... But it'd take a LOT for me to trust any agency again as far as they need to be trusted to become that deeply enmeshed in my family's life.

I have struggled so much with thinking the existing system should be shut down and that no reform is good enough, yet really wanting to see SOME competence within the system since it doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon. If there were good case-workers, more good foster parents would stick around (I personally know MANY who have been burned too many times by the incompetence and will never go back). And the kids would be so much better served. I would still think it was an unethical and wrong-headed approach to dealing with child abuse, but maybe it could stop causing quite as much harm.

So does it make sense to encourage ethical people who are good parents to be involved in foster care? Or to discourage people you value from getting themselves trampled by the foster care monster?

Not that it matters, entirely. People will make their own decisions. But I'm struggling with this right now.

I forgot the golden rule...

2010-06-08T17:09:00.003-04:00

The Golden Rule of foster care is: Never Assume.

We haven't seen Niblet in over 2 years. Last we heard, she was living with family members who we had met and liked. The assumption was that they would end up adopting her and that would be that.

I ran into Niblet's birthfather today as I was on my way home from work. I was very friendly, he was very friendly, like two old friends. When, really, I'd like to rip his head off just for the things I *know* about that he's done or allowed to be done to Niblet.

I asked if she is in pre-K or K, and he said pre-K (she turned 5 last month). I asked where she was, meaning which school (yes, I was fishing, but whatever), and he thought I meant where was she living and he said "With Mary on Main St." (names and locations changed to protect...someone...). Main St is the street we live off of. It's not very long. Which means that Niblet, my baby girl, is living right near me and probably at the public school we walk past all the time.

I don't even know what to do with this information. Except that now I desperately want to find this "Mary". And I'm trying very, very hard not to think about why she isn't living with her family and why she's in foster care again.

The father said he was scheduled to see Niblet next week and would tell her he ran into me. I wonder if he will, and I am really, really curious if she remembers me/us. I don't even know what I would do if I saw her again.

Survey Results

2009-10-19T11:02:00.002-04:00

Responses keep coming in. It's interesting to know that this is floating around out there on the internet still, from over a year ago when I first posted it.

There's no one clear answer (shocking, right) but there's some interesting tidbits to report, as I approach 100 respondents.

First, almost all of the respondents were current or former foster parents, with 8 foster care professionals and 1 former foster child.

60% say that foster care slightly or significantly reduces the liklihood of physical harm to the child.

56% say it slightly or significantly increases the liklihood of emotional harm to the child (18% netural, only 26% say it reduces liklihood of emotional harm).

Divided across the board on whether it increases or decreases the stability of the child's life or of child's healthy attachments.

-

The two biggest weaknesses of the system were reported to be:
Good flow of information among birth parents, case workers, and foster parents
and
Retention of good case workers

The two biggest strengths were reported as:
Children receive necessary therapeutic services while in foster care
and
Birth parents treated with respect

Of the items listed as possible weaknesses or strengths within a given foster system, five were clearly rated as weaknesses and two as successes (others were ties).

---

When asked how they would change the foster system, here's how the options given are ranked after all the current votes:
1- Clearly defined standards for birth families to meet in order for child to be returned
2 - Enforcement of Federal ASFA (Adoption and Safe Families Act) rules for permanency
3 - Increased communication between case workers and foster parents
4 - Follow-up supervision and services for families after reunification
5 - Law Guardians/Guardians Ad Litem fulfill their duties as child's advocate
6 - All case workers in the foster care system required to receive MAPP training
7 - Family Court judges required to receive MAPP training
8 - Better pay for foster care professionals

The most common suggestion under "other" was to increase/improve services offered to families to prevent removal in the first place.
(I should've thought of that! :)

---

So, dear readers, if any of you do remain on this neglected little blog, what do you think I should do with these stats and the comments people have left?
Should I try to do more publicity and get more responses?
Should I try to get a more public venue to report this?

There are about 25 people willing to talk about their experiences publicly, too.

I was just reading a bit on Pound Pup Legacy http://poundpuplegacy.org/ which I had never encountered before, and there's a desire there to get better media coverage for the disaster that is the Child Welfare System. Which is my goal as well, in the hopes that media coverage leads to improvements (though with such beaurocratic agencies, it's far from a sure thing).

I am reminded of this because Dawn's blog (This Woman's Work http://www.thiswomanswork.com/) is up for a contest for "Best Adoption Blog" and it really IS one of the best. Talks about adoption without hiding from reality and making things pretty, with deep analysis and willingness to learn. And is written well. So I was poking around there, though I don't keep current with it. And was reminded of the ridiculousness that is the foster system and my desire to do "something" about it, though I don't know what that something is.

I do have a friend who's a statistician and would probably rip holes in my methods of surveying, but could also help me figure out the best way to present my results.

Ok... what do you think? Interesting results at all? Are you surprised by them? Do you have any additional burning questions for future potential survey takers? Would you re-post the survey link on your blog or facebook or whatever if you have a community of foster parents/case-workers/kids/etc who read it? Should I just let it go?

Thanks!
Hope things are going as well as they can in all your corners of the universe.

Will Mother's Day always be bittersweet?

2009-05-20T21:46:00.002-04:00

The first Mother's Day that we had Squeak, we had Niblet visiting with us, as well. The 4 of us galavanted around town and had a great time. It's a time I think about when I imagine what it would have been like if she'd come back to us.

Niblet's 4th birthday was recently. I can't imagine what she must be like now. I hope she's talking up a storm. We never really heard her talk. She had a few words by the time she left us at 18 months old, and a couple more a year later, but we never heard her say sentences or really express any feelings or anything. Although she was a wonderful little person, we lost contact with her before she came into her personhood. I hope she has it now. As far as we know, she's still with her good family members and I hope they've TPRed her parents by now. She could be adopted and have a mother, father and 2 older, doting, brothers. That would be great.

But still, I mourn. She is my daughter. As much as her birthmother (even more, some would argue), I am her mother. I don't know if I wish for her to remember us, or for her family to tell her about her time in foster care, but even if she never knows, I know we are a part of who she is and I will always miss her with each passing year.

A while ago, I happened to catch sight of Niblet's birthparents waiting for a bus. Her mother was, as far as I could tell from my drive-by view, very pregnant. I have no idea if I was right, or what happened to that baby. It drove home how much is still uncertain for Niblet and how many children there are out there who are in danger or living in horrible situations. At the time I didn't know whether to hope that the baby was born addicted and taken away then, or to hope that the parents were getting help and managing to keep things together for the little one. This time. That second option doesn't stick with me very long. Because the thing about good parenting is that you have to do it forever. And I don't trust those people with a child. At. All. I'm left with the hope that the kid will get hurt like Niblet did - enough for a removal, but not enough to cause permanent damage (whatever that means).

I guess my thoughts are just all over the place. Even though we're not doing fostercare anymore, and at this point we're considering not even adopting again at all, (since Squeak is awesome enough!), I wanted to reach out there and let you guys that, at least at Chez FosterMoms, fostering is still taking a toll.

I just hope that my little girl is enjoying life to the fullest and that Mother's Day and her birthday fill her only with feelings of love and joy.

Take my survey?

2008-08-16T20:29:00.002-04:00

FosterMommy and I were recently asked by some friends to talk to other friends of theirs who were going through a similar foster care hell to what we experienced with Niblet. We did, and we hit it off great and we wish them tons of healing and strength as they go through the worst of losing their little boy. I also talked a bit with the mom about foster care reform and activism.

Foster care is such a broken system. My personal strong opinion is that it should be abolished completely, 100%, and all the money and resources that go toward CPS type services should instead go toward poverty-alleviation measures. I'm 1000% sure that it would keep kids safer, and it would obviously keep families together, and help adults and communities as well.

Anyway, that's not about to happen. But, I'm not going to spend all my energy pushing for foster care reform. Still, I'd like to do something.

As a foster parent, I wished for a national organization for foster parents. Mutual support, referrals for local lawyers, a blog roll, ASFA information, whatever. I'd like to try to create this, starting with a piece aimed at foster care system improvements. Since foster care is regulated at federal, state and local levels, and done differently in every area, it's complicated. But I made this simple short survey focusing on foster care reform and I'd like to use it to get an idea if what I think are the general big problems are the same things others see, and if not then what are.

If you're a foster parent who thinks the system needs to change, would you take it? And send your own blog readers over here to take it, too?

Click Here to take survey

Thanks all!!

Sorry for the crappy sentence structure here - I'm tired.

Family Court is good for something afterall!

2008-06-26T13:52:00.002-04:00

Squeak's adoption is final!

For some families, this is a big event, but we weren't all that excited by it. We feel that Squeak has been ours since the 30-day-wait was over, last April. Since then, there has been no doubt who he is and who we are to him.

The weird part was going into the Family Court. The same court we've been to with Niblet. The same court that screwed her over numerous times. The same court that, hopefully, will make it as right as can be and leave her with her aunt and uncle and cousins. I imagined, eons ago, that we'd be in that court some day finalizing Niblet's adoption.

Fortunately, we were in front of the 3rd judge, the one we've never met, so it was easy to focus on the present. We met our lawyer there (for the first time) and she gave told us what to expect, and then all 4 of us went into the courtroom. There was nobody else there, just us and the judge and the court reporter. I think I expected a county representative, for some reason! The judge asked verified that we all were who we said we were, said hi to Squeak, and then "made it so". It took about 62 seconds. No biggie. We hadn't brought a camera (because we didn't really care about memorializing the day), but the lawyer apparently did, so we posed with the judge for a picture.

The exciting part came after we left the courtroom. The lawyer was packing up and said the new birth certificate should arrive between 6 week and 6 months and to let her know if it didn't. fostermama asked if, by any chance, there was a way to get a copy of his original (real!) birth certificate. She said "well, if I have it, I'll give you a copy" and then realized that she probably had it on her, if she had it at all. After shuffling through our file, she pulled out an official birth certificate, told us to wait a minute, and went to make a copy.

And that was that. The paper that we aren't supposed to have, the paper that is no longer official (because, officially, fostermama and I "gave birth" to Squeak - um, there are so many levels on which that's impossible), is now in our possession, laminated and ready to go in our safe deposit box.

Although we knew Squeak's birth name and his mom's name, we now have his time of birth (estimated, I'm guessing, as he was born at home and then transported to the hospital), and his mom's address at the time of his birth.

We still send pictures, etc., through the agency, and his mom didn't want any contact with us, but it's still interesting to have her address. It might come in handy when Squeak is older. At the very least, we can visit the address and show him the neighborhood where he was born.

Anyway, we already received the adoption certificate in the mail, and we're planning on keeping copies of it with us, in case we ever need to prove to someone that we are a family. But anyone who sees us can tell. Just one look at Squeak's little face when he's running towards us is enough for most people.

"How long? How long must we sing this song?"

2008-05-09T11:49:00.004-04:00

I can't imagine why I have this U2 song stuck in my head...

Niblet's birthday is coming up. She is going to be 3 years old and she still doesn't have a permanent home. Never has. It makes me so angry and so very sad. The county had a choice. They could have kept her where she was, with us, where she had been for as long as she could remember and where she was safe and loved. Instead, chose limbo. To send her to her very old father who maybe-kinda-sorta-might be able to handle an energetic 18 month old and, ya know, see how that goes. Well, it didn't go very well. And now she's with a family who loves her and cares for her and keeps her safe...and they're still allowing the father to "work his plan" and try and get her back. As far as we know.

I thought I might run into Niblet's father today, because I do occasionally. fostermama and Squeak and I went to the store this morning and got her a birthday card, slipped our phone number in it, and a picture for her family from her 1st birthday. I was hoping to give it to him and ask him to pass it along to her. No guarantee that he'd do it, but if he did, then at least they'd have our phone number. Not that I really think they'd use it, but whatever. I want them to know how much we miss her, but it's impossible to convey. Why should they care, even if they did understand? As far as I know, they could be in the process of losing her back to her father. We're not their family or their friends. All we are is a reminder that the system sucks and that they could lose her. Would I want to be in contact with us if I were them? I don't know. I'd do it for Niblet's sake, but as far as we know, the caseworkers have actively told them not to talk to us.

As I read Baggage's description of the Federal laws and how her county follows them pretty well, I became overwhelmed with sadness for the thousands of kids who live in counties, like ours, that don't give a crap. If Niblet had simply been born in a different county, she would very likely have a permanent family and not be in need of multiple therapies each week. It makes me afraid to continue living in this city that, otherwise, I love. It boggles my mind.

I hope we can find a way to keep up on Niblet's case. We made a promise to do something if her father manages to get her back, and I need to be able to make good on that promise.

This Mother's Day, send a little mothering energy Niblet's way. She needs a permanent, safe, loving mother to raise her into the wonderful, vivacious woman I know she will be. In exchange, I'll send you a little bit of that Niblet Hug I'm keeping in my heart.

The Last Time

2008-05-09T11:22:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I ran into them. I haven't posted about it because I'm having a hard time processing it. Squeak and I were headed to the local playground and when we got there, I saw Niblet's aunt and uncle at a picnic table. I almost fainted, the physical impact of seeing them was that strong. I immediately scanned for Niblet and there she was. Her cousin was blowing bubbles for her and she was watching them and batting at them. The aunt and uncle saw me and I said hi. Her aunt said "Niblet, look who's here. Go say hi."

And Niblet turned around and saw me and ran over. She said "hi!" and I scooped her up and she gave me a big hug. The Certified Niblet Hug. With her legs wrapped around my waist and her head resting on my head. She's still so light, she barely felt heavier than Squeak. I didn't want to put her down. She didn't want to get down. But I could feel her aunt watching us and I felt it was better to put her down. I whispered in her ear that I love her and was so very glad to see her.

I put her down and asked her if she was having fun at the playground. Then I asked her aunt how they were doing, how the move went, etc. She gave friendly, but short, answers. I said that we'd tried to call them, but their phone wasn't working. She said it still hasn't been turned on and it's been a while. I asked if they had our number, she said they'd lost it, but I didn't have any paper (I actually did, but I forgot!) and they didn't make any move to put it in their cell (which was sitting on the table) or otherwise seem to care about it. It was possibly the most uncomfortable conversation I've ever had. I didn't even ask how Niblet's therapies were going or how the case was going or anything. I did compliment Niblet on her hair, and asked her aunt if she'd done it, which she had. I asked Niblet if she sat still while she got her hair done and her aunt said "say 'yes', Niblet." and Niblet said yes.

Oh, and Squeak was there, too. Niblet was very happy to see him and patted him on the head, just like she's done every time since she first met him. Her aunt was happy to see him and how big he's gotten.

I called fostermama to see if she could make it to the playground to see Niblet, but she was stuck at work. I took Squeak on the jungle gym and played around, but all the while my stomach was in my throat and I was jittery.

They started packing up to leave, so I went over to say goodbye. As they walked to their car, Niblet kept looking back. I waved each time she did, and she liked that, so she kept doing it. It felt so surreal, like a movie scene. I felt, in my heart, that it was the last time I was ever going to see her.

Nothing yet - grief continued.

2008-03-27T19:36:00.000-04:00

After trying to call Niblet's family at the phone number they said they were keeping when they moved, and getting no answer or answering machine, we decided to write them. We sent them a simple Easter card and said we hoped they were settled in at their new place and that we'd love to see Niblet soon, so please call us. We put my cell number, as our home voicemail sometimes craps out. (VoIP is cheap, and that's it's only redeeming factor.)

Even though they moved, it was within the same zip code, so even though we don't have their new address, it should get to them with very little delay. So they should have received the card by now and we haven't heard from them. Granted, it's only been a few days and they have 3 kids keeping them busy.

However, we're bracing ourselves for the possibility that they're not going to call. The real fear is that someone, the county caseworker, one of the other social workers on the case, etc., has told them not to allow us to have contact with Niblet. Or that it would be a good idea to not allow contact. If that's the case, then we have very little chance of ever seeing Niblet again. Because, really, of course they would do it. They don't know us from a hole in the wall, and they want to adopt Niblet, so of course they would do whatever the People In Charge say to do. I'd do it, too.

My next plan is to call the county case worker (the same Evil One who was Niblet's worker when we had her) and cheerfully say that we've lost touch with Niblet since they moved and would she please pass our phone number on to them. It would give her a chance to hem and haw and say whether she thinks that's a good idea - at which point I'd probably argue with her, because what do I have to lose?

Fostermama's on the fence. She's not sure she wants to pursue it. And I see her point. Niblet is in a safe family now. She doesn't need us. She would, I assume, be happy to see us, but really it's all about our need to see her.

I feel selfish, but, really, it's such a weird situation. We basically had our child taken away from us. Sure, we knew it was happening, we knew she was going back to her father, but by that point she was already ours. And we were hers. The county fucked up. They never should have returned her to her bioparents. They never should have returned her and NOT CHECKED UP ON HER. They should have left well enough alone.

And then I would have my baby girl. She would be here right now, playing in the living room, or eating dinner. I would be with her, because I wouldn't be here blogging about losing her. She is almost 3 years old and we would be working on her application to the Montessori preschool nearby. She would be adopted and we would have changed her name to the one we chose for her, the one we called her by for most of the time she was with us. We might even be thinking about getting ready to adopt a sibling for her.

Instead, she's out there somewhere living her life without me. Yes, we have Squeak. And I don't, for one second, wish I didn't have him. I love him with all my heart. However, I do wish I had her. If everything had worked out as it should have, we would have her and not him. And that would be okay. Because I wouldn't know what I was missing. This way, we do have Squeak and all the goodness that he is, but we also know what we've lost.

Sometimes, it's really the worst pain I can imagine. I can't sugarcoat it. I feel horrible crying for the baby I lost when I have my wonderful son sitting right there, being his wonderful little self, everything I ever wanted. I feel horrible thinking about a world where I didn't have him, and wishing for it. It makes me wish I'd never heard of adopting through fostercare.

Niblet: Losing touch

2008-03-16T21:19:00.002-04:00

Niblet's family moved a few weeks ago. Her aunt said they were keeping their old phone number and that we should call after they moved and we could see Niblet. We've been calling every couple of days since then, and there's been no answer. No voice mail. No answering machine. Nothing. Previously, they were without an answering machine for a while, but we very often caught them when they were home and they'd answer.

Our next step is to send a card (a "welcome to your new home" type card) to their old address and hope that they have their mail forwarded.

If that doesn't work, we're kinda SOL. We could call Niblet's caseworker and ask her to ask the aunt to call us, or send a letter through her, but that's not very likely to work, either.

Hopefully we'll get in touch, but what if we don't? I think about the last time we saw Niblet and I really don't want that to have been The Last Time. I mean, we live in a small enough city that we *could* cross paths at some point, but it's unlikely.

In related news, I found out that Niblet's "father" is seeing the domestic violence counselor at my workplace again. He was doing that when we had Niblet, as part of his case plan. He continued for a while after she was placed back with him, but had stopped. The fact that he's seeing her again suggests to me that he's trying to work his plan again. He's trying to get that poor baby girl back into his care again. He just needs someone to tell him to give it up. He's 70-fucking-years-old. She has a family who loves her and takes proper care of her. Let well enough alone.

I really need to get back in touch with Niblet. I need to hug her. And I need to stay informed about her case because, if he gets her back, there are things we need To Do.

Right now Squeak needs me, so I'll end here.

We don't need to borrow trouble, we have enough of our own.

2008-03-13T10:10:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think that it's a good thing we're not doing foster care anymore. Too much trouble. There's only so many times I can watch the system screw up a perfectly good child.

But things Chez Us have not been calm and relaxed since ending our relationship with The County. Nor has bringing home our beloved Squeak been everything we hoped for and more.

Okay, that's not really what I mean. Squeak HAS been everything we hoped for. And more. He's beautiful and loving and sweet and the best little Squeak ever. He's my boy. I love him with every fiber in my being. Definitely deeper than I loved Niblet or any of the other foster kids. (I can't say that I love him *more*, though. It's complicated.)

Squeak, however, is sick.

I mentioned his eczema in the last post and a few of you who have been down this road brought up allergies. Oh yes, eczema is a huge red flag for allergies. Squeak came to us at 6 weeks old. By 8 weeks he had a little spot of something on his cheek. Then his chin. Then they got bigger. Then they started to ooze. We tried anti-fungals, we tried soothing ointments, we tried a shitload of stuff. We eventually realized it was eczema and we tried a shitload more stuff. We went to a dermatologist, a homeopath, a naturopath. We wanted to avoid using steroids, because that just suppresses the reaction and can lead to worse problems, like asthma. If you can find it on the internet or buy it at a drug store, we tried it.

We found out about the eczema/food allergy link and went to a pediatric allergist looking for a prescription for a blood test. Because we are breastfeeding Squeak, we had already put ourselves on an elimination diet, eliminating the top-8 most likely food allergens. We got the blood test and, when it came back, it showed that Squeak is, in fact, allergic to quite a number of things.

Namely:
milk, soy, wheat, egg, peanuts, most other nuts. We were also told to stay clear of all other beans, as well. Any of these are liable to give him an anaphylactic (life-threatening) reaction. Good times.

We didn't eat meat to begin with and, although fostermama is happy to eat some chicken and fish, I have spent my whole life as a vegetarian and my body just doesn't react to meat very well. I tried, even. No good.

You may notice that this list doesn't leave room for much in the way of protein. Add to this that the test only covered a dozen or so foods. He may very well be allergic to other things not tested for. So our best option was to put ourselves on a Total Elimination Diet. Where we eat one protein (in our case, nutritional yeast), one grain, one vegetable, one fruit, one oil. For a Really Long Time. And see if his reactions (the eczema) go away or calm down.

This is what we did. When faced with a child who looked very much like a burn victim, eating 6 things for the foreseeable future didn't seem like such a bad idea.

We also started topical steroids. Squeak was just TOO uncomfortable from the constant itching and pain. We were exhausted from spending all day keeping him from scratching himself. None of us were sleeping well. We tried a couple of anti-histamines, but they didn't do much of anything. So we were out of reasonable options. Steroids and an elimination diet were IT. (Yes, we could have weaned him to a non-allergenic formula like Ne0cate, but that stuff is expensive and disgusting, so it wasn't a choice we were willing to make.)

The steroids, and two 20-minute baths per day, cleared him up very quickly. Within a month, he had picture-perfect skin. He was no longer miserable. Then we started the long road toward introducing foods and healing his body so he can, hopefully, reduce his allergies and keep his skin clear even without the steroids.

Basically, that's where we've been since the summer. After a month or so on the original diet, we started adding in foods one at a time to test for a reaction. We couldn't add a food when he had a cold (which happened pretty often this winter) and when he had a reaction (we've found allergies to a few other things that weren't tested for) we had to wait a few weeks until that cleared. Now we have about a dozen foods we can eat. We have to buy all our brown rice in 25-lb bags so we know it's not cross-contaminated with wheat. We buy gluten-free (wheat-free) rice pasta. We don't buy anything packaged until we've contacted the company and asked about their processing and packaging and if the food is ever in the same room as one of his allergens. It's a PITA.

This whole process has thrust us into the world of food allergies in a way we never expected. We took a ton of books out of the library and read the internet for hours trying to figure out how to manage his life from here on in. Whereas, when we had Niblet, we spent time researching the effects of prenatal cocaine on a child, that was something that had already happened to her. This is something that is bound to get MORE dangerous as he grows up. It's a whole new level of scary.

So, yeah, we're not likely to get back into foster care anytime soon. We have enough going on.

Squeak: Sleep and diapers

2008-03-02T14:07:00.010-05:00

In other news, the reason we've taken the coming week off is because we're TIRED. Squeak, as much as we love him, is a pain in the butt when it comes to sleeping. He's still nursing, and still waking up every 1-2 hours to nurse. All. Night. Long. And it takes him about 1 hour to fall asleep to begin with. We're not the let-them-cry-it-out kind of people, so that means one of us is in there with him while he unwinds from the day...for an hour. Naps usually take about 15-30 minutes, which isn't too bad, but could be better. He just doesn't fall back to sleep on his own. We've read the No Cry Sl33p Solution and are implimenting many of her suggestions, so it's gotten a teeny bit better, but we're still running on a full year of sleep deprivation. Which started shortly after the year of sleep dep we had with Ms. Niblet (who qualified for EI, initially, because of how poorly she slept).

And, as I'm sure you know, when you're tired, the rest of your life goes down the crapper. The house is a mess, we've both been messing up at work, we forget important things, etc. Chronic sleep dep is a torture technique for a reason, folks. It's driving me crazy, that's for sure.

This week is an attempt to catch up on those things - sleep and housework. Hopefully it will be worth it.

The one thing that makes me smile, besides Squeak himself, are my his diapers. We cloth diaper, and ever since I started researching them, it's become something of a hobby for me. I like to know what's out there, how to troubleshoot, etc. We initially got them for Niblet, which was great because we used a couple months of her diaper allotment for the investment and then ended up with free diapers! They were great for her, except for overnight, and they're great for Squeak. I ended up having to sell our original ones because Squeak was irritated by the polyester lining, and I replaced them with similar ones with cotton lining. And I spent the money getting kickass nighttime diapers for him, as well.

So, since the other day was a rare one where ALL the diapers were clean at once, I decided to take a picture. Here are my lovely pocket diapers, plus one of the night diapers and it's cover (top left). Not shown are a few night diapers and a bunch of prefolds.
You can also see Squeak's tub o' Vanicream off to the right there. We slather that on his body a few times a day to keep the eczema at bay.
And, to prove that we are, in fact, radical, commie dykes, here's a picture of our Red Diaper Baby.
I'll end with a question for all you fellow cloth users. What do you use at night? We've been using Very Baby Simply Nights with a Bummis Super Whisper Wrap cover. When that started leaking, we added a wool wrap over the whole thing. That's been working pretty well, but the diaper is still soaked in the morning. It would be nice to keep his butt a little dryer overnight. I've got a bamboo VBSN coming in the mail, so maybe that will help, but what do you all use?

Niblet: nothing new

2008-03-02T10:02:00.005-05:00

We haven't seen Niblet in over a month.

It's the longest we've ever not seen her since she was placed with us over 2 years ago. We've been busy, out of town seeing family and friends, and her new family has also been busy. Yesterday they moved to a new apartment. I'm assuming it's bigger than their last, so that's a good thing. They had 3 rambunctious kids, and 2 adults, in a very small 2 bedroom apartment (they turned the livingroom into the grown-up bedroom.) When fostermama called to see about a visit, and heard they were moving, she asked if they wanted us to take Niblet off their hands during the move. But they already had plans for her, which makes sense, but still pointed out to me that they really don't need us in her life.

They are functional, good parents. They have family and friends and resources. They haven't told us not to call them, to the contrary, but they don't need us. Now it's all about our need to continue to see Niblet. And, I guess, Niblet's need for us not to disappear into the ether. At this point, though, it wouldn't harm her to never see us again. She has a good attachment to her new family and they treat her well.

Since the last time we saw her, she started Early Intervention services again. Four times per week, her aunt said. They're not fooling around. She's getting speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy. It makes me so sad to know that, at 18 months old, she was caught up and after a year with her "parents", she is so behind that she needs more services than she'd had before. This is not from being born with drugs in her system. This is from total neglect, pure and simple. I'm excited to see her again, though, because I bet she is talking more. There's nothing I want more than to hear what Niblet has to say for herself.

Her aunt told fostermama to call back during the week and we could make a plan to see Niblet. We've taken this coming week off from work, so hopefully there will be a time soon we can see her. She's a busy girl, what with all her appointments and naps and such!

Watch this spot!

2008-02-29T10:41:00.002-05:00

I've been ruminating on a post. Nothing exciting, but it will have pictures! There really isn't much to say lately, especially on the Niblet/fostercare/etc. front, but I'll come up with something.

So, for those of you stalking Chez "FosterMoms", come back soon and this will replaced with a real post.

Why am I warning you? I have no idea. Must be the sleep deprivation of having a 13 month old who wakes up every hour (or so) all night long...

Better and worse

2007-12-23T14:58:00.000-05:00

We finally got to go visit Niblet at her aunt and uncle's house. The visit, although great, has left me reeling and I'm having a really hard time pulling it all together again.

The worse:
We got the specifics of the injuries her "parents" inflicted upon her that day. She was severely beaten. She has a diaper-area injury that still hasn't healed because she's still in diapers. Her aunt changes her uber-frequently, but the cut still opens up regularly. Based on a description of the injuries, an online friend of ours said that Niblet's mother (the one we all assume did the harm) should be sent to prison as a sex abuser and made to register when she's released. I can't say I disagree.

We also found out what poor Niblet has been enduring over the past year. There have been other bruises that we never saw. Her aunt saw them, and on one occasional called CPS, but nothing was done. She was basically starved. She weighed 18 lbs when she was in the hospital. She's 2.5 years old. She weighed exactly the same - 18 lbs - when she left us at 1.5 years old. They apparently sold her WIC checks - for drugs for the mom (and probably the dad, who knows) - and most days she was given a cup-o-ramen and that was it. This is a girl who was eating us out of house and home at 18 months old. Her mom was taking the dad's monthly check (social security?) and using it for herself.
We couldn't have known this. Almost everytime we picked her up, they were in the process of feeding her. Either shoving mac & cheese in her mouth, or she was sitting in front of the TV with a frozen dinner, or something. They must have been doing that on purpose.

And all the guilt I've felt for not calling CPS for the various little things we've seen, well, there's no point in that. Get this...the aunt said she saw hand-marks on Niblet's face, and choke marks on her neck, and she hotlined it. Called CPS about it. And NOTHING HAPPENED. WTF!? We have a foster child with random bruises on the outside of her leg, and we get pulled into a months-long ordeal...they obviously slap and choke their child and they get to keep her long enough to beat the f*ckin' crap out of her?? CPS is totally at fault for this child's injuries.

A year ago, when she left us, she was a happy, healthy, normal little girl. Now she's still the strong, smart, happy girl she was, but she has scars. She has eating/hoarding issues. She is seriously delayed in speech. She's already slated to get PT, OT and speech therapy. They can't even do psychological counseling because she's pre-verbal and we don't live anywhere fancy enough to have good shrinks who work with pre-verbal abuse survivors. Who knows what kinds of issues she's likely to have in the future?

To top it off, she now has the same case worker she had when she was with us. The one that sent her back to her father. The one who, initially, told us that we would adopt her, that she was going to convince the father to surrender, that she was going to TPR the parents. Then when the county changed it's mind - she changed her tune and never gave us the time of day from there on in. Now she's giving the same song and dance to the aunt. Granted, they have a better case against the father this time, and she might feel responsible in some way and actually give this little girl safe permanence, but I'm not holding my breath. What I do know is this - if they make motions towards sending her back to her father or mother, you're going to see this story on the evening news. That's our only recourse - shaming the county into doing the right thing - and we're going to use it.

Now the Better:
Niblet is wonderful. She is flourishing in a loving family. She was all smiles and Niblet-ness during our visit. We hadn't seen her in a long time, and not since she was hospitalized, so it was probably a little confusing for her to see us out of context and everything, but she was so happy. She sat on fostermama's lap and hugged her for a good 10 minutes, but then started playing with Squeak and let us show her how to open the presents we'd brought for her. Then she was running around, being silly, and basically being our little Niblet. It was so good to see. Her cousins are 8 and 11 years old and obviously love her. And she them. She didn't act scared around them like she did around her parents. Her aunt told us about some of her issues and how she's made sure to teach her that she can always eat as much as she wants and there's always more. She brought her to the supermarket and showed her that that's where food comes from and that they will always buy more.

She's teaching her not to be afraid. Not to hide. And helping her find her words. She'll copy a word if she's told to: "Niblet, say whale,"..."whaaale". It's cute. But she doesn't talk on her own. We're pretty sure that it's because she was trained by her parents not to express herself at all. She wasn't allowed to cry, to laugh, to be loud. So why would she have learned to speak for herself? It would have just gotten her in more trouble.

We're so thankful that Niblet is with this loving family. We are crossing all our fingers and toes, and praying to any gods we can think of, that she gets to stay there forever.

Now for the feel-good, holiday-ish part of the post:
During our visit, Niblet's aunt complained that the agency that was going to provide some christmas gifts for Niblet sent over 3 small, lame toys for her, and gave Niblet's *parents* a bunch of stuff for their new apartment - plates, towels, etc. The aunt and uncle live in a nice, but poor, part of town and have their 2 boys to shop for, as well, so while they do have some clothes and a couple of toys for her, they were feeling bad about it.
We have some clothes in her size that we were going to offer them, so we did and the aunt said they'd love them and that "every little bit helps". So we mentioned this to some family and friends who have known and loved Niblet since she came to us, and they are pulling a few toys and books out of their attics, or sending us a little cash to shop for her with, and we'll bring it all over to Niblet in the near future. It's not quite a Christmas Miracle, but I'm happy to be able to show Niblet and her new family just how large and extended their "Village" really is.

Niblet is safe and with family

2007-12-04T19:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at court, a couple of people surprised us by doing their jobs.

The private agency social worker who was responsible for Niblet's parents' counseling last year has shown up and gotten involved, and she ironed out the differences between Dad and Aunt (aka Godmother) so that Dad would support Niblet going to Aunt. So it was even more clear, and that's what happened.

Also, the County lawyer brought up a subpoena for Niblet's medical records from when she was hospitalized 2 weeks ago, and a restraining order against each of her parents. For her father, so that his visits will be supervised until after his abuse trial. For her mother, so that she cannot see her at all until she's appeared in court.

It was a relief and a disappointment to know that we wouldn't be trying to get Niblet placed with us. We had changed our minds 2 nights before (in the middle of the night) and decided we would take her even temporarily. But we didn't want to deal with that if it wasn't necessary, and it's better that it's not.

We're hoping that Aunt will let us see her, and that maybe eventually Dad will surrender his parental rights to Aunt. Or at least let Niblet stay there indefinitely. With kinship foster care, the parent doesn't actually have to lose their rights at any point, it can just go on forever. At least that's my understanding.

So yay for Niblet. At least as yay as anything is for a kid tied up in the foster system.
We do feel like she's lucky. She has us, she has this social worker who was her father's counselor who clearly cares even if she doesn't agree with us about everything, and she has this aunt and uncle who are willing to take her in who seem like really good people.

It's not over yet, because her father could get her back and neglect her some more, or her maternal grandmother could somehow prevail in court and get her moved to her maternal aunt's custody in a far-away city (her birth siblings live there, but this aunt has turned Niblet down before and has only met her a few brief times). Those don't seem like the most likely outcomes, though, which is nice.

We are anxious to give Niblet hugs of our own, but we are happy to know she is getting all hugged up by people she knows and loves.

Being a parent means feeling guilty

2007-11-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

Nobody related to Niblet's case is doing their job properly (if at all). fostermama and I have been going above and beyond, because we love Niblet, and it's just not enough. We need the case worker and the legal guardian and the judge and the father's lawyer and the father's social worker to all do their jobs. Or at least ONE of them. And they're not. And, yet, I feel guilty. Yes, I know I shouldn't, but I do. So there's no point in trying to convince me out of it.

See, we've decided not to fight for Niblet to be placed with us for foster care. There was court today and nothing happened. The judge "decided" that she should remain in foster care, but didn't place her with the family members who want her, nor with us, nor make any decisions about her long-term plan. He basically just continued the case until next week. Lovely. So Niblet is still with the new foster parents. I'm sure she's happy there, because she's a happy, loving, friendly girl, but it's not like being with family or people you think of as family (like us). Eventually she's going to wonder what happened to everyone else.

What we're hoping for is that she get placed with her family members next week. We met them and they seem like sincere, good people. They want the best for Niblet and cried at the end of court when they realized they couldn't take her home today. We were going to call the caseworker's supervisor and whatnot and try and convince them to place her with us until she can go with her family, but then decided against it.

The thing is, this is driving us crazy. What happened to her, what's continuing to happen to her, the fact that the county will probably work for "reunification"...again...and that Niblet will probably languish in foster care for a long time again and then probably go back to her father. We just can't deal with that. Not with Squeak and ourselves to take care of. The stress of it the first time around was not-quite-bearable.

We're not totally giving up. We're going to call Niblet's father and talk to him. Ask him what he wants and, if it seems like he might be willing to surrender Niblet to us (he has some sort of beef with the other family members and has said he doesn't want them to have her), then we'll say whatever we have to (including some little white lies, if necessary) to make that easy for him. But he'll have to do it FAST, because we're just NOT doing temporary foster care anymore. If he wants to hurt Niblet by making her get attached to people over a long period of time and then ripping her away from them, again, I'm not going to be party to it. And we don't have any power to make sure it doesn't happen that way, no matter how much we wish we did.

Then, if her father doesn't want to surrender her, we're also going to talk to the legal guardian and make sure he understands why placing her with her family members is the right decision. We don't want her to stay with these unknown foster parents, really. The legal guardian is relatively useless, but apparently if we feed him information to help him look good, he might actually use it.

On the plus side, if her family members do get her (temporarily or permanently), they've already said we're very welcome to visit with her. So she won't lose us and we won't lose her. It really would be the best possible outcome for this little girl.

There's no end to the way the system can hurt a child

2007-11-20T20:02:00.000-05:00

She's not with us. They sent her to another foster home.

And they won't tell us why.

They verified that we are NOT being investigated at all regarding the injuries, so that's a huge relief, but they won't tell us why they "changed their minds" and sent her to be with strangers when she should be with us.

We are hurting for her so much that I can't even begin to explain.

Our only consolation is that she is safe. That is huge. She hasn't been safe for a year, apparently, and now she is.

She just should be safe with us. And she's not.

If this doesn't get resolved by next week, we're going to the media. The system is so f*cked up, there needs to be huge changes. It's not just Niblet.

Stay tuned.

Update

2007-11-19T18:26:00.000-05:00

She's definitely coming into care when she gets out of the hospital tomorrow. And the homefinder director (who used to be our social worker before she got promoted to head the unit) has made it so we're back in the system and we will be the ones getting her.

So she'll be coming to us tomorrow. Until at least early next week (with the holiday and all, they don't know when the court hearing will happen).

She is hurt. Her eye is swollen shut and has a hematoma ("she hit her face on a radiator") and she has extensive bruising and chafing all over her thighs and crotch ("they have no explanation for that"). I can't even begin to try and process that.

This is EXACTLY what we didn't want to happen - for her to go home all happy and "fixed", and then come back to us later on totally broken. We thought she was going back to a safe home. We weren't worried for her in that way. We knew her life wouldn't be the same as if she had stayed with us, but it would be a good life.

I feel like we failed her. We should have fought harder for her. I should have known that, if her parents were rough and yelled and her while we were there picking her up or dropping her off, then they must be even worse when we're not there.

But, of course, it's not my fault. It's theirs. I just want to turn back time. I want to give this little Niblet another go at the past year.

I don't want her back. It wouldn't be the best thing for our family - fostermama, Squeak and myself. But it *would* be the best thing for Niblet, so we'll do it if that's what it comes to. Her aunt & uncle have said they want her, so she may very well go to them if they check out. I'm feeling not-so-generous about that, as I'm sure they know more about what was going on with her than we do, but if they really want her and they're appropriate, then so be it. But if we get any inkling that they're NOT good for her, we're lawyering up. We'll fight for her. She deserves it.

Niblet back in care?

2007-11-19T12:27:00.000-05:00

I just got a call on my cell from CPS. They want to talk to us because Niblet is in the hospital. Something happened on Friday, I don't know what, and she's been in the hospital since then.

Unfortunately, sort of, we saw her on Friday afternoon for a few hours. So, of course, they have to talk to us and see if we're part of the investigation or not. The CPS worker and a detective will be by our house this afternoon to talk to us. Mostly about Niblet's father, she said, but I know (gee, how do I know...?) that they'll be looking to see if we're in the wrong in any way.

She said Niblet will be released tomorrow, and may be put back into foster care. I made it clear that we want to take her if that happens, and she said that a few people have stepped up and that we'd have to go to court and talk with the judge.

Anyway, I'll keep you updated. Keep little Niblet in your prayers.

I'm shaking with the news. I don't know what to do or what will happen.

I wish she could talk

2007-11-06T11:35:00.000-05:00

I wish we could ask Niblet what she wants, how she feels. I know that, even if she were talking like an average 2.5 year old, she wouldn't be capable of that kind of conversation. But I wish it anyway.

Lately, we've been not as anxious to see Niblet. We've skipped many weekends. Sometimes it's been because she's with other relatives and her parents forgot to have her back in time for us to pick her up (which is great, in that she's getting to be with various family), and sometimes it's just because we're too busy to see her. Or we really need to relax or get things done.
Being with Niblet is great, but it takes a lot of work.

It's becoming additionally hard as Squeak is getting older and more possessive. It's actually kind of cute. The last time she was over, Niblet and Squeak literally fought over EVERYTHING. Toys, our laps, the same square of rug, anything. And Squeak's not really old enough to win these battles, but he sure does try.

So to avoid possessiveness, and keep our sanity a little bit, we like to spend most of our time out of the house. Which, with the colder weather, is becoming harder. Especially since Niblet isn't really old enough to enjoy things like museums or other indoor kids' stuff.

Really, the main problem is our continued lack-of-relationship with her parents. It's getting easier to plan visits, but anything else - like talking about what new words she has, what things she likes to do, or how they keep her from throwing everything - is nearly impossible. So we end up with a 2.5 year old who we basically don't know anything about. Which is a hard thing to do, regardless of the situation.

From Niblet's point of view, as far as I can tell, she still adores coming to visit us. She pulls out every ASL sign we ever taught her (more, please, apple, food, light). She loves visiting with our friends. We'll usually give her a nap by laying down on our bed with her, and she just closes her eyes and goes to sleep. It's miraculous, considering our year-long sleep deprivation when we had her.

She still gets emotional when we drop her off, though. And often will start tearing up when we go to pick her up, as well. But everything is all-or-nothing with Little Miss Niblet, and I try to talk to her about her feelings, as best I can, so that's all there is to do.

I guess the thing I'm skirting around, is that it seems like it might be easier to stop seeing her. I don't think I'll ever be able to actually make that decision and follow through on it, but it might actually be the best thing. I don't know...

Our biggest goal at this point, is to make sure she gets into HeadStart as soon as possible. She'll be 3 in the Spring, so she can either start then, or in the Fall, I'm not sure how it works. Her parents just got an apartment "out of the ghetto" (as they put it) by a few blocks, but I'm sure it's still near a HeadStart program. If they're still here when it's registration time, we're going to bring them the information and forms and ask if they need any help getting her set up in a program. I think that's the best thing we can do for Niblet. So, I guess, in order to do that, we have to stay in her life at least until then.

It's just such a weird situation. And, to top it all off, I can't stop myself from occasionally daydreaming about the "what ifs". I would take her back in a heartbeat and really want to stop hoping for that, but I can't yet. It actually annoys me, but there it is.

Alright, that's it for now. I'd like to keep up on posting here, but I don't know what to write about. I almost signed up for NaBloPoMo, but it seemed like too much. So if you guys have any questions or would like elaborations on anything, please speak up. I know I have one request out there for an adoptive breastfeeding post, and I'll get on that, but what else?

I'll be a killjoy...

2007-09-09T21:59:00.000-04:00

As awesome and relieving as it is to be cleared, it feels somewhat hollow as well.

We still can not do foster care again, because we'd risk the same thing happening. I'm really sad about that!

And we know this is happening to lots of other foster parents in our area and around the country. Our placement worker (the one useful person at the county) said it's happening a lot right now. Craziness! As I said to her, this is one sure way to get rid of all good foster parents.

Someone posted on a listserv I'm on about how Alameda, CA has this approach to foster care that really prioritizes the kids' rights (silly things like permanency and safety), and I am so jealous! I wish I felt I had some power to create change here.

Plus, the huge (for us) amount of money we spent on this is a real sore spot. We really need that money, especially with all Squeak's medical issues.

The caseworker who screwed us is spending her days harrassing other bio parents and foster parents around the county, with her inept supervisor smiling and nodding and being clueless. I'm sure there are no repercussions for her for how she handled this. Nor any training on how to do it better in the future.

It's just SO upsetting.

I started out doing foster care after MAPP class feeling really good about the system here and thinking it worked as well as it could given the crazy situations it handles. Oy, was I wearing some rose colored glasses! If the caseworkers and their supervisors were to actually **receive MAPP training**, maybe things would be better. But they don't. They have no idea how it's even *supposed* to work, much less how to get it there.

UGH.

I wish I could be a foster parent. I wish I could recommend it to my friends and acquaintances who show interest. I wish my life hadn't had this cloud hanging over it for *half a year*, and I wish I hadn't spent money I don't have on getting cleared.

I really appreciate everyone's enthusiasm about us getting cleared. It's nice knowing we've got cheerleaders. :) I just can't quite get behind the "hooray"s. :(

Unfounded!!!

2007-09-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

We came home tonight to find 2 very thin envelopes from the state office of children & family services. I ripped one open immediately and scanned it to find the words "As a result of this review it is our decision to legally seal the report. Therefore, in accordance with the law, the report has been amended to show it is unfounded..."

WOOHOO!!!

We are NOT child abusers, and now the records show that!
It is such a f'ing relief. I don't honestly know how much of my psyche has been muddled up with this over the past 6-7 months. I suspect I will, eventually, feel so much more relaxed.

So much of our future plans rided on whether we were cleared or not, and now we are free to do whatever we want.

I can't believe that we had to go through this, but at least it's over and it won't rear it's ugly head ever again.

SNAFU is just our status quo

2007-08-31T20:31:00.000-04:00

What's been going on Chez Fostermoms, you ask? Everything and nothing.

First, the Niblet situation:
Niblet's not going anywhere any time soon. The last time we picked her up, fostermama asked Niblet's mom about the whole moving-out-of-state thing. Her mom said that her dad just got approved for Section 8 and there's a rule that you can't transfer your Section 8 out of state until you've been living in your current state for one year. So he can't move for one year. So we have Niblet for at least one more year. As we know, a lot can happen in a year, so whatever. We're just enjoying her in the moment. We've actually skipped a week here and there because there's been a lot of other stuff going on with us and it's pretty all-encompassing to have her around. We don't really get anything else done. Hopefully, though, we'll take her for an afternoon/evening over the long weekend.

Niblet herself is still CUTE. She's enormous, in my eyes. Still only about 26 pounds soaking wet, size 3 diapers fit her very well, but she's tall and mature-looking. She's slowing communicating more, but she still doesn't initiate words. She'll copy back words and she uses ASL signs with us that we've taught her, and she babbles and is a huge fan of NO!, but no real "talking" as I would define it. She's behind in that regard, but I suspect she'll eventually catch up. And she UNDERSTANDS everything, no doubt about that.

In SqueakLand: Squeak is now 7 months old, sitting like an uber-pro, and thinking about becoming mobile. He launches himself at the world and is really good and getting stuff that we think are out of his reach. Silly moms!
We found out recently that he has many food allergies, as well as allergies to our cats. This has created a lot of problems to be solved in our lives. Our cats are our "first children". We're "those crazy cat people", truly. We're devoted to our fuzzies. But between them and our kid, well, there's no contest. They're going to live with a family member, for which we're eternally grateful. The idea of having them go to a stranger and possibly never seeing them again was killing me.

Otherwise, we're learning to live with a baby who lives to put everything in his mouth and who needs, for the safety of his life, to be kept away from anything with food on it. (Okay, not all food, just anything that might have any possible traces of: milk, egg, peanut, other nuts, wheat and soy - see that's not everything, right?) It's complicated, especially since most of our friends have toddler (which, by definition, are constantly sticky with food).

Because we're breastfeeding him, we've cut all of these things out of our diet and are on a crazy elimination diet so we can test everything else slowly and make sure he doesn't react to anything else. You can only test for a few things in an infant blood test, because you can only take a small amount of blood. Next time we'll test for more, but for now we just have to test them the old-fashioned way - by mouth.

It's hard to even know how I feel about this, because it's just become a part of my life so quickly, so easily it seems. We carry around an Ep1-pen wherever we go with him. We wipe his hands (and anywhere else he can reach with his mouth) whenever we've been out in the world, just in case he got something on him. We're still in the hypervigilant phase. I know we'll always be like that, unless and until he grows out of the allergies, but I think it will eventually be subconscious instead of the first thing on my mind.

And, in case you thought it had just gone away of it's own accord, we're STILL waiting to hear the result of our adminstrative appeal for the stupid indicated abuse report. We sent in our lawyer-written letter about 45 days ago and they have 90 days to give the decision. We don't expect an answer until the 90th day.

That's how it is here. Any other questions?

Goals

2007-08-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

Inspired by the other fostermama. For context, check out this post..

What a good question. I was about to start listing, and I realized I didn't know what to list. I am an obsessive plan-ahead-er, but the chaos of our lives for the past few years has muted that a bit. At the moment our big plan is to get FosterMommy through grad school to be an OT starting fall of 2008. Assuming we're not determined to be child abusers :P There are other plan-type things along those lines (adopt another child, beginnings of plans for me to be a lactation consultant for adoptive moms...).
But that's not really the kind of goal setting your post makes me think of.

I personally detest self-help books. I have only recently conceded that they sometimes have something useful to add, but then only because FosterMommy reads them and shares some of their better ideas. I guess I have rejected this type of goal-setting, but I really like this exercise you set us. Here are my results so far:

For each of us to be in a career & job that is fulfilling and enjoyable.
To have a strong family unit, full of mutual support and warmth and good communication.
To feel energetic more often than exhausted.
To actively think about what I want to teach my kids and how I want to be with them as they grow up, and then do it.
To remain healthy into old age.
To live in community (this one I feel like we're already doing, but I want it to continue to be true).

I think that's a long enough list for now. I will have to set myself to thinking more about each of these, and to thinking about the question of Goals more often.

Good news at the County

2007-07-19T10:01:00.001-04:00

The head of the adoption and homefinding unit in our county retired recently. She was not all bad, but she had serious interpersonal challenges. You could learn how to work her and get out from under her shoe, but she also scared off a lot of people and treated us like crap way too often. She had a hard job, granted, but she didn't have to be so hard on "her" foster parents. She also had no concept that it was more important to retain good foster parents than to recruit new ones. She had an obsession with numbers of new recruits, but didn't do a good job supporting those of us already doing it.

Anyway, her senior underling is amazing and awesome. And she just sent out a letter announcing that she got the promotion! She is now head of the unit! So exciting. I really hope she can do a good job and make some good changes in the dept. She doesn't have enough support from above or laterally (bad supervisors in other units, and clueless and politically motivated supervisors above her) but she is an amazing woman and she manages to be sane and insane in a good balance and to always be warm and supportive. I hope she manages to find good staff for under her, too (there's so much turnover, and often long vacancies). This job is a set-up for failure, but I think this woman can do it as well as anyone. And she's not going to give up. I'm just excited to have someone who is genuinely supportive of foster parents in this position. And who really seems to get it about what our lives and responsibilities and challenges are like. Yay.

Our appeal on the Joy situation is going out in the mail today. If we get cleared (please!?!?!?!) then I could see us doing this crazy thing again some day. Especially with this newest development.

Here's hoping this County can turn around and become a much better place to foster. I know she can't do it alone, but she can be a big part of good change.

Pray to 'em if you've got 'em

2007-07-19T09:45:00.001-04:00

Today we're mailing off our letter to the office investigating the Joy Fiasco. This is for the "administrative review" portion of the journey. If you'll recall, they already found us "indicated" and decided that we either beat her, causing her bruises, or ignored her while she did them herself. Neither of which is true, obviously, but certainly both can't be. Anyway...

So this lawyer we hired (a fellow foster parent, actually) wrote this 9 page letter that is VERY VERY good. We ended up paying him more than we expected (isn't that always the way), but really, it may have been worth it. There is no way that we could have written this letter. And he also wrote a letter for our placement coordinator to sign. That one is really good, too.

Now we just have to wait for them to read it, review the case, and decide to uphold or reject the "indicated" finding.

If this letter doesn't convince them that we are FAR from the child abusers they label us as, I don't know what to do.

So, yeah, light a candle to the Blue Fairy, or whatever it is that you prefer. We need all the good thoughts we can get behind this letter.

Niblet moving away??

2007-07-15T19:21:00.000-04:00

We have Niblet for the afternoon today. She is so super cute and very sweet, if a bit overtired and cranky cuz she didn't get much of a nap (our fault - sometimes it's really hard when we have both babies!). FosterMommy is out with her hanging out with friends right now, and I have Squeak home asleep, cuz he wouldn't nap much at all during the day today and doesn't sleep well away from home currently, so we couldn't justify keeping him out past his bedtime.

When I went to pick up Niblet today, her dad told me in passing that he was thinking of moving down to North Carolina. He has a son who lives there and rents a whole house for $250/month, and I guess dad's had a bunch of housing difficulties (they just had to leave their old apt and seem to have temporary housing at the moment). I asked if all 3 of them would be going, and he said no just him and Niblet. So he'd be taking her away from her mother. I have no idea what mom thinks of this, or if she realizes that she has a say (she never had her rights terminated, we don't think, so she could get joint custody if she has completed her drug treatment - we don't know if she has). I doubt she wants her baby taken away. I wonder if she even knows what he's thinking.

He's planning to go down there in a couple weeks to see if he likes it, and I think from what he said that if he does the move would be almost immediate.

We might lose our baby again.

I can't bear to think of it.

We have had such dreams of her growing up with us in her life, of us getting to see her grow up and be a part of it... I want that so much! We really thought we were going to have it! We knew we had no control, but we had no reason to think he was going to up and move many states away all of a sudden while she's still young enough to forget us, either. She doesn't even say our names yet. Can't ask for us. Can't talk to us on the phone. If she goes, we're really losing her.

Our friend had a foster kid (and then her brother too) for 3 years, and then the girl went to her mom. Still, our friend was God-Mother and was still practically raising the girl. Much more than us with Niblet. Mom recently sent the girl to live with her father (the boy had been sent there months ago) in a far-away state. Our friend is going to be going there to visit soon (or maybe already has). But that girl is 5 or 6, so she can write letters and everything. And our friend doesn't have other kids so it's easier for her to travel.

I don't want to lose Niblet.

I pray that he decides to stay, and finds a good housing situation here.

The temptation is strong to ask if he has Section 8 or what and then figure out if we can manage to rent him our apartment. I don't really want them to live downstairs from us (the floors are thin), and I don't really want to have that kind of involvement with someone with whom I have a monetary relationship. Not to mention that we totally can't afford to take anything less in rent than we charge currently. And that we currently have tenants we really love. I just want her to stay so badly. I'd do anything.

Summer's here.

2007-06-26T11:17:00.000-04:00

I don't have anything to say about summer, really, just that it's going to get up to 97 degrees here today - ouch. We'll be hiding out in the baby room with the a/c on, thankyouverymuch.

A couple of weeks ago, we took Niblet overnight at our house and it went really well. Actually, Squeak was the biggest problem that night - he was up for a couple hours for no particular reason. Niblet went to sleep in the crib pretty easily, then woke up once and fostermama sat with her until she fell fast asleep again. Then later on, I she woke up and I just brought her into our bed (since fostermama was on the couch with the not-sleeping Squeak) and she slept like a rock for the rest of the night. I don't mind snuggling with her, and I'm sure that sleeping with me one night every few weeks is not going to mess up her sleeping at home, so it's all good. Her mom tells us that she still wakes up in the night crying and nothing calms her down. She has always done that. She's not the kind of baby who wakes up in the morning and happily babbles to herself until someone comes to get her. Nope. She's always been a full-force crier. Unfortunately, it pushes her mom's buttons. So that's why she's very happy for us to take her overnight sometimes. As she put it, "I need a break!"

Her mom has started talking/venting to us more. I'm glad. It means she's comfortable with us and knows we're not going to give her advice she's not asking for, or look down on her, or whatever. She even said to fostermama, on the phone the other day, that she tried talking nice to Niblet when she was crying non-stop, but that didn't work. If she yells at her a couple of times, she stops, so that's what she does. I totally understand needing the crying to stop.

Niblet's mom also asked us to take her WIC farmer's market coupons and get some fruit for Niblet. She said she doesn't really give her fruit, so she doesn't know what she likes. We got those coupons last year and we go to the market every week anyway, so we're happy to do that. Last year Niblet was a plum FIEND. She would eat 2 or 3 of them just on the walk home.
We're thinking that, this year, peaches will probably be good because she can probably bite through the skin herself. Plums are a little harder, but I'm guessing anything will be fair game once it's cut away from the pit and in a few pieces. She really loves fruit.

One time, we were in the local supermarket for...something...we usually shop at the food coop, so I don't remember why we were in the supermarket...anyway, Niblet was in the stroller and we passed through the produce section. She spotted the apples and flipped out! She didn't calm down until we took a bag of them off the display, opened it up and handed her one. She was the happiest baby in the world.

I can't wait until she has more words. Once she's more verbal, she's going to be sooo much happier. She can say a few things and she has a few signs, but she still gets really frustrated because there are so many things she understands, so many things she wants to say, and she has no way to get any of it across except by yelling/crying/pointing. Hopefully the words will come to her soon.

Last weekend we went to pick up Niblet, and she wasnt there because she had spent the night with her aunt and wasn't back yet. It wasn't a big deal, because fostermama has been sick and we even thought about cancelling the visit because we're pretty overwhelmed right now. Anyway, when we got there and Niblet's dad was really sorry we had wasted our time. His phone is broken, so he couldn't call us. He told us that they're moving this week. It's unclear if *they* are moving, or if just *he* is moving. He said he'll have to put stuff in storage and stay in a hotel until the county finds them/him another place. It's very confusing, because he hasn't been there a year yet. So maybe he and the mom are splitting up and he's moving out? Well, hopefully we'll find out more soon. fostermama's going to pick up the farmer's market coupons this afternoon, hopefully, so maybe she can find out more.

We already realize that, if they're all moving, we may very well lose contact with them for a few weeks or more. We're going to give them all our phone numbers, again, so maybe they won't lose it. And if we don't hear from them, we'll send a letter to their address and hope it's forwarded. But, really, it's a small town, and if they don't contact us, we can find them. I'm just glad we have some warning.

Being Niblet's godparents is an adventure, that's for sure!

Baby!

2007-06-14T11:28:00.000-04:00

No, not for us. One is plenty for now, thankyouverymuch.

But please click on over here and take a peek at baby Seli, the newest addition to Peter's Cross Station.

Sounds like it was a whirlwind match. I'm partial to those, now, seeing as that's how we got Squeak.

I'm so happy for all of them and look forward to stories of Nat-as-Sibling.

"Want" is a strong word.

2007-05-31T21:11:00.001-04:00

This weekend I learned something.
I don't want Niblet to come live with us.

Here's what happened.
We went camping this past weekend with a bunch of friends. We asked to take Niblet with us, and her parents were pretty psyched to get a weekend's break. We picked her up on Friday afternoon and drove out there (1 hour away) that evening.

We were going to keep her until Monday afternoon.
Instead, we brought her back Saturday night.

Niblet *loved* the camping. She loved having all our friends around (all of whom she knows very well). She loved running free. She fell asleep really easily in the tent with all 4 of us snuggling together.
She didn't, however, stay asleep. She woke up 5 or 6 times, crying at the top of her lungs. She wouldn't calm down for anything. Each time she eventually just stopped and fell back asleep. One time she had made a huge poop that leaked, and then after she was changed she stayed up for almost 2 hours.

The next day we were all exhausted. I took a 2 hour nap with her mid-day, but it was so hot in the tent I thought we'd both get heat stroke!

It's possible that the subsequent nights she would have been more used to the tent and to being with us, but we just couldn't take the risk.
The main problem was that we weren't taking proper care of Squeak because we were both pretty focused on Niblet.
Squeak has a skin problem that needs lotion put on it multiple times a day to keep it at bay. Friday we did it once when we should have done it 3-4 times. Overnight, I didn't change his diaper because I was afraid of waking Niblet - and then he woke up with a diaper rash. It's a bunch of little things, but they added up to the fact that we weren't able to properly be there for him and her at the same time.

Yes, we were both recovering from colds and certainly camping with 2 babies is hard, but really it was easier than if we'd been at home. We had friends around who were very helpful with both kids, and Niblet certainly wasn't bored for a minute.

We realized early on Saturday that, if we wanted to actually enjoy the rest of the weekend and come out of it relaxed, we had to bring Niblet home.

So we called her parents, told a little lie about why we needed to bring her back, and I drove her home. Why did we lie? Because it was easier. If we had better communication with her parents, we'd have admitted to getting in over our heads, but we don't.

I feel guilty. Guilty that we lied. Guilty that we offered her parents a weekend's respite and then rescinded. And guilty that I can't picture a way that we could possibly parent Niblet and Squeak without losing our minds and doing a crap-ass job.

What I want is to parent Squeak to the best of my ability. What I want is to spend my vacations with fostermama and Squeak - my complete family.

I do *wish* that things were different. That I was a parent more capable to take on a toddler and an infant. When they're both older, taking her for longer periods of time will be more possible. But she's where she belongs. Squeak is ours and Niblet is theirs and that's the way it's supposed to be.

Would we still take her if she needed us? Of course. I'm just not hoping for it anymore. And that's a good place to be in.

Fight the Power

2007-05-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

[Button removed on 9/12/07...thanks everyone for your help and support!]

In response to my previous rant, Beth asked if there was a way that people who wanted to could throw a few bucks our way to help pay our lawyer.
So I figured out how to make a PayPal button and put it up on the sidebar.

I feel weird doing it, but I know that people aren't going to help us out for any other reason than that they want to. I mean, really, since when did savvy interneters ever pay money just because a button told them to?

So, please, feel free to ignore it. I just wanted to let y'all know why it's there. And if you feel the urge to click, thank you so very much. Really.

In the criminal justice system...

2007-05-21T13:16:00.000-04:00

...foster care-based offenses aren't really considered especially heinous.
(Can you tell what TV show we watch all the time?)

We got the results of the investigation against us in the mail the other day. It was worse than we thought. They've been lying to us for over a month (act shocked, I dare you!)
They told us, over the phone, that we were found "indicated" due to "lack of supervision". Basically that we should have been hovering over Joy's crib all night long so she didn't hurt herself. Instead, they found us indicated due to that and ALSO indicated due to "bruising".

They think we hurt her on purpose. Or, at least, they think it's a possibility. So they're covering their bases.

Either we hit her OR she hurt herself while we weren't watching. They can't have it both ways. It's f'ed up. Also, I really think that, if they think we hit the kid, that it should be a criminal matter. If I hit an adult, I'd be arrested for assault. But hit a foster kid? Eh, just put 'em on a list. Doubly f'ed up, says me.

Anyhow, this new information makes it a much more serious case and much harder to prove our innocence. At least according to our lawyer.

Yep, we have to hire a lawyer. We met with him yesterday for 2 hours. Fortunately, he's a fellow foster parent. Unfortunately, his firm won't take us on pro-bono (because it's not a criminal case - see above). He's going to do this as cheaply as possible, but we have to give him $1000 retainer. ONE THOUSAND F*CKING DOLLARS. To clear our names. To fix what the bitch evil case worker has done.
Can we afford it? Nope. fostermama and I both work part-time, by choice, so we don't have to put Squeak in daycare. We're frugal and budget well. We have savings. We have no consumer debt. But we just paid for an adoption. and, face it, who has $1000 just sitting around collecting dust?

I just find it so unfair. We make around $40,000/year between the 2 of us. If this were a criminal matter, we'd each be eligible for a court-appointed lawyer. But since this is extra-judicial, then we have to pay.

So this Friend-The-Lawyer (FTL) says the next step is the administrative review. We're allowed to submit a letter and whatever supporting material we have. FTL is going to write the letter for us. He's also going to talk to our Placement Worker (who has worked with us since MAPP class) and write a letter for her to sign. He will probably take statements from Niblet's daycare worker and Niblet's OT, and write letters for them to sign, as well.
Our $1000 covers all this. If we're not cleared in this step, and we have to go on to an in-court hearing, then we'll have to sign a new contract and pay additional money.
Here's crossing our fingers that he writes good, convincing letters, cuz all this money's coming out of our small savings and we were planning on using that to, ya know, de-lead paint our porches and good stuff like that.

On the upside, a friend of ours made a very good point that might win our case for us. He said that the fact that, the same day that the daycare person mentioned the bruises to me, I not only went straight to a visit with Joy's mom, but then happily allowed her to go change Joy's diaper, means that I didn't have anything to hide. I could have easily said "oh, you're 9 months pregnant, let me change her for you!" and she never would have seen the bruises. But I didn't know they were there, and had no reason to keep her mom from changing her.
Really, why would we have pushed for visits and allowed the mom to see the bruises if we were beating Joy? We wouldn't have, is the answer. Case closed.

I hope.

Not to overwhelm you...

2007-05-14T08:05:00.000-04:00

...but I'm overwhelmed, so you get to share.

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to bring Niblet home, we did our normal routine of changing her back into the clothes she came in. We always change her into "playclothes" that we keep in a drawer for her, because we like her to be able to get dirty and we don't want to worry about her dirtying the clothes her parents put on her. Plus, most of the clothes they have for her are still a bit too big (because she's a skinny, skinny kid) and they often fall down.

So anyway, we were at our friends' house, in their well-lit living room, and I stripped Niblet down and changed her diaper. When I did, I was confronted with a large, healing bruise on the side of her stomach. My heart dropped, but she's a toddler, and toddlers get hurt. As we well know. I pointed it out to fostermama, but there are a million explanations, so, yeah...

I had to keep looking, though. And I found more. On both of her upper arms, there were big bruises. Either from someone grabbing her too tightly, or from someone smacking her arm hard. We tried to document them, just in case more show up, but the only camera we had access to didn't end up working very well.

There's nothing we can do about it. Yes, they probably grab her too hard sometimes. She pushes their buttons, she's a handful. In the year we had her, I often felt the desire to toss her out the window. I didn't, but different people have different breaking points and different lines that they're willing to cross. Smacking a kid or grabbing their arm are things that some parents find acceptable. They're not a reason for a call to CPS.

The bruise on her belly, I have no idea how that got there. Hopefully it was self-inflicted. She's clumsy and falls all the time, so she could have fallen onto something.

Now we're in the weird position where we'll be looking at her for bruises every time we see her. We'll be taking pictures of whatever is there. And if something really crosses the line, we're going to have to mention it to her parents. Niblet spends time with a lot of different relatives, so it's possible that the bruises aren't from her parents. Anyway, we're not going to go behind their back and call CPS on them, because then they'll never trust us. We would probably never see her again.

When we still had Niblet living with us, fostermama and I used to dream up elaborate ways to "kidnap" Niblet and start our lives over elsewhere. Last night, as I was falling asleep with my son safe and secure in my arms, my mind was whirring again. It's not going to happen, but it's much easier to think about ways to take Niblet from them, than to think about watching her grow up being yelled at and hurt.

To top it off, if she did end up getting pulled from their home, currently we couldn't take her in. Because of the Joy Fiasco, we're not currently allowed to foster.

Any suggestions?

2007-05-13T16:25:00.000-04:00

We're pretty sure Niblet needs some physical therapy, and maybe speech therapy, and we have no idea what to do about it.

We don't know exactly what she "should" be doing, but her legs are very tense (she still has the high tone from being a drug addicted preemie), and she walks very stiltedly. She can't run, really. I could imagine maybe just suggesting to her parents that they get an Early Intervention evaluation, but I'm not sure how I would explain *why* I'm suggesting it. I suspect that, if we say that her walking isn't as good as it should be, they'll just say "she's fine!" Or that she should be saying more words than she is, they'll disagree with that, too.

I don't want to come off as telling them what to do. Or even as knowing more than them about kids in general, and their kid in particular.

I'm just worried about Niblet and don't want her to get worse because I'm too scared to say something.

I'm just a barrel of laughs

2007-05-13T15:39:00.000-04:00

I've had a really good Mother's Day, really. I'm not complaining. I got to go to the park with my boy, fostermama & Niblet. It's beautiful out today and there's a festival in the park, so there were vendors and music and tons of people. We all enjoyed ourselves. Now fostermama is in the other room napping with Niblet and Squeak is playing on his floor gym.

But (you knew there was a but, right?) I was very upset by what happened when we went to pick up Niblet. We got there and they weren't quite ready for us yet, which was fine. Niblet's mom was finishing her hair and starting talking about how Niblet's been crying a lot and "I just can't stand that! There's nothing wrong with her, she just wakes up crying and cries whenever!" Some of it was just venting for my benefit, as proof that she's glad that we're taking her for the day, which I understand, but some of it was not like that. Some of the things she said to Niblet were upsetting to me, and obviously not how I would ever talk to a child, but that's not the worst part.

The worst part was Niblet. She was standing there, arms tense and hands balled, face squished up in a silent almost-cry, while her mom finished her hair. Her dad kept yelling at her to "turn that off". She really wanted to cry, for whatever reason (maybe because she was excited I was there and knows that her parents yell at her when she gets too excited) and she knew she wasn't allowed to cry. It was the most painful thing I've ever seen. She looked at me and I smiled at her and said that we'd go out and play once her mom was done. She smiled a little, but her face was red from holding in the cry.

I understand she's a handful. I know her mom was venting, and I get that. But it's hard not to take it hard. And Niblet obviously does take it hard. She's always been sensitive. When she was with us, she always cried when she woke up - unless we were already holding her.

Niblet's adult sister, and the sister's mom, were both there, as well. She gave them kisses before we left.

And, amidst all this, one of the things that Niblet's mom said was "you want her back? You can have her!" She totally didn't mean it, and it was just part of the vent, but, obviously, it stuck with me. They know we wanted to adopt her. They know we want to be a part of her life. They must know that we would take her if need be - really, what else would be the reason of asking us to be her godparents? I think it's probably even good that her mom feels secure enough to blurt that out without being afraid that we'll take her up on it.

Oh, how I want to take her up on it. Everytime we have Niblet, fostermama and I both comment on how *right* it feels. The 4 of us hanging out, being together. It's very hard not to imagine what life would be like if she were ours again.

While we were getting ready to walk away from their house, Niblet's mom stuck her head out the window, called Niblet by a nickname I've heard her use before, and said goodbye again. She loves her baby, I know she does. It's just all so damn complicated that it makes my brain hurt.

A broken heart doesn't heal

2007-05-07T12:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had a Very Bad Day. Snafus just kept happening, left and right. I was out, unexpectedly waiting for a bus, for a very long time, with Squeak in tow. And once it came, I couldn't just take it home and flop, because I had to pick up Niblet for our visit and didn't have time to go home first.

I didn't mind. The whole crappy morning was going to be okay, because I was going to pick up Niblet and have her almost-2-year-old kinetic happiness for the rest of the day.

But, of course, there was a snafu in that plan, too. Her dad answered the door and said that there had been some family emergency and Niblet was with his sister (or his daughter, I forget) in a town about 20 minutes away. I confirmed that there wasn't anything wrong with Niblet and said I hoped everything turns out okay. He said we could come get her next Sunday, same time.

Next Sunday is Mother's Day and I don't think her dad realized that. I'm not certain that they'd want her for Mother's Day, but chances are they would. And her birthday's coming up, too, and I meant to ask them if they're doing anything for it, but I was so exhausted and upset and he didn't really want to talk to me at that point, so I just left. He did say that he'd left me a message a few hours before, but of course I hadn't been home all day, so I didn't get it. Argh.

Walking away from his house, pushing Squeak in the stroller, I started crying. I couldn't stop. My day had already pushed me to the edge and I had no coping strategies left.

I miss Niblet. She's growing and changing. She is not the person she would have been if she stayed with us. And I mourn for that lost person. I mourn for the lost opportunity to raise her. I simply miss seeing her precious face every day.

I wish that we were in a place in our lives where we could offer to be their backup in an emergency. I don't know if they'd accept that offer, but I'd like to be able to do it. Unfortunately, we'd still be pretty overwhelmed having her around for a full day or more.

I think what I'm feeling is my broken heart. It's still broken. No matter how much I love Squeak (which is a lot, to say the least), Niblet was my first baby and I lost her. There's no fixing that.

"Making the decision to have a child—it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body." —Elizabeth Stone

This is particularly true of fostering. It's deciding to have your heart broken into many pieces and then never see those pieces again. With Niblet, she has my heart, no doubt. And it's okay, most of the time. But when I expect to see her, to reconnect with my heart, and then I'm denied, well, it's a strain on the pieces of my heart that are left behind.

Only slightly meta.

2007-04-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

I've decided to keep this blog. The reason, you may ask? Because I want to.

And, really, that's the only good reason to have a blog, isn't it?

I figure there's always going to be some stuff that I want to put out there that I don't particularly want to do in the blog all my friends read. I'm still going to be vague about where I am and who I am, so I can pretend that this is still relatively anonymous.

So there you have it.

In other news (isn't there always "other news" Chez Fostermoms??), we finally got the determination letter from CPS. Even though we got the call that we were "indicated" like, what, 3 weeks ago? We finally got the letter stating it. The letter also told us where to write to get a copy of our file and to request an "administrative review". Which is basically Evil Case Worker's uber-supervisor looking at the file, saying "yeah, they're Big Ol' Child Abusers" and then giving us a date for a fair hearing where we get to argue the point.

A friend/fellow foster parent, who happens to be a lawyer (not that there's anything wrong with that!) convinced us this past weekend that we need to talk to a lawyer about all this. Which makes total sense (why didn't you guys suggest that?!) since we really are going into this blindly and putting a lot more trust into the system than it really deserves.

He thinks he'll be able to help us with it, and he's friends with one of the heads of CPS, so we're going to start there. If he can't help us, he's also looking into who else might be able to do so. Shit, I was supposed to fax him our letters today...dammit. Well, maybe fostermama can bring them to work with her and fax them from there.

Whee, aren't you glad I decided to keep the blog? You get to read what's going on in my mind as it happens! What could be more thrilling than that?

On to more cute things...Squeak is busting out all over! This week he turned 3 months old and decided that he couldn't possibly do anything as banal as wear "3-6 month" sized clothes. No, not our Squeak! So we had to pull out the 6-9 monthers and, lo, he fits into 'em just fine. Plus, he seems to be on a growth spurt. He rolls from front to back, chuckles like Ernie, and is just so damn cute it's disgusting.
Stay tuned...

Where do we go from here?

2007-04-19T13:22:00.000-04:00

I don't know what to do with this blog now.

The title is increasingly fictional, as we're not adopting through foster care, nor are we planning to try (at least for a few years). Sure, if we get cleared of these "charges", we might try again once Squeak is older. And we'll definitely keep our license active, if possible, in case Niblet ever needs somewhere to go.

I started this blog to have an anonymous place to talk about the process and my feelings without all of my family and friends knowing about it. To talk unfiltered about it all. And to gather support from the community at large. It's been wonderful and I don't particularly want to stop, but I don't know what to post about anymore.

We have a family/friends-only blog elsewhere where we can wax poetic about Squeak's cuteness, so I don't feel the need for that specifically.

I could see the need for, at some point, needing a place to vent about people making stupid adoption comments/race comments. Or simply venting about wanting to throw myself out a window when the baby spends (seemingly) hours on end being too tired to eat and too hungry to sleep.

Or I could continue writing about foster care, in the abstract. Or start blogging reviews for pay, like Baggage does.

Or keep it here for Niblet stuff, our relationship with her and her family, etc.

Obviously, there's still the little matter of the child abuse charges to deal with and I'll definitely keep you all in the loop about that. But after that....?

What do you think I should do? I know you all would love to keep up on Squeak and his progress, but I just think there are enough blogs like that and I am not sure I have much to add, especially considering that I'm not going to post any pictures for your viewing pleasure.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

(P.S. Squeak is doing well. He's 12 weeks old, filling out his 3-6 month clothes, and growing out of his small diaper covers. He munches on his hand whenever he has an opportunity, and is still nursing like a fiend.)

Niblet & Squeak

2007-04-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

We've had 2 visits so far with Niblet since we got Squeak. It's gone really well both times. Really, it's all Squeak's doing. I think he goes into self-preservation mode, because each time he has slept, in the sling, for the majority of the time Niblet's around. Then there's her nap and then we go to our friends' house for the evening until it's time to take her home.

Since he's just a lump now, she's not all that threatened. She "makes nice" and pets his head. She is used to her little cousin, who her mom babysits for occasionally, so the whole baby thing isn't new to her. I'm sure she'll get more upset the older he gets. At some point he'll start playing with *her* toys and then all hell will break loose!

Having the 2 of them for an afternoon sure is tiring, though! We, smartly, realized that we shouldn't take her overnight, at least for a while. She wasn't sleeping through the night for us as of the last time we took her, so mixing that in with Squeak would leave us quite tired here at Chez Fostermoms.

This past weekend, when we went to pick up Niblet, we brought Squeak along to meet her parents. They were very excited for us once we explained that he wasn't a foster baby and that we were keeping him. They thought he was super cute and huge (well, compared to Niblet, he is ginormous, for his age.) They joked that we should leave him with them while we took Niblet. We laughed and said that it would be great for him to visit with them when he's older. I really can picture Niblet and Squeak growing up together, like cousins.

We're hoping to be able to bring Niblet with us to this music festival this summer. It's over a holiday weekend, so her parents might not want her gone the whole weekend, and we can't plan on being able to take her every year, but it's really nice to be able to make long-term plans that include her. She may not be our daughter, but she's our god-daughter and I'm really enjoying that relationship.

He's ours! And DSS be damned!

2007-04-07T16:58:00.000-04:00

The relinquishment period for Squeak's mom to change her mind passed without a peep from our agency. This means, except for the legal finalization, he's OUR SON!!!

YAY!!!!

And! and! and! We spoke with a lawyer who told us that it's totally up to the adoption agency to decide whether we can adopt in light of our Child Abuser status. Which was totally good news because our agency is run by people who have brain cells.
Which was proven when we called, told them the whole horrid story and they said "wow, what a horrible thing to happen to you. Of course you can still adopt him. No problemo." Or something to that effect.

Can we all take a big breath together? Now let it out.

Everything's okay. We'll win at the appeal, anyway, so our records will be clean, but even if we lose, it doesn't matter at all in our adoption of Squeak.

He's our son. We're his moms. Forever.

We're big ol' child abusers - beware!!

2007-04-03T07:58:00.000-04:00

Mommynay wants an update, so here we go.
We visited family this weekend and Squeak was a hit all around. He's started making more cute cooing noises and has a sense of humor, so he smiles when you do something he considers amusing. He's growing like nobody's business and has apparently gained more than 1 pound per week that we've had him! Go mom-milk!

On the drive home, I checked the voice mail on the cell phone and picked up a message from Joy's Evil Case Worker (who is also the CW handling the CPS case against us). She just called to let us know that they made their determination on the "Joy matter" and that it is "indicated against Fostermommy & fostermama".

That is to say, they decided we did something wrong.

We don't have all the info yet, so we don't know how we go about appealing it and getting it expunged (which is what our placement coordinator already told us is the next step), but we have calls in to all and sundry so we can get this taken care of, like, yesterday.

It's just so ridiculous. I want to laugh, but we're worried. We're worried about what would happen if the Evil CW finds out we have Squeak. We're worried about what happens if this isn't expunged and it's on our record forever. If it's not expunged, it will show up when we file in the court to adopt Squeak, and who knows if we'd be allowed to actually adopt him!? It's craziness.

What I really want to do is drop a dime on Evil Case Worker for the emotional abuse she has perpetrated, and continues to perpetrate, against Joy. Unfortunately, things don't work like that. She's just "doing her job". We're the ones who are supposed to be perfect.

Things are Good

2007-03-19T17:10:00.000-04:00

Not much to say 'round here. The little one ("Squeak", I'll call him) is great. He eats (nurses like a champ! Go adoptive breastfeeding!!), he sleeps (in the sling on my chest right now), he poops & pees like mad in his stylish cloth diapers, and he's just generally CUUUTE.

Does he sleep "good"? Well, for a 7-week-old, he does pretty well. Better than Niblet did for most of the time we had her, that's for sure. He gets a mite gassy at times, but he's a trooper. And did I mention cute? Yep, he's a cutie.

He's filling out a bunch, too. He's finding his hands a little bit. He loves it when we sign to him, and he smiles almost everytime I play this little nose-beeping game. It's super-adorable.

We're enjoying having a "normal" baby. It doesn't take 2 hours to get him to fall asleep. He eats a healthy amount at every feeding. He's 2 pounds lighter, at 7 weeks, than Niblet was at 6 months! And he's not a porker, for sure.

We haven't seen Niblet yet. She was out of town with her mom the first weekend we had Squeak and this weekend she and we are all sick, so no visit. We're on for next weekend, though. I know she's going to have grown a ton by the time we see her - and next to Squeak, she'll be HUGE. :)

On the DSS inquiry front, I called the woman heading the investigation about Joy and she said they will likely make their determination by the end of this week. That will be a huge relief. Even if if comes out against us, then we just go to the judge and argue it and we'll win. So there. It might even all be over and done with by the time we find out if Squeak is ours for keeps or not. That will be excellent.

We're home!

2007-03-10T11:07:00.000-05:00

After transit delays galore, we finally got into The Big City on Thursday evening and made our way to the agency's office where the director was sitting in a rocking chair with Our Son.

(Okay, so he's not Totally Our Son, just Probably Our Son...28 days to go!)

I'll tell you right off that he's the most beautiful baby in the world. I apologize to all your children or future children, cuz he must have been a real pig at the Cute Buffet.

I sound like a mommy, don't I? :)

We stayed with family Thursday night and came back yesterday afternoon.

We got to bring him to services last night and introduce him to our Rabbi. She always knows the right thing to say and, being familiar with foster care and adoption, said, in Hebrew, the thing you say when someone tells you they're pregnant (not that I'd ever say that "I'm pregnant", cuz that's weird.) It's something along the lines of "good luck". She knows congratulations aren't quite in order.

We're feeling really good about it, though. It doesn't hurt that the chances of his first mother deciding to parent him aren't very high. She's young, has her family's support in the adoption, and had actually originally placed him with another agency and then changed her mind. Once she had him home for a while, she realized she really needed to go back to her adoption plan. So she called our agency and dropped him off same-day. I can't imagine how hard it was for her. People often talk about their child's birth mother and say "she's the strongest woman I know" and it always sounded fake to me. But faced with what our little guy's mom did, the choices she made because of her love for him, I know she's a very strong young woman.

She didn't want to meet us or see our profile, because she said it would make it harder to stick to her decision. She finally did decide that she wants us to send pictures/letters a few times a year. I'm glad for that, because it leaves it open for her to decide to contact us or him. And, in the future, if he wants to talk to her, at least he can write her a letter. Even if she doesn't write him back.

We really were geared up for a very open adoption, but this is okay. It's his life and, if we turn out to be his permanent parents, we'll be there to help him navigate it all.

Okay, you want to know about the baby, right? He's cute. He's a little under 9 pounds and he's 6 weeks old. He's got a lot of dark baby hair that will probably fall out and kink up. He's been, so far (crosses fingers), an easy baby. He eats, he sleeps, he burps, he wets like a monsoon. He's currently in a sling on my chest. He's healthy, happy and seems to be adjusting to us pretty well.

The comparison to Niblet and her constant need for attention, motion, quiet, is...well...striking. We're calm. We're not worried about him.
Niblet, however, is coming over tomorrow afternoon and we're guessing she won't like sharing us with the interloper. We're going to go pick her up a little brown baby doll of her own to hold and take out her agressions on. Wish us luck on the introduction!

We're just happy campers right now.

Have I mentioned the rollercoaster?

2007-03-08T12:12:00.000-05:00

Previous baby situation is no more.

But we're getting on a train tonight to head to The Big City and get a baby boy who was born at the end of January. His mom has had him since birth and decided to make an adoption plan.

They want us there ~~early tomorrow morning~~ tonight to do the paperwork and take him home.

Could this be IT? I can't make assumptions, but it seems likely. It will still be 30 days until the surrender is final, but considering how long we had Niblet without knowing, 30 days will be a breeze!

In other news, CPS can bite my big patootie. They're doing their thing with the investigation and I just don't care anymore.

Possible adoption match

2007-03-06T18:09:00.000-05:00

There's a woman due at the end of March who contacted our agency.
The financials are a little higher than we'd wanted, but otherwise it sounds perfect.
We haven't gotten to talk to the agency yet, as they emailed us on their way out the door at 5pm. Obviously we'll be on the phone at 9am tomorrow.
She'll be shown our profile among at least a few others, and she may or may not pick us.
If she does pick us, she may or may not actually place with us - it is our understanding that chances are less than 50% for pre-birth matches.

Yet, it is still very exciting.
The baby will be a full African-American girl.
And since it's only 2 weeks til her due date, the wait wouldn't be very long.

EEP

Want a laugh?

2007-03-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

They're doing an investigation regarding the bruises Joy has.

They took her to the ER, took our statements and removed her to a different foster home.

Just when she was starting to get used to us. Poor kid.

They have 60 days to decide if there's anything to blame us for. Then we'd have to go to court. Unless they clear us. Who the hell knows what they'll decide.

Everyone - our placement worker, our friends, other foster parents, everyone else at DSS who has met us - knows that we didn't hurt this baby. It doesn't matter. (and, yes, I understand and respect that they have to apply the same rules to everyone and investigate, but I get the impression that they could have de-escalated it early on in the process and chose not to.)

Well, I guess we know we won't be getting any new placements for the next 60 days, eh?

Cuz I know you're all wondering....

2007-03-02T11:03:00.000-05:00

Here's how the visit with Joy's mom went.
Good and bad.

Joy was ecstatic to see her mom. She was smiling, babbling, playing. She'd had a good time at daycare, too, and was just so psyched to be with mom. Her mom said she was even more animated and talkative than she is usually.

Her mom is young, early 20s, and lacking in much common sense. We met at McD's and Joy happily ate a bunch of fries, 2 mcn*ggets and chocolate milk. So maybe if we get her healthy chicken nuggets, she'll eat those? Her mom said she pretty much doesn't worry about what she eats except at dinnertime when she "has to have some real food". She said that Joy liked the Tuna Helper she made one time and that she put green beans in it and she ate them. And that she likes the toddler entrees (she pronounced it "entries") from the supermarket.

My thought is that she likes to eat in social situations. Cuz she ate some at daycare while the other kids were eating. Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with chicken tenders and toddler entrees, except that they're wicked expensive. But we're health nuts. We shop at the food coop, we eat vegetarian, our meals are mostly beans/grains/veggies. We're happy to buy meat for a foster kid if that's what they'll eat, but I'm just not feeding a kid McD's on a regular basis! So hopefully we can find some stuff that isn't very expensive and that she'll eat.

Joy's mom said that she usually lets her stay up until very late at night and then lets her fall asleep in bed with her. So, basically, Joy has never had to fall asleep by herself in her crib. Which is exactly what we had been expecting of her. Which is why she was flipping out and crying so much. I feel really bad about it, but really, if the cw had set up visits or phone calls BEFORE Joy came into care...or even let us talk with the mom the day we got her...then we would have had this information and we could have taken better care of her from the beginning. Last night I stood by her crib for 45 minutes while she got up and down, drank milk, cried, relaxed, cried, and then finally fell asleep. It wasn't too bad.

But the last straw? Bruises.
Yep. Joy's mom went to change her diaper in the well-lit bathroom and came back to get me and show me these pretty big, really weird bruises on the sides of her legs.
Did I freak out? Yes. But not outwardly. All I was thinking was, well, there goes our foster care career, down the drain due to unexplainable bruising. The mom said she wasn't blaming us, but that they were weird and "if it were me, I'd take her to the doctor". (Um, it's your kid.)

I know she didn't have them when we got her, because I gave her a good once-over. But I had no idea where she got them. To make a long, stressful story short, I did eventually figure it out.

Seems that, while she was crying in her crib, she was trying to climb out and kept getting her legs through the bars of the crib. Her thighs aren't quite thin enough to slip through easily, so she'd get up to her thigh and then pull her leg out. and then try the other leg. We never knew she was doing this, because whenever we'd go in to give her another hug and lay her back down, she wasn't doing it. While I was with her last night, she did it a few times while she was trying to get me to take her out.

So, of course, we called her mom to let her know. We called the case worker to let her know, and to ask if we should still bring Joy to the doctor, and we emailed our social worker so that she's in the loop in case the cw freaks out anyway and says we are bad foster parents.

Those bruises are physical evidence of how f'ed up the system is. If they didn't have their 3-step plan for creating RAD, this child would not have these bruises.

Update

2007-03-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

fostermama called our social worker and told her that the case worker hasn't set up visits yet. She was kinda surprised and thought it was ridiculous, so she gave us the mom's phone number and said to call her directly. fostermama double-checked that this wasn't going to get us into huge trouble, and the sw said it would be fine (which basically means she'll handle it if the sh*t does hit the fan). So we have a meeting set up for this afternoon.

I'll pick up Joy from the daycare and bring her to the local McD's where we'll meet up with her mom. She'll have about 30-45 minutes with her mom and then we'll go home and the mom goes to some class she's taking. The mom didn't feel comfortable having me come to her house, so that's why we're meeting at McD's. I totally understand, except, um, we have her kid. How could she feel fine giving us her kid, but not want us to see her messy apartment, or whatever? Anyway....

I know Joy's going to freak out when we have to leave her mom, but it'll be good for her to see her, anyway. I'm going to bring our camera so we can get a picture of mom and print it out for Joy to have.

Additionally, our SW was saying how there was talk that the placement might be for 6 weeks. Um, no. We signed up for 3 weeks. I would be fine doing 4 weeks, but more than that is ridiculous. It's not any good for Joy to be with us and longer will just make it worse. If a couple weeks post-partum isn't enough recovery time, then the mom needs to place one or both kids for adoption because she just can't hack it. And, realistically, it would be better for her to place the newborn and keep Joy because Joy needs her mom.

I just hope the visit goes well and I get some info on Joy so we can take care of her better.

DSS - Creating attachment disorders in 3 easy steps!

2007-03-01T11:44:00.000-05:00

1. Take a 13-month-old child from her mother and place her with foster parents with no transition at all.
Even though the county has been working with the mom for over a year and knew exactly when her due date is and probably knew a while ago that it would be a good idea for her to "voluntarily" place the child while she recovers from giving birth, they made no motions at finding foster parents until the due date. and then, once found, made no motions at any kind of transition.

2. Don't allow the mom and the foster parents to contact each other.
We told them to give her our phone number. We asked if we could call her in the hospital. We need to know her routines, her likes/dislikes. We need a picture of her for the baby to look at. The mom hasn't done anything wrong and should still be intimately involved in her daughter's life.

3. Don't set up a visit right away and delay doing so until it looks like the kid is going to go at least one full week without seeing her mom.
The mom asked, yesterday afternoon, when there would be a visit. The cw didn't just pick up her cell and call us. Instead she said she'd "call tomorrow", which most likely meant she'd call Friday. And I bet she'll want to be present at the visit, which is completely unnecessary, so it won't get to be until Monday or Tuesday.

This poor little munchkin, who I'll call "Joy" (because she's completely lacking any joy in her life, so I'd like to put a little bit into her via this blog), is in full-on baby depression. She doesn't eat, she doesn't smile, I haven't heard her laugh. She cries unless we're holding her and cries occasionally even if we are holding her. We had to put her in daycare part-time because we can't rearrange our schedules for such a sort period of time. She was fine at daycare yesterday, but cried when each child left. She doesn't understand what's going on and doesn't want anyone to leave her. Hopefully this won't scar her forever, but I don't know how long she (and we) can handle it.

The house, she ain't empty no more.

2007-02-27T09:11:00.000-05:00

On Friday, we got a call from The County asking if we'd take a placement of a 13-month-old for 3 weeks. Seems that her mother is 9 months pregnant and has no family or friends to help her out or watch the older child, so she's voluntarily placing her in foster care for the first 3 weeks so she can recuperate and get settled in with the new baby.

We said yes, obviously.

It wasn't certain when the placement would begin, but her due date was this weekend.

So on Sunday we had Niblet over to play, which involved us not getting a lot of sleep because she still wants us to give her a bottle and snuggles when she wakes up at night. Monday we went to work, but both planned on taking a nap the second we got home. fostermama picked me up from work and said "so now we go home and wait for the baby!" (She hadn't even gotten there yet and we were losing sleep over her!)

We went home, cleaned up a bit, started some laundry and muffins, and waited.
Finally the call came that they were on their way, and there they were!

fostermama and I had been taking guesses as to what race the little girl would be, as they hadn't mentioned it to us on the phone. That fact, alone, led us to believe she was white, because when it's not a white baby, they usually say "is that okay?" or something else stupid like that.
We're just used to our babies being not-white. But, anyway, when I saw them getting out of the car, I saw her little hand poking out and, sure enough, she's white.

She was a little hesitant at first, but once we got her interested in the cats and the toys, she didn't even notice when the case workers (one of whom she's known all her life) left. It didn't take her long, though, to start objecting if we got out of her range of vision. She figured out that we were "her people" and, though she doesn't know why, she's okay with it.

The evening went pretty well. She worked on getting to know all the toys. She drank her sippy cup like it was going out of style. She wouldn't eat much food, but we got a little bit into her. Then we decided it was time for her bath and bed. There's where the fun ended. She saw the bath and started crying. She didn't seem to dislike the bath, actually. I think it was just the "hey! where's my Mom! Why are you doing Mom things?!" She became very clingy after that, and developed a slight preference for fostermama, so she put the kiddo to sleep. She went down really easily, with slight fuss, and was out like a light.

Then, an hour later, she was up and screaming and there was no calming her. We brought her out with us and she lay on fostermama, sipping her cup and occasionally crying a very angry cry. Poor little chicken. There was really nothing we could do. She wanted her mom. She doesn't understand where her mom went or why she's with us. She was willing to be comforted and would start to fall asleep, but then she'd come awake a little and scream anew.

It went like this for about an hour. Then, after standing by the crib, rubbing her back while she cried, I left the room again. It seemed that having me there was possibly unhelpful because she would look at me and scream louder.
She cried for what seemed like an hour (but was probably more like 15 minutes) and finally fell asleep. She slept straight through until a little after 8am.

I feel so bad for this little girl. She likely has never spent the night away from her mom and isn't old enough to understand in the slightest. We're hoping we'll be able to visit her mom in the hospital soon, and then there will be frequent visits home during the rest of the time, but I suspect that each night will re-open this new wound and she'll have to go to sleep without the one kiss and hug she really wants.

AA Culture Question

2007-02-26T11:39:00.000-05:00

I'm shy, but I'm going to try to get up the nerve to ask around about this more than just online. I love our group of friends in this area, it's the strongest I've ever had. But we're all white. I'll probably ask this of a co-worker, but I'd like to get more than one perspective so I'll ask it here as well in case anyone has anything to say:

Niblet's dad is a Northeastern African American man in his late 60's. When I drop her off after a visit, as I did this morning, he asks, "How did it go?" or "How was she?"
I tend to say something like, "Oh, she fussed a little yesterday, I think she's getting a new tooth, but she did fine and she had a fun time."

In Jewish culture, if you don't complain a little then something is wrong.
In mainstream Midwestern culture, even a small amount of complaining is quite taboo.

So, obviously much is personality, but if I say the above to him - what is he likely hearing?
We have never had friends from Niblet's family's background(s) before. I suspect that having a personal relationship with folks like us (white middle class lesbians) is pretty new to them too. And we're all shy. So things can be a bit awkward and we almost always feel like we don't really know what they're thinking or what they want. So while this appears to be a pretty inconsequential conversation, it's a good 1/3 of our total communication with them and I'd like to make sure I'm coming across as saying what I really mean.

Thanks for any input.

Here they are....

2007-02-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

Cute Niblet stories!

Niblet was with us this weekend for a bit, including an overnight. We haven't seen her in 3 weeks and WOW did she mature! She's way more interested in looking at the actual pages of books (instead of just listening to the story and flipping the pages as quickly as possible).

Two of her new words this time?
"WOW!"
"Oh ge ga!" (translation: Oh my god!)

She's still the kissingest, cuddliest kid on the planet. You ask for a kiss and she puckers up and plants one on you, complete with kissing noises ("mwah!")

And, as I predicted, she is full-on into "NO!"
As of last time we saw her, she would say "no" when she was about to do a "no-no" thing and she would shake her head when she didn't want something. Now she knows she can say NO and she says it!
Of course, she doesn't always mean it. She just really likes the way it sounds.

Luckily for her, one of her favorite books has the word "No!" in it. She already has a few parts of the book that she "reads along" with, and now she's added this part. She loves it.
Reader: "Shall we stay in and play?"
Niblet: "NOOOO!"
Reader: "No! It's sunny outside, follow me!"

A lot of things have been clicking for her, language-wise, it seems. I'm totally psyched for her to learn more words and be able to communicate with us even more.

She has matured a lot in other respects, as well. I don't know if it was the 3-week-lapse or what, but she no longer freaks out when one of us leaves the room. Or even if we both leave the room. We're even working on getting her to sleep through the night for us, and our first night went very well!

I really think that it just takes a long time for a child to adjust to a transition like she had. She's 20 months old and she's only been back home since October. It's definitely a good thing that we're still in her life (she was sooo excited to see us), but I think there was a lot of confusion in her little brain. It's not suprising that, on some level, it freaked her out whenever we left the room. Of course, she was like that before she started transitioning home, soooo.....

More likely, her parents took a harder line on that kind of behavior and ended up teaching her that the world won't collapse if your caretaker pees alone. We were the suckers who would continue to take her in with us, so she helped herself to our hospitality for as long as she could.
*laugh*

Either way, I'm glad that she's so secure in her world. She's growing up, but the same smart, loving, strong personality is still there.

The waiting game

2007-02-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

I know you're waiting for a post, but really I have nothing to report. That's the way it is when you're on The List. And we're on 2 lists! We're waiting, ultimately, for our adoption agency to call, but we're also waiting for the county to call. Honestly, I could do with a foster baby to take over my life and help the time pass more easily.

Shouldn't I be enjoying this time to myself? The time to reconnect with fostermama, deep clean the house, have adult conversations with friends, see movies...shouldn't I be relishing this break? Well, I'm not.

I'm probably preaching to the converted, but let me tell you - I'm bored! I don't do all those other things because what I really want to be doing is parenting!

We took ourselves on a little vacation to try and get our minds off of babies and all that. But it didn't really help. And since we're doing adoptive breastfeeding, and had to keep pumping on vacation, it was a daily reminder that we don't have a baby.

Anyway, all this to say that there's no news.
We haven't seen Niblet in 3 weeks, and are planning on seeing her this weekend, so I'm assuming she's talking in sentences and gained 10 pounds. We're going to have to ask her parents if she has any new words, because we won't necessarily be able to figure out what she's saying if they don't tell us.

Oh, one cute thing for you:
We used to teach Niblet ASL signs. She recognized a few of them during her time with us and actually used a few on and off. She's a big fan of the sign for "more". We're pretty sure her parents don't use signs with her at all, but we still use them with her when she's with us. Last time she remembered/learned the sign for "milk" and the next morning, when I went into her room to get her from the crib, she sat there signing milk at me. It was super cute, and of course I immediately got her some milk. She just looked at it like I was crazy - she didn't want milk, she just wanted to show me her word!

She actually does a good job of remembering signs from one week to the next. She has 3-4 signs that she uses regularly with us. She has forgotten the finer points of the signs and mutated them to her liking, but we know what she means.
I was worried that her language skills weren't "up to par", but when we counted up her signs and her english words, she has about a dozen and her receptive skills are really good, too. So she's fine.

Hopefully I'll have a cute Niblet story for you next week. All in all, this waiting game would be much worse if we didn't have her to fill in the gaps.

braid pics

2007-01-16T18:11:00.000-05:00

for the other fostermama, who is also into braiding.

We're parents - godparents, that is.

2007-01-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a few weeks now, but we're still somewhat in shock.
This is how it went down:
We went to pick up Niblet for a visit. Her dad answered the door while her mom was still wrestling her into her outdoor clothes.
He says "she [meaning the mom] wanted me to ask you all if you want to be her [meaning Niblet's] Godparents."

After picking our jaws off the floor, we said that of COURSE we would and that we were honored that they asked us! fostermama was more brain-ful and remembered that Niblet had been to church a few weeks before with her "godfather", so mentioned that we thought she already had godparents. He said that that "didn't work out".
fostermama also hastened to mention that we aren't Christian, but that didn't bother him, either.

That was it.

Then we took Niblet, fastened her in the carseat and drove off. Totally dumbstruck. I mean, WOW.

Now we haven't had any more conversation with them about it, so we're not quite sure what they want our role to be in her life (godparent means different things to different people), but the one thing we're sure of is that they appreciate us being in her life and want that to continue for a long time.

It's more than we could have hoped for and all we wanted to hear.

Off-topic: The WWW is cool.

2006-12-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

The ClustrMap on the right side of the blog tells me that there were 25 vists to this site yesterday. And almost 1700 visits since 10/20/06.
I assume this is not unique visits, but also I think it's not counting when one person refreshes a million times (I do this all the time....)

So Chez FosterMoms has been viewed by people from all over mainland U.S., plus Hawai'i. We're big in Edmonton (I think), and have a hit from either northern Manitoba or southern Nunuavut (which is pretty darn cool). Someone likes us in western Australia, as well as somewhere in the U.K.
There are scattered hits from Portugal, Spain, Japan, New Zealand, various other European countries and somewhere in southern Asia...I'm not good with my geography around there and the map is pretty darn small.

I'm just impressed that so many people, all over the world, seem to be relatively interested in what we have to say here at Chez Fostermoms. Hopefully we can continue to write posts of interest, including, but not limited to, the emotional rollercoasters of foster care and private adoption. I've got a few ideas percolating.
If y'all have any requests, please let us know and we'll be more than happy to write about whatever you'd like to read.

And, please, keep writing on your own blogs. I learn so much from everyone else, all over the world.

Brand new rollercoaster!

2006-12-13T17:44:00.000-05:00

We got a call from our adoption agency this afternoon!
They're presenting us to a potential birth mom (and possibly dad) tomorrow morning. The baby was born yesterday! They were calling to make sure we're ready - we just got on the list last week!

We're READY!

Okay, so the house is kinda messy and it would suck if I had to take maternity leave from my job right now, and all that kind of stuff, but...BABY!!

I have no idea how long it will take for the family to make a decision, so each hour is going to be excruciating.... And they might not choose us, obviously. That's fine. It's just sooo exciting to be being presented!!

By next week, we could be coming home with our baby!
(In our state, the surrender isn't final for 30 days, so the baby wouldn't be ours until after that 30 day period, but we're happy to take that risk. It's like having a foster baby for 30 days.)
----------
Update: The mom decided to parent. Now it's back to waiting. I suspect this could happen a few times before our baby finally comes to us. I hope it's soon, though.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

2006-12-11T11:48:00.000-05:00

We called to confirm, and were able to see Niblet this weekend and for an overnight. She had a great time. We had a great time. She gave a big squeal of delight when she saw us come to pick her up, which always makes me feel good. Her parents seemed pretty happy to get a break, as well - gee, Niblet, a handful? Never! :)

She's still doing really well, overall. Her babbling is different everytime we see her, and I can only assume that's a good thing. Practicing different sounds and all that. She still uses the signs that we taught her and I assume she uses them with her family, because I doubt she saves it all up for us. She's 18 months old, so everything is "MORE!" Her parents still haven't sent her with a change of clothes, so we had to send her back in her dirty things, but that's not so horrible. They probably change her when she gets home, anyway. We did have to send her with a fresh undershirt, because she had a blowout in her diaper and we didn't have time to run a load of laundry - ick!

The only thing we've slightly worried about is that she seems to be losing weight. It's very, very possible that she's just in a growth spurt and she's gotten taller, and she just hasn't plumped out again. She's very thin naturally and she eats constantly, so it's probably really hard to keep her fed enough to accommodate a big growth spurt without getting a thin time. Or she's just not getting enough to eat.
Fortunately, she has a doctor's appointment today. Hopefully they have her old records so they can see if her growth curve is healthy. Her parents are caring towards her, so I'm sure they're not feeding her too little on purpose or anything like that. The doctor will tell them to feed her more, and hopefully give her another prescription for vitamins, and she'll be fine.
She also drank 12 ounces of water from a sippy cup in the first hour we had her at our house...and didn't pee until 7 hours later...but overnight she had a hugely wet diaper, so she's not dangerously dehydrated. And it's not something we can really talk to her parents about, so that's that. I'm sure they give her juice and water and milk. It's just possible that she had salty food for breakfast before we picked her up. Or didn't have a bottle overnight. Or any number of things.

It's just very hard to not be in control. While we had her, we filled her up with as much food as she wanted, we gave her tons of liquids, and we made sure her food was high in good fats. Less than 24 hours of that isn't going to be enough if she's lacking, but it's better than nothing and all we can do.

To top it off, she wasn't particularly excited to see her dad when we dropped her off. She fussed at our leaving and I gave her a final kiss and left. She was fine, but obviously wasn't ready to go back home. It's really hard to know that she's still very bonded to us. We could take her back permanently and she probably wouldn't be very upset about it at all. It also didn't help that she decided that I was the one who wasn't allowed to leave her sight this time. Fostermama was great and wonderful, but it was okay if she left the room. If I left the room and was caught doing so, she cried at me until I brought her with me. So she watched me pee, went with me to fetch things, etc, even though fostermama was available to play with her. It's sweet and loving, but it doesn't make it any easier to bring her back home to her family.

So hopefully we'll get back on an every-week visiting schedule. And hopefully we'll be able to schedule around Christmas and New Year's. Though we'd certainly be happy to take her for New Year's. We're not the partying types, and often have trouble staying up until midnight, so it probably would be more fun to have Niblet over and go to bed early.

It's hard not to assume a future with Niblet, in some way or another. But, really, losing her to begin with is the worst disappointment I could have ever had, so if I plan for things that don't end up happening, it's not like I could feel any worse. That's the spirit, right?

Happier Week

2006-12-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

We saw Niblet yesterday!! Yay!!

We 3 had much much fun.
I called her dad to confirm on Saturday, and he was more coherent and relaxed than he's ever been with us, and when we picked her up on Sunday he and her mom were joking around telling Niblet "now don't come back" and saying "good riddance" - in other words, "yeah, we're ok with you taking her and it's helpful for us to get a break - see you all tomorrow." :)

We hung out at home and played and played and then went out for a walk to the grocery store for apples for saucing. It was latke night at our weekly potluck, so we brought home-made sauce. I've never seen people eat that volume of sauce in such a short time! Yay! Of course, Niblet ate like 1/3 of it! She was a vacuum!

We are a bit concerned because she seems lighter/skinnier, and she was dehydrated when she showed up. Drank like 12 oz of water in less than an hour, and she's never been much of a water drinker in the past. But, her dad mentioned when we picked her up that they were taking her to the doctor this morning so hopefully she's getting her 18 month check-up and she'll get weighed and everything. She's not skin and bones or anything, and she's actually got less of a cold than she's had for the past 2 months, so that's good. And we'll keep an eye on her and say something if we have to.

She took a good long nap, and then we went to potluck and she totally loved seeing all her peeps and eating tons of lots of different foods. She was SOOO sleepy when we left, and cried most of the way home (luckily only about 10 minutes) and once we got home because all she wanted was to be asleeeeep. She fell asleep fast but it was 30ish minutes before I could successfully put her down, especially cuz when she first fell asleep she pooped! :P

This morning we got her up and dressed and breakfasted, and she was all grinning and sweet, and we dropped her off at home and then went off to work.

I was smiling big as I walked away down the street (I work 2 blocks from her house). Yay for a good visit!

How it's going at Chez Fostermoms

2006-12-04T13:16:00.000-05:00

Today, not so well.
This weekend was supposed to be our regular, weekly visit with Niblet. We showed up at the set time and her father seemed surprised to see us and said that Niblet has a bad cold and couldn't visit with us. He did say that next week is fine.

It was very disappointing. I wish he'd called. I wish we'd thought to call. I think I'm scared to call ahead of time because I feel like it gives him an out. Like we would call and say "just confirming for tomorrow" and he could say "oh, actually, don't come."

It's silly, in some regard, because although he does seem to not be clear on the "every week" thing, he's never been evasive or seemed like he wanted to call it off. And if he did, he could call it off whether or not we called him first.
Since Niblet's mom is back in the picture, we're also afraid that she'll decide that Niblet shouldn't see us anymore, or as often, and that will change things.

Really, of course it's fine that Niblet's sick and of course she should stay home and feel better. It's just that it brings up everything all over again.
She's not our baby. We don't get to wipe her nose and help her get better. We have to wait for her parents to let us visit with her.

And it just sucks.
So fostermama and I fell into the hole. The hole filled with grief and depression. The hole filled with "it's not fair!" The hole that hides the alternate world where we adopted Niblet and raised her ourselves. The hole where we hide all these feelings and wait for them to disintegrate, slowly.

On the bright side, we're now on the list with our adoption agency. We're ready to be presented to prospective birth mothers. And, probably next week, we're going to get on the foster care list. One way or another, we need another baby to love up 24/7. And soon. We've enjoyed our time off, but now it's become more often painful instead of relaxing, so that means it's time for a baby.

Another ride on the roller coaster, I guess.

It's an illness!

2006-11-21T12:13:00.000-05:00

This foster parenting thing, that is.

Almost every day I think, yeah, maybe we should get back on the list earlier than we had thought we would. As if 3 weeks of good sleep, time for cooking and cleaning and hanging out together...is just too much (or enough) and we should mess it up with a new foster placement.

Since we're doing the private adoption route, too, I should KNOW that once we get that placement, that's it. No more sleep. No more "just us" time. Parenthood 24/7 for infinity.

Why do I want to mess with this special time we have now? Why do I want to take in some unknown baby sooner?

Because they're CUTE! and CUDDLY! and, for the time they're with me, MINE!

It really is so very weird to be parents without a child. I spend time trying to figure out what it was that I did with my free time before we became foster parents (2 years ago). I truly can't remember. It probably wasn't anything all that exciting.

Really, we're enjoying our time off. We're cooking, baking, cleaning, reading, visiting with friends, helping out our friends with kids, etc. It's really great.

But we will be ready for our adoptive placement starting in mid-December. And if we don't have one yet, we'll be getting back on the foster placement list around Christmas or New Year's. That's not very far away, really.

I just want to snuggle a baby, dress it up, sing it to sleep, play on the floor.

I guess I'll have to make do with our cats. Who really enjoy all those activities...except the dressing up.

Riding the Grief Train

2006-11-14T09:29:00.000-05:00

So it's been almost 2 weeks since Niblet was legally returned to her dad. We've seen her once a week since, on the weekend. The first day was just the afternoon and we brought her back after dinner. This weekend we took her for the afternoon and overnight.

She is wonderful and continues to amaze us with her constant learning and her extreme cuteness.

At first, we were very happy to have the whole process over with. Her dad finally has her back and the county doesn't dictate little Niblet's life any more. It's a good thing. Her dad is very willing, even happy, to have us in her life, and we don't lose out on seeing her. It has really gone as well as could be hoped for.

But (and you knew there was a but, right?) it has still happened. We have still lost our baby girl. We have still lost the dreams we had. Lost the right to have her 24/7. Lost the right to be her moms. We will always have had that and we will always have lost it.
This apparently takes about 2 weeks to settle in and now that it has, well, it hurts.

We are sad. And since there's really nothing we can do about it, it's kind of aggrevating to be sad, so we're upset that we're sad. Helpful, I know.

I certainly don't want to cut off visits with her. I love her and want to see her as often as possible. It's just very hard to be with her and not be her parent. To put her to sleep and know that, in the morning, we'll be bringing her back to her parents.

Oh, yes, I said parents. Because her mom is back in the picture. Released from jail, I'm assuming, and seemingly living with Niblet and her dad. We have no idea what to think of this and can't figure out a way to ask someone if it's a good thing or not without it getting back to the parents and having them cut off our visits because they think we're narc-ing for The County.

The best thing I can come up with is asking the counselor here at work who the dad worked with. She has no connection to the county at all. But confidentiality really keeps her from saying anything to me. I just imagine that if I went to her crying and asked her to just tell me if she thought Niblet was safe with her mom around, she might tell me the truth. And, really, I want the answer to be yes. I think that it would be a good thing for Niblet to have her mom around. She's way younger than the dad, more "with it", and it reduces the chances that he'll get fed up with her. Sharing the load is always better.

Anyway, so this adds to the stressful feelings regarding Niblet. Not helpful.

It's just hard. I've never really had anything like this happen and I don't know how to grieve and move through it, while still maintaining a relationship with Niblet and her family.

There's no Wikipedia entry for this. No book I can get from the library. Hopefully time and friends will cure all. Until then...this sucks.

Visits for us!

2006-11-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

On Saturday morning I called Niblet's dad and asked if we could visit with her some time soon. Turned out he was going out during the day on Sunday, but we could take her for the afternoon. We did, for about 3 1/2 hours. And it was awesome! I was afraid there would be some weirdness, being with her but not being her parents. And there was not. It was perfect in every way.
And afterwards, fostermommmy asked him if we could set up regular visits and we all agreed that we'd come pick her up every Sunday at 2pm, and then either bring her back that night or keep her overnight and bring her back Monday morning.

We are so lucky. And so is she, to have a dad who seems to be doing a great job taking care of her and isn't too threatened to let her keep this strong bond that she's had for the past year.

Yay!

Resolution

2006-10-31T12:26:00.000-05:00

Court happened and Niblet's dad got full custody. Yay for Niblet and her dad!
We're even pretty relieved for everything to be over. No more "what-ifs". No more county f'ing everything up. Even the lawyer called her dad a "rare commodity" because he stepped up and did what he had to do.

We had Niblet for one day this weekend and she seemed really fine. She was happy to see us when we picked her up, but not super-clingy or anything. We get the impression that she still thinks of us as her primary parents, even though we only see her once a week. She doesn't mind being with him, but I suspect that she thinks of him more like daycare - eventually we'll come get her again.

He made a point of making sure we have his number and said we can take her whenever we want, so we're glad for that. We'll see her at least once a week for a while and then maybe regularly, or maybe just occasionally. We could take her for a weekend, or just go to the park one afternoon or something. I'm looking forward to seeing out it all pans out. Really, we could probably take her camping with us next summer, if we wanted to. As fostermama has said, it's kind of like being non-custodial parents. We didn't have a divorce or anything, but as far as Niblet's concerned, we are her parents, too, and she'll be happy to spend time with us!

Now we're on hiatus. No foster babies for a while. We're off the list.
We're signed up with our domestic private adoption agency, but we're not accepting a match where the baby would be due before mid-December or so. We need some time for ourselves.

I wish I could post a picture of Niblet for you guys. She's so freakin' cute. And the difference between when we got her and now is so huge - almost a year! We got a nice picture of us, Niblet and her dad outside the courthouse. He even asked for a copy of it. We have a photo album for him that we've already put a bunch of pictures in, so we'll print that one and some of the recent ones, and then they'll have a nice album full of her baby pictures.

We have hundreds more, too, that we'd be happy to share with Niblet when she's older, if we're all still in touch. And videos. She's just the cutest thing.

Okay, well, this post is all over the place, so I'll stop here. We're doing okay over here in FostermomLand. We're happy that we're not worried about Niblet and we're looking forward to what's coming up next in our lives.

If the camel's back weren't already broken...

2006-10-24T16:23:00.000-04:00

...this would do it.
This morning, fostermama dropped off Niblet with her dad. We had her for 2 days. Next week we get her for one more day and then that's it, officially.
Niblet's dad mentioned the court date next week, on the day we're supposed to have her.

Um, what court date????!

He says he's known for a week. We haven't heard anything about it.
So fostermama gets on the phone to all and sundry to find out what the heck is going on. Obviously, it being the county, nobody's at their desk.

Finally, she gets a hold of another one of the foster parent case workers, who does the legwork for us and finds out that, yes, there's court scheduled for next week, on the day we're supposed to have her, at 11am. She obviously didn't know why we hadn't been informed.

This has been a problem before. Because of this, we specifically asked the baby's case worker (who would be the one to know about court first) if she would make sure to let us know as soon as possible when a court date is set. We knew it could be any day. It's her fucking job to let us know. She's federally mandated to do so, in fact. But we asked her politely. And she agreed that, of course she'd let us know. There were many witnesses.

And what did she do? Not tell us. Again.

Fortunately, Niblet's dad had no problem with fostermama asking if we could have Niblet the day before so we could have our last day with her be a full day, not cut up by stressful court proceedings. We'll bring her with us to court, put her in the court daycare, and then he'll take her home from there. Very likely, legal custody will actually be transferred to him that day, as well. So it'll be a great day for the 2 of them to have together to celebrate.

So, really, it's all fine. We left another message for the Bad Case Worker saying that we have the info and she needn't call us back, we'll just see her next week. We'll see if she even mentions it. I'm guessing not.

Once Niblet is officially out of foster care, we'll be filing a complaint against Bad Case Worker for neglecting to inform us of the court dates. All she'll get, I'm sure, is a "inform foster parents of court dates" from her foster-parent-hating supervisor, but that's better than nothing

We've changed our tune? Really, we've just changed.

2006-10-20T13:20:00.000-04:00

Niblet's transition to her dad is going really, really well. Last week he had her for 4 days and she came back happy to see us, but not crying. Her first night back with us wasn't unusually hard. She had a cold, so really it was just the congestion that was bothering her.

Now she's with him for 5 days. We get her back for 2, then she goes back to him for 6 days and comes back to us for 1 final day.

Fostermama was saying the other night that Niblet doesn't live with us anymore. Some of her stuff is here, and we are here, but she really lives with her dad.
It's such a change from 1 year ago.

1 year ago, her parents had missed 8 visits in a row and had their visits cancelled.
1 year ago, chances were high we'd be able to adopt her.
1 year ago we took her into our house with the intention to raise her/think of her as our own almost from day 1.

Since then, so much has changed. Her mom "disappeared", her dad decided to "try" and get her back himself. We didn't feel positive about this at all. Obviously we wanted to raise her ourselves (really, if you ever met this kid, you'd want to, too), but we also felt scared for her. We felt like it would be a huge mistake for him to raise her himself.

But even that's changed, lately. He's not going to raise her like we would, but he loves her and isn't stupid (which was questionable at times) and does want us to be in her life in some way (at least for a while).

We were at our foster parent support group recently and were talking about how it's not a horrible thing that she's going to live with him. How that's really the *goal* of foster care and how everything really did work out the way the system says it's supposed to. Yes, the dad was given too much time, but not more than is federally allowable.

One of the other parents there commented "wow, you've really changed your tune". And I suppose that's the case. But, really, we've just changed. Period.

We are not the same people, the same parents, we were 1 year ago. Raising Niblet, helping Niblet, fixing Niblet, and letting her go...have all been life-altering.
Now we're looking forward to moving along with a domestic private adoption AND continuing fostering as often as we can. 1 year ago we were committed to adopting through fostercare (and hoping to adopt Niblet).

We're planning on taking a breather once Niblet is fully gone. No placements. Just adult time to relax, sleep, get to know each other and ourselves again, spend time with our friends and our friends' kids more, etc.

But we both know that we're going to miss having a baby around, miss fostering, and if they call us with a placement in that first month or 2, it will be very, very hard to say no. After that, I'm not sure what we'll say....

In a parallel universe...

2006-09-27T16:46:00.000-04:00

We decided this summer that we're not going to count on foster care to build our family. Adopting through foster care, though our blog title, is just not possible in our county right now. We do know of some people who have recently adopted or have kids who are going to be TPRed, but that's few and far between. Kids are going home.

What we've decided to do is go through domestic private adoption. We will continue fostering, after a break of undetermined length, but we will get our first forever baby through private adoption.

We've picked an agency and started our homestudy last week. We're working on all the paperwork and are hoping to get our fingerprints tomorrow and get everything rolling asap. We'll be going to meet with the agency in October (it's out of town).

It's very weird to be talking about adopting and our future baby while we still have Niblet. She'll be playing on the floor and we'll be sitting there discussing what kinds of babies/situations we're willing to accept, etc., and it's just SO WEIRD. Niblet really was meant to be our child. Sometimes what's meant to be just doesn't happen. I can accept that, but it's still really hard.

To top it off, the social worker who is doing our home study (a friend of ours) told us the other day that she was talking with the head of the agency and that she said they have a birthmother in mind that they'd like to match us with, so they're hoping we get our stuff in soon. Or something like that.
I can't even wrap my head around that. Realistically, if it's true, if the baby is due anytime in the next few months, we would have to pass on it.
We need time to recouperate. To clean the house (we never fully unpacked, as we moved in 1 month before we got Niblet). To have time to ourselves, time together, before we commit to being parents 24/7 for the rest of our lives. 4 months is the minimum, I think, but a little more would be good too.
Of course, we don't want to wait too long, but the agency said that, given that we want a situation where we wouldn't have to pay very much for the birth mother's expenses, we'd probably have to wait 9 months for a match. If we were willing to pay anything, it'd be much sooner. This is mainly because we're open to any race and gender. Most of their clients want white girls. Whatever.

Anyway, it does feel good to be on this path. Having Niblet leave will be the worst thing in the world. Welcoming my first permanent child will be the best. Being on both paths at once somehow feels right.

Transition's Upon Us

2006-09-27T16:34:00.000-04:00

It's been a while, but there's been nothing and everything to say.
We had another case review meeting (probably the last) a couple of weeks ago.
Niblet's case worker was actually civil to us, but only because we forced *our* case worker to come to the meeting to back us up, if need be.

The meeting was to be about planning the transition from us to Niblet's dad. Instead of a conversation, the case worker came with a calendar all laid out. It had been set up by her supervisor and wasn't up for discussion. Fortunately, it's not too bad and she did agree that if Niblet wasn't handling it well, that we could revisit it.

Basically, we're adding one overnight per week. This week it was 2 nights/2 days. Next week 3 nights/3 days, etc. So that by the end of the month, she's coming back to us for one day and then back to him for good.

I counted it up today and we have 16 days with her between now and the end.

Looking at it on a calendar is so painful. It makes it so real that she's leaving. She's really not ours anymore.

The dad has filed for custody, so it's possible that the judge will call us all to court and give immediate custody back to the dad before the end of the month. We discussed this possibility during the meeting and everyone seems to be in agreement that, regardless of who has custody, the transition should proceed as planned. We don't want to traumatize Niblet.

If there's one thing we are FIRM on, it's that this little girl is NOT going to end up with an attachment disorder because of the County's fuck-ups. We don't care what kind of trouble we cause, we will work with her dad to transition Niblet as smoothly as possible.

He's said numerous times that we're like family and that of course we will be welcome to visit Niblet after the transition. He's said that we could take her for overnights; that he'd probably welcome that. (Of course, this wasn't said in complete sentences, but that was the gist...I think...)

Our pipe dream, as of now, is that we'd be able to set up with him a weekly overnight. That we'd be able to have her Sunday morning until Monday morning. Give him some time off, give Niblet the security that we haven't abandoned her. I don't know if he'll go for something structured like that, and I don't know how long we'd want to keep it up. But, really, I'd be happy to do it forever. We kinda think of it as us being the "non-custodial parents". We can stay in her life, be a resource for her, and only see her once a week or whatever. Who knows how it would play out, but it's our hope right now.

She comes back to us tomorrow morning. I hope the extended visit wasn't too hard on her. I hope she continues to be as brave and strong as she always has been and starts seeing him as a parent. She's really the one who is going to make this work. I really do think she'll be okay.

2006-08-30T16:21:00.000-04:00

There really needs to be some sort of competency standard for birth parents who're getting "their" kids placed with them/released from foster care. I realized the other day that her dad is older than the babysitter who we don't use anymore because she's totally wonderful with Niblet but her mental faculties aren't as sharp as they once were. And he's all drug-addled (past use we hope), too. There's no way it's actually safe to leave a child in his care.

But, she's going to live with him.
And he's eventually going to get an apartment, despite his total incompetence, because enough social services folks are working to get him a place. It might happen this Friday. Not holding my breath, as that would be the 4th time it "might happen" so far this summer. But once he gets a place, the transition was supposed to start in earnest. Only now her County Caseworker (evil one) is saying that any changes in her visit schedule will have to wait til the next meeting, which is not til 9/20. When at the last meeting, 8/9 or so, everyone was saying that once he got a place we'd revisit the visits even if it wasn't the next meeting yet.

So she might be in total limbo for 3 more weeks than necessary because this caseworker is so lazy and evil.

I'm feeling like for everyone's sake, I have to intervene. Today I called the placement supervisor to see if we could maybe get a CASA worker involved in facilitating the transition. She's on vacation til Friday. If she doesn't come through, or if the CASA thing can't be done, I think we should call the private agency caseworker's supervisor and see about getting her to advocate for a sooner change. She doesn't have the power to make the decision, but the County caseworker does see her as a little bit of a higher-up and if she pushed for something it might well happen. She will SO not want to get involved, but she's not stupid and will see that this is important so she might.

I'm torn about fighting for Niblet and possibly burning bridges vs. letting things go a little longer and allowing everyone to pretend things are OK. I'm tempted to file a formal complaint about not having been alerted to the court date and see if we can get the ruling changed to include a mandate for her father to attend parenting classes in order to get her back. There's no good reason it shouldn't have included that from the very beginning. And they SAY they're trying to get him help in that area but you know the County isn't gonna pay for anything if the court doesn't require it. :P

ARGH.

Huge mess.

All I want is someone in the system to stick up for her. There's a person whose job that is. Her "law guardian." But he doesn't do it. Not even a little bit. Won't even talk to us, even though it's in his job description to do so. Nods at whatever Evil-Caseworker says to the judge, without knowing thing 1 about whether it's true or right.

So awful....

Argh, part deux.

2006-08-25T10:02:00.000-04:00

The Caseworker called yesterday, but fostermama was putting Niblet for a nap, so asked if she could call her back later. She was going to be in the office for an hour, and by the time fostermama wrestled the baby down for her nap and took a breath, the time was gone and I was home from work and she had to scurry out the door.

So I was going to call the cw back this morning when I got to work.

Well, as I was leaving for work, the phone rings. It's the Caseworker's Supervisor. Who has previously proved to be reactionary and not a huge fan of foster parents.

My initial thought had been that the CW was calling to, at the very least, let us know what happened at court on Tuesday, right? Maybe even apologize for not telling us about it (giving some excuse that clears her, obviously.)

But no.

The Supervisor starts in on the schedule we sent with Niblet to the overnight. The schedule that was recommended and looked over prior by the OT. The schedule that was, I assume, seen by the dad's caseworker last week. But now the Supervisor is telling me that it's inappropriate for the dad to have to fill that out like homework and hand it back to us. I didn't ask if she'd like it simply returned to her... She talked about how we were "overstepping our boundaries" and took the opportunity to let me know what the role of a foster parent is. Which is highly hysterical, given that the Caseworker has proven many times that she's not all that clear on that concept.

I did not apologize. I did not agree that it was a bad idea. She claimed that the dad felt "insulted" by it, but I somehow doubt that. I told her that it was only a tool and that he had requested a schedule and that the OT suggested this format and thought that, by filling it out, it would help him keep track and learn the baby's cycles. I told her that everyone else who had seen it had either liked it or not made mention of it.
I told her that what we do need to know is the last time Niblet ate and slept so we know when to next feed and nap her.

Fostermama was in the background trying to tell me not to engage this person, but I didn't need that warning. I listened to what she said, said "okay", and hung up.

WhatEVER. Do I think it's ridiculous that we were the ones keeping track of how he was doing feeding and napping her? Yes! Do I think it's ridiculous that we were the ones who suggested he start overnights before he has a permanent place? Yes! Do I think it's overstepping our role? YES! But if nobody else is going to do their job and do these things, and they seem happy for us to, then that's what happens. They want us to stop - fine.

So next week we'll send a note, like usual, and outline her regular schedule, let him know when she woke up and ate, and ask him to write down when her final nap and food is before we pick her up. (oy, my tenses are getting all out of whack!)
If "they" have a problem with that, then they can stick it up their patooties, because that is NOT overstepping our role. That's taking care of the baby as long as she is in our care. Which is our only goal.

I really have no problem with the fact that they want us to stop having him fill in the form. However, there are respectful, non-accusatory ways to approach this and she chose not to take that route.

At this point, when we decide to start taking foster babies again, we're going to pick and choose our placements based on who the caseworker is and who his/her supervisor is. We've had enough run-ins with this Supervisor to know that she poisons her team again foster parents and we don't need to deal with that extra aggravation.

ARRRRGGH!!!

2006-08-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

What do you do with a problem like ~~Maria~~ our caseworker???

Yesterday was Niblet's first overnight with her dad. She was gone from yesterday morning until noon today. Except that, last night, we picked up a message from the secretary saying that the dad's caseworker won't be available to drop off the baby at noon, so it would have to be 10:30am or 1:00pm. Did they call our cell? No. So fostermama calls this morning and leaves a message saying that she'd be glad to pick up Niblet at 12:00pm.

The secretary calls back. Nope. The dad has some kind of appointment so can't bring the baby at 12:00. After some confusion, it turns out it's some kind of CPS appointment that he only found out about yesterday, so it's not like he made an appointment during his visit on purpose. Fine. So fostermama will pick up the baby at 1pm.

Now it's 1:25pm and she calls me and says:
"The appointment today was Court."

Meaning, the court hearing where the judge could take Niblet out of foster care, speed up her transition, or any number of other things. We were told it could happen quickly, but we were also told that they'd CALL US AND TELL US ABOUT IT. Because we have a RIGHT to be present at the proceedings.

The person I'm pissed at is the baby's caseworker. She's the one who would have first found out about the court date. She's the one who has ALL our phone numbers. And she's the one who has been so f'ing rude to us for months on end for no good reason.

Fostermama was told that the judge "continued Niblet in foster care for 6 months". Fortunately, the One Good Person happened to be in the office at the time and explained that that's a technicality and that the transition plan is still on course and she should be back with her dad within the same timeline we'd originally thought - within a month.

To top it off, the baby wasn't there to be picked up because the dad's caseworker was on her way to drop her off at our house! They just arrived back at the office when I got off the phone with fostermama.

We did a really good job of not getting too upset about Niblet not being at home last night. We actually enjoyed ourselves and saw a movie. We were looking forward to finding out how the visit went, how did she overnight, etc. Now, since the dad's already gone home, fostermama won't get to talk to him about it, and we have this added fun of dealing with the fact that we were cut out of the court date.

The upshot, it seems, is that nothing has changed. Which is good.

I just didn't need this added f'ing stress!!!!

She's a big girl now!

2006-08-18T13:35:00.000-04:00

Niblet took her first tentative steps a few days ago. Just 2 of them at once. Last night she went further and took 9 whole steps by herself. Okay, I was bribing her with food, but so what?

She's grown up so much since we've had her. I mean, obviously, 9 months is a long time in the life of a baby, but she was so delayed when we got her and now she's not.

She's "graduating" from early intervention. She had been gettting OT twice a week and they're stopping her services in a few weeks because she's "too much on target". Whoo! Go Niblet! Her OT said that it's very, very rare that they get to graduate anyone. She's had OT for 6 months and she's done! She finally rolled over a few weeks ago, she's been crawling for a month or so, and now she's walking. Talk about leaps and bounds!

We had another case review meeting last week. We found out that there are papers in the works that, once they get to the judge, will mean a court date and Niblet could get sent home with her dad that day. So she's leaving foster care anytime from next week to next month.
Her dad is having his first overnight with her next week and then we'll go from there. Hopefully the judge will be apeased by the overnights and keep with the suggested transition plan.

Really, I'm glad this is going forward. Her dad is doing pretty well - she eats and sleeps well with him. Fostermama asked him at the meeting if he'd allow us to see her after she went to him and he said "you're part of the family!" and that we could see her "whenever". He even mentioned us taking her for weekends or overnight or whatever. That's such a relief. It's been hard to tell how he feels about us, and to find that he doesn't hate us is wonderful.

Now, I definitely don't want to disappear from her life, and I won't, but I'm not sure exactly how much involvement I want to have with her and her new family. We'll take it step by step. Whatever is best for her and feels right to us.

Quick update

2006-08-01T20:18:00.000-04:00

I went to pick up Niblet after her visit. Her dad and his case worker were there. She pulled out the book we write stuff in and checked where he'd written (properly, even!) what he'd fed her and when she'd slept.
He actually fed her a good amount of solids, put her to sleep at the right time (and she slept for 2 hours!) and even though she only drank a little of her bottle before her nap, he gave it to her again later so she ended up drinking an okay amount.

This is huge for him, so far, and I'm happy. I don't know if the OT gave him some more advice/help this morning, or what, but the fact that he can properly feed and nap her is very good.

On the down side (isn't there always a down side?), the public housing that they were all counting on him getting hasn't come through yet. He was offered a studio apartment, but he needs a 2 bedroom, so that's not all that helpful. He's starting to look on his own, but finding something he can afford won't be easy. Hopefully something will come through by the 15th, but what this means is that he's not starting overnight visits next week. Can't do that until he has his own place.

Now I'm crossing my fingers and toes that the convince him to delay taking full custody until end of september at least, because 2 weeks of an overnight visit or two is not a proper transition for her age.

Yes, it does seem that it's not 100% up to the case workers. There's some legal thing or another against him that expires in September and then there's nothing allowing the county to keep Niblet out of his custody. It's all complicated and stupid, but there is it.

She's cute. She's leaving. Nothing new.

2006-08-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

Nothing new to report today.
The days click by and we're simply getting closer to that day when she's gone.

There's another case review meeting next week and that's when the visit schedule will be changed. We're hoping that they'll go slowly and start with one overnight. Currently he has her for a good part of one day and then a couple of hours the next day. What would make sense is for them to just connect those 2 visits, so he has her from 9am one day to 12pm the next day. Another overnight would be too much, too soon, in our opinion.
They could do that for a couple of weeks and then have another meeting, if they really want to fast-track it.

On one hand, I'm hoping that they'll keep it slow and delay his getting her back 100% until maybe late September or so. For her good, really.

But on the other hand, again for her good, she really needs to go as soon as possible. She's getting more attached to us, if possible. She's happy to go be with other people, but when snuggling time comes around, she prefers us.
Of course, really the best thing for her is to go as soon and as slowly as possible - both. So that it's seemless to her. So she has a chance to learn her dad, to get used to sleeping at his house, so she starts to think of it as normal to be there.

She's also starting to learn that words exist, and is starting to communicate a little bit with us. That is going to be delayed with the move, but there's nothing we can do about that. Once she gets comfortable with him and his family, she'll start up again. Hopefully the OT can suggest speech therapy if there's any kind of reason for it.

We're going to be leaning on the OT a lot. She knows the baby AND the father better than anyone does. Depending on how the long visit goes today, we're probably going to be asking her to write a letter to Niblet's case worker to advocate for a longer transition time and, hopefully, more parenting skills/classes for the father. It's not our place to discuss his parenting skills, but it is her place, so hopefully they'll listen to whatever she has to say.

Hopefully the visit is going well today. I'll find out in a couple of hours.

Niblet is getting cuter everyday and it's just getting more painful everyday. For my own sake, I really want a *date*. To know when she's leaving. I don't know what good it will do me, but not knowing is one of the things driving me crazy, and I just need to shorten that list.

We need to print up more pictures and get her copies of her favorite books so she can take them all with her. I want to know how much time I have to do that.
It's the little things.

2006-07-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

This F-ing Broken System (and world at large)

So her dad had his first long (6 hour) visit with her today, unsupervised.
He was super proud of himself when fostermommy went to pick her up, because "she ate well and she slept well." Well, when pressed for details, fostermommy learned that she had slept for one hour in the middle of the day (she usually takes 2 hour-long naps during this time period). And when looking through the remaining food, she discovered that she'd been fed one jar of carrots and a small amount of green beans, and nothing else. None of her formula.

She just made a very hard small poop, indicating possibly being dehydrated. How could she not be? It was in the mid-high 80s today. He mentioned that she liked the a/c wherever it was that he took her, but a/c is drying, too. And we specifically mentioned in our note to him that she needed to drink the bottle, how much she should drink, how often. And that she needed water offered every half hour or so if it was hot. He was so pleased that she'd drunk some juice (that he brought).

Whatever.

Unfortunately, that's not what I'm most upset about right now.

I think I've figured out why he's doing this.
For a while when he first started fighting to get her back, it seemed to me like he was an old man trying to win one fight against the system after a long life of losing them.
Then I became convinced that he was doing it out of love for her, because he said something about "more time with my daughter" at the last meeting and on "my daughter" he got a bit choked up.

Today I came up with a new theory I feel is stronger than the other two: He's doing it for the approval of his ex-girlfriend. She's the mother of at least two of his adult children, and I believe he was somewhat estranged from her before this, but one of her daughters got involved in helping him, and she has now inserted herself forcefully into the middle of it. We know from comments by his counselor at the last meeting that he has issues that indicate that this is a likely motivation for him.

He seems so totally uninterested in learning anything about her daily life or her care from us. He seems annoyed when I try to tell him when she will need her next nap, or give him fostermommy's work phone number to call if he had any trouble during the day today. I feel like he has *no* respect for the role we have played and continue to play in "his" daughter's life.

I suspect he's going to ditch everything he's heard from us, from the case-workers, from the occupational therapist, and everyone else involved, so that he can follow to the letter whatever she tells him to do. And she is so not a good influence.

ARGH.

It hurts.

And there's nothing we can do about it.

And it's just one more piece of a really broken system, a piece of a really broken world. :P

Not our baby.

2006-06-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

Well, that's that.
We had the case review meeting this morning and, unless lightening strikes or her dad totally messes up somehow, he's getting her back.
Probably in September.

He's doing everything he's supposed to be doing. He's on track to get an apartment in the next few weeks. They've increased his visits to unsupervised, with a long one (6 hours) one day a week. More of his adult children are coming out of the woodwork to say they'll support him and help him out once he has her back.

Her mom has popped back in a little bit. She's headed for jail and treatment in the near future, and said outright (to one of the case workers) that she knows she's not up for taking the baby at this point, but she knows the dad is working on it and she's happy about that. So she's probably going to be TPRed and have some sort of restraining order regarding the dad and baby. Whatever.

I know this is the plan. I know I have had no reason, lately, to think that she would stay with us. That doesn't help, though. I want her. I love her. She's becoming such a little person lately, and her personality is coming out so much more. I *like* her.

We have to work with her dad so the transition is as smooth as possible. That's what we can give her. We've given her so much so far and it will help her for the rest of her life, yadda yadda...I just don't care. I want her to be my baby forever and nothing will ever make it okay that she's not.

I don't know what to do now.

I'm such a liar.

2006-06-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

Did I really say "it will be okay" if she leaves?
No. It will not be okay. It will be horrible and worse than I can even imagine. And the only way we will get through it is with a good therapist, our friends and family, and each other. We *have to* get through it, or else it will ruin our lives and our future family.

I spoke with our social worker a few days ago about all the communication problems we're having with Niblet's caseworker, and she asked about how the case was progressing. When I told her that the dad has 2 visits a week and just has to find an apartment and continue his counseling and that I'm pretty sure he has nothing legal against him (and they have no legal reason to drug test him, so they just assume he's clean)...she said "I don't like the way that's all sounding." Meaning that she knows that that means he's going to get the baby back. Unless he messes up royally.

And I recently attended our foster parent support group and heard stories of other FPs and how their foster kids went back to really horrible situations, with parents who said to anyone who would listen that they didn't actually love or want their kid, but case workers poo-poo these things and just hand them back the kids anyway. If these people got their kids back, then there's no way that Niblet's dad isn't getting her back.

Our only hope is for him to mess up or for the judge to rule in our favor for whatever reason.

I still think that she'll be safe with him, which is more than other foster parents can say when their kids go home, but of course I want to keep her.

I feel like I'm wasting my time. What I want is my forever family. I do love fostering, and we'll most likely continue doing it, but now I'm antsy for a baby who will definitely stay.
And now we have to wait until her next court date (most likely) to be able to move on with our plans. That's not for another 5 months or so.

The plan now is to forget about trying to adopt through foster care. In this county, at this time, hoping for such a thing is a joke. Kids are going home and that's that. I'm not spending another year of my life babysitting a child who I will love like my own only to have her be ripped from me and handed back to the parent(s) who abused her in the first place - especially since the county has very little ability to make sure these babies are safe after they're returned.

Unlike most couples, fostercare was our first choice, so our "plan b" is to try to conceive. Plan C is private domestic adoption through this non-profit in the midwest that only does AA and biracial infant adoptions. Of course, we keep going back and forth about whether we want to try adoption first or conception first. We keep coming back to conceiving, so that's probably where we'll go.

The plan is that I'd try first. Fostermama has never really felt like being pregnant, and I kinda do, so there we go. It just makes me feel weird and sad to think that, a year from now, I could be pregnant and not have Niblet at home with me.
And now I'm back where I started. It's very important that we properly grieve and workthrough everything after the baby leaves us, or else we won't be able to properly celebrate whatever comes our way next. The fact that we know this is heartening, but, from this distance, it's so hard to believe we will ever get through it.

Update

2006-06-13T13:23:00.000-04:00

So I met with her.
Turns out, she hadn't been aware that I was the FP for her client's child.
She just became aware of this last week and, since she's been invited to the next case review meeting, she wanted to make sure I was aware that she was working with him and that she was going to be at the meeting.

Makes sense. If I had thought that she might be invited to these meetings, I would have given her a heads-up as well.

She was very compassionate, saying how, if she put herself in my shoes, that this can't be anything but a hard situation. Either way it turns out, she said, someone is going to have some strong feelings.
I don't know if she was trying to tell me something or not, but what that says to me is that the bio-dad feels very strongly about not losing this baby. Which is obvious, given his desire to "try to parent her". It also points strongly to him, if the time comes, choosing surrender over TPR. Which is heartening.
I just hope someone tells him when that time is, because I'm not sure he's able to read the writing on the wall.

And, by way of a happier update, the baby is doing very well. She's working on her crawling, doing well with her OT exercises, and just becoming more babbly, interactive and loving every day.

Long shot, overactive imagination

2006-06-13T10:29:00.000-04:00

I work at a non-profit that does a lot of different things, including providing counseling services of all types.
I'm not a counselor, though.
I got to work this morning and had an email from one of the counselors in a different department from mine asking me to see her when I have a moment.

We never interact in a professional way, so this is probably not work-related.

I happen to know, however, that this counselor is working with Niblet's bio-dad. This information has come out in bits and pieces over time, mostly during the case review meetings.
And I know that he knows I work here, because I've seen him more than once.

The only thing I can think of that she'd want to talk to me about is him and our foster daughter. My mind is racing with the possibilities. Maybe he likes her more than he likes his case worker and he wants her to organize a meeting between him and us, to talk about surrender?

Sure, it could be work-related, or totally about something different. Or it could be a negative thing regarding the bio-dad, like that he's uncomfortable working with her knowing that I work here, too. Or something else.

But I can't help hoping for something wonderful and I hope she gets into work soon so we can talk and get it over with!

I don't realize how much I hope her parents will just up and surrender until the *teeny* possibility of it pops into my head.

I wish there were something I regretted doing.

2006-05-22T10:47:00.000-04:00

This was my wish a few nights ago.
I was wracking my brain, trying to find one thing I regret having done in regard to fostering/adopting/etc.

There isn't anything.

Deciding to adopt as a first choice
Deciding to do fostercare instead of private adoption
Deciding to take temporary foster babies
Deciding to take "possible adopt" foster babies
Deciding to treat Niblet as "our own"
Deciding to start calling her by the name we'd give her if we adopted her
Asking our family and friends to treat her as permanent, with the knowledge that she could be temporary
Deciding to have kids at all
All the other things that have happened that I didn't have control over, but could wish that they didn't happen all the same.

I can't even pretend to want to take any of these things back.

I'm a big proponent of "things happen for a reason". I'm not all that religious, but I am spiritual. I feel the bigger picture. If nothing else, the past 2 years have taught me more about "things happen for a reason" than I ever knew.

What this amounts to is that, as much as I want Niblet to stay with us forever and ever, it might not happen. And it will be okay if that happens. She will be okay. She will be safe. We will grieve and cry and curse and eat french fries and milkshakes for dinner for weeks, but we will recover. We will go on to the next step, we will move on with our lives, we will eventually have the family we are meant to have.
I don't think there's a "master plan", really, but I do think there are many paths that our lives can take and that all of them end up with us having children and being happy. I really do believe that.

I just wish I could find the branch of the current path that leads to Miss Cuteness sleeping through the night.

Oh, and...

2006-05-17T22:28:00.000-04:00

Of course, my anger flares up occasionally.
Like tonight, when Niblet took over an hour to fall asleep. Everytime I left the room, she freaked out and would not calm down.

I left the room and told Fostermama: "I can't do it anymore. I fucking want him to come and take his broken baby now. I'm not doing it anymore."

It's really hard to be a long-term babysitter for such a high needs baby. It sometimes only has seemed worth it because "this too shall pass". If she leaves, then that's not true. We'll have gotten all the hardest months and he'll get the rest of it. The fun. The raising her. Fuck that noise.

I want to call him everytime she wakes up and keep him on the phone until I get to get back in bed. If I actually had his phone number, it'd be hard to stop myself from doing it in the middle of the night.

I think she's teething currently, but it's so hard to tell because there's no normal to compare it to.

I love her so hard. He doesn't love her like I do. He loves the idea of her. I know he will love her, but right now, I win. I love her more. She loves me more. None of this is fair to her.

Rollercoaster much?

2006-05-17T22:27:00.000-04:00

Although there are no definites in this world, especially when you're talking about foster care, today it seems like our little Niblet's dad is going to get her back.

He's working on it. He's getting an apartment. He seems not too scared about her needs. He managed to get her to fall asleep at the visit (although she only stayed asleep for 15 minutes).
He even seems to have heard what the judge said last week and asked for more visitation. He's getting a second visit per week for 3 hours, which will be moved to his home once he gets a place and it's approved.

Niblet's case worker is being obnoxious. Now that reunification is seeming more possible, she's distancing herself from us because she assumes (I can only assume) that we're going to be pushing to keep the baby and her job is to follow the laws and make reunification happen if at all possible.

WE UNDERSTAND THIS. We know that our job is to keep the baby safe while she's in our care. We know that part of this job is to help her dad learn about her and help transition her to him.
We also know that many foster parents do fight it and don't understand how things work. But little miss case worker (who's been in the job for about a year and is probably 25 years old or so) doesn't want to listen to us and doesn't want us to talk to the dad. Ever.

She's commanded that we not talk to the dad's case worker about anything except the visits. If we want to talk to the dad, she has to be there, and she's made it clear that she's not willing to facilitate that.

Which is horrible. We learned in our foster care class that it's our responsibility to make an effort to have a relationship with the parents of our foster children. The case workers, however, have no idea what our training entailed and apparently don't like us asserting ourselves.

We're, surprisingly, taking it relatively well. I feel like what's meant to happen will happen. Her dad is a good man. She will be okay if she lives with him. She won't be who she would be if she stayed with us, but she'll be safe.

We still want our own baby, though. If Cuteness leaves, we're probably going to abandon foster care as a method of growing our family. We'll still be foster parents and we'll take temporary kids at some point, but we're either going to try to get pregnant or go domestic private adoption.

Hopefully her dad will figure out what he wants and if he can have it as soon as possible. Twice a week visits for 2-3 hours should give him a good idea of what she's like. I hope.

Stay tuned.

Relatively boring court, but there's always some fun!

2006-05-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

This is a long post, so maybe you want to grab a snack. :)
So the upshot is what we expected. Given that she hasn't even been in care for 15 months yet, there was no way the judge was going to TPR on either parent. The lawyers all requested a 6 month extension, and the judge granted it.

So at least nothing weird on that front.

The dad was there, with his lawyer, and the mom is AWOL - possibly "detained", possibly just hiding out because she doesn't want to be forced into in-patient rehab. Or whatever. She still has time to come back in the picture, though.

One of the father's many adult children came to court (with her mother) to support the father. She's pretty young and, we think, has child of her own, but she has expressed readiness to "help" the father get the baby back. We don't know what that means at all. She was told that she needs to talk to the county CW if she wants to do kinship foster care or adopt the baby herself, and so far she hasn't done that. She kept trying to speak up in court, but everyone pointedly ignored her.
If she does officially come forward and go through the small steps to get the baby, she'll get her, no question. So our goal is to make sure that she and the father know exactly what they'd be getting themselves into. What the baby's needs are, what her future needs will probably be, etc. As I think I've said before, we don't want to "scare them off", we just want to make sure they make an informed decision and that the baby grows up with someone who accepts her and takes good care of her.

Anyway, got off track there!
It was really great that we were at court. At one point the judge asked the county attorney a simple question:
Judge - "Are the current foster parents ready to adopt the baby if the father doesn't succeed in getting her back?"
Attorney - "Well, I wouldn't say it that strongly, your honor."

Um...WTF?! It was a question that just required a yes or no answer, and the judge was assuming it was a yes, as that was half the reason she was switched to us! And the CW didn't say anything, either!

So the judge looks back at us, in the rows, and says "you're the foster parents, right? Why don't you come join us up here."
We grabbed a chair and joined them at the "big table". He asked us what our intentions are and Fostermama (bless her heart) managed to say very quickly and succinctly something along the lines of:
"We are happy to work with the county on whatever the goal is. If the parents are working toward reunification, we will do everything we can to help facilitate that. If the parents don't succeed, we are ready and willing to adopt the baby."

The judge said: "That's what I meant", looking very pointedly at the county attorney. The judge pretty much was in an "everybody's an idiot!" mood that day.

The last somewhat enjoyable part was that the judge really let loose on the dad. He obviously has no love for this man and was not particularly happy that he was required by law to give him 6 more months to get his act together. Some great quotes were:
"Sir, how long does your daughter have to wait for you?"
"You currently have 2-hour, supervised visits. You're not even on the level of a teenage babysitter. Anyone would allow a 16 year old to stay with their child, alone, all evening. You have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it in."

And the father blathered incoherently at each opportunity he had to speak. He really dug his own grave where this judge is concerned. He couldn't even give his current address accurately, and ended up giving a totally different one than he had given the county CW 15 minutes prior in the hallway. Who knows what he's, ineffectively, trying to cover up? We heard that this particular judge is unpredictable. Apparently, in this case, he's not on the parents' side. Which is appropriate, in my opinion, at this point. It could have easily gone the other way, so I guess the baby got lucky.

Oh, also the parents' CW got to see us quickly put the baby to sleep and have her stay asleep in the busy court waiting room. So there are no more excuses for the dad not to give her a nap during his visit. We will teach him how to swaddle her and cover her face and everything. He has to do it. The CW had said that the visit room isn't "conducive to sleep", but it's quiet and has no more than a couple of people around, nothing like the court!

The adult daughter and her mother, who've seen the baby 3 times in her life, came and grabbed her away from us when they got there and started playing with her. They had, at the last visit, made some disparaging remarks about the baby's mother, and in the court waiting room I overheard them saying something to the effect that they had stayed away from the baby because the mom was in the picture. Now that she's gone, they're interested in the baby again.

Which is problematic because it's not like the mom's in prison for 50 years - she's just keeping her distance for whatever reason. She could pop back in at ANY point. And she would have the right to see her baby and try to get her back. Then what would the dad's daughter (and her mother) do?? So we need to make sure the case workers know how the daughter feels and let her know what would happen if the mom came back. I'm hoping nobody wants to give the baby to people who are going to keep her from her bio-mom unnecessarily.

So anyway, the baby is still in our care. If the adult daughter comes forward to adopt her, that could happen within a matter of weeks. If she doesn't want to adopt her, we'll more-likely-than-not be able to keep her, as it seems to me that the dad will have a hard time getting her back on his own. That's a big IF, though. And anything else can happen, too, in the next 6 months.

The next hearing is in 6 months and we managed to get it scheduled for a few days after the anniversary of her being placed with us. This is important because, after 12 months in our care, the judge is allowed to consider us equally as a permanent family for her. So the judge would be allowed to *choose* if she should stay with us or go to the dad or whoever else. And we'd be have a lawyer at that point and be able to have way more standing in court than we would if it were before 12 months. Yes, we want to keep her, but mostly we want her to be safe. We have a better chance of helping that happen if we have standing in court. So, yay for that.

Permanency Hearing

2006-05-09T14:13:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the "every 6 months" permanency hearing for our foster daughter. It is her first such hearing, I think. She'll be 1 year old in a few days, but she didn't come into care officially until she was released from the NICU, 2 months after she was born. So it's a late 6-month-hearing.

Fostermama and I will be there, and the baby will be with us, though during the actual court proceedings she'll be in the court daycare. In answer to Julie's question, no, we've never been to one of these before. This is our first. Our other foster babies had court proceedings, obviously, but we weren't involved enough to feel the need to attend. There's no real reason for us to be there, except that we want to know firsthand what happens.

We have been told, and have no reason to expect otherwise, that all that will happen is that the judge will continue the baby in foster care for another 6 months. Especially since the dad has recently begun to step up, but isn't ready to take custody yet.

A few weeks ago, we received a copy the case worker's report that gets sent to the judge. It was, in our opinion, overly gracious towards the parents. Didn't mention at ALL that they skipped out on 2 months worth of visits in the fall (which was the reason that she was moved to a pre-adoptive home), and didn't make it clear enough that the dad *just* started the steps toward getting her back. The steps that were clearly marked out quite a while ago.

We're hoping to be able to convey this to the baby's advocate, so maybe s/he will be able to let the judge know. It would be inappropriate and uncomfortable for us to let the judge know this, but we really need him to know.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say after tomorrow. Cross your fingers that it's a completely boring proceeding.

"When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent."

2006-05-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

Ok, so that's a Dar Williams quote that doesn't particularly apply, but it popped into my head while I was thinking about writing this post.

There's a permanency hearing next week. It will, most likely, be rote and the judge will just continue Cuteness in care for 6 more months. The mom is MIA and doesn't currently have visits and the dad *just* started getting his act together.

He's become a kind of dark horse. He's not currently living with the mom, because of circumstances beyond both their control, but he's taking this advantage to decide that maybe he wants to try and get the baby back himself. This might just be a big push before court and it may peter out afterwards, but we just have no idea what he's likely to do. Nobody ever thought he'd leave the mom or try to get the baby himself. He's quite old and likely wouldn't live to see her graduate high school. He probably has grandchildren older than this baby. He doesn't have a place to live. There are plenty of reasons why it's kinda crazy for him to try and parent her himself, not the least of which is that neither of us can imagine parenting her alone! It's not a one-person job - she's TOUGH.

From stuff the caseworkers have said, it's very likely that he just doesn't want to "lose" to The System. He doesn't want to "lose" the baby.

There are a million steps he'd have to go through before he'd be able to get her back, and all he's gotten so far is that he's starting 2-hour visits this week. This is good, in a way, because it's important that she naps during the visit, so he's going to have to try to put her for a nap. Good luck, buddy.
It's totally possible that she'll be so exhausted (the visit *starts* when she should be going down for a nap) that she'll pass out once he gives it a shot, but that won't happen every week.
Likely, she'll come home at 12pm not having slept and she'll be screwy for the rest of the day, as she usually doesn't take a very long nap right after her visit.

It's never been 100% that we were going to be able to keep her. Not even 50/50, if I'm honest. But mostly I've been blaming that on the fact that the judges tend not to really look at the case well and just do what they feel like doing. And we have the "worst" judge of the 3.

Somehow, having the dad say he wants to get her back and making some steps toward that...it makes it worse.
I don't know what his drug history is like, but he's the one who was with the mom during her whole pregnancy and knew she was harming the fetus and just let it happen. If he was sober during all that, then all the more blame falls on him. If he can't stick up for his baby before she's even born, how is he going to stick up for her now? And she'll need it to get all the services and respect she deserves.

They visited her in the NICU a handful of times in the 2 months she was there. They went to a couple of visits after she was released and then skipped the visits for over 2 months, which is why she was transferred to us from the temporary foster home.

I'm really glad that she has a good case worker and that there's a long process of transition that has to happen before he'd be given her back. If he really wants to parent her, he needs to learn what that means. I'm not letting her go until I'm sure she's safe with him. And, of course, I'll never know that for sure, but I can hope.

Of course, mostly I'm hoping that he'll realize that he doesn't want to parent her. We're going to do our best to let him know that we want him in her life and that, if he surrenders, we'll work with him on what that means. Pictures, visits, meeting her siblings and other family - that's what we WANT for her.

So this is where my brain is today. Fragmented, as that's about all I can muster with the kind of sleep I've been getting for the past 6 months. How is it coming across to my 1.2 readers, I wonder? I'd love to answer questions or hear your experiences.

2006-04-27T11:08:00.000-04:00

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.

Where to go from here?

2006-04-18T11:06:00.000-04:00

So now we've gotten to the point where y'all are reading, but we're not posting! I'll just jump in and make a post.

It's been busy, busy in the Casa de Moms. Holidays, Early Intervention appointments, etc.

Our Cutie-Patootie is going to be 1 year old soon. It's craziness. She's been on a huge growth spurt lately - the girl's all legs!- and we had to sort through the 12-18 month clothes. Much of it is still slightly too big, but a lot of the 9-12 month pants are too short. Whatcha gonna do?

She was very premature, but for her adjusted age, she's above average for height. And near the bottom of the chart for weight. This is due, I'm pretty sure, not only to her probable genetic body type (which I'm pretty sure will be tall and thin), but to her feeding issues. And these are related, we're pretty sure, to sensory integration problems.

When we first got the Little Booger, she was 6 months old (chronologically) and eating 2 oz of high calorie formula (with rice cereal) every few hours. (3-4, I think?) She would spit up a lot of it, though, so who knows how much she was actually digesting. We took her off the rice cereal (it was waaay too early for her sensitive digestive system) and put her on a goat milk formula. Her reflux seemed to improve. She was still taking about 2oz every 3 hours. After a month or 2, she was up to 3-4 oz and we were thinking we'd have to start using the bigger bottles, cuz she'd start taking 5oz at a time. Wishful thinking. She hit an eating lull, then got a cold, and now she eats between 15-20oz/day. She's growing and gaining, but it still feels like too little. She's probably around 15.5 pounds, so she should be averaging 30oz.
Really, the main problem is that she often seems very hungry, but then stops after 1-2 oz. And then she's hungry again very shortly.

The other main weirdness we found with her was sleeping. It took her forEVER to fall asleep when we first got her. She'd fall asleep, then her arm would flail and she'd wake herself up. Or we'd get her totally asleep and she'd wake up the second we moved her to her hammock. We FINALLY though of swaddling her and that first night was bliss! She still took forever to get to sleep, but the transition to the hammock was smoother and she stayed asleep for longer. But now, at 11 months old, she still has to sleep swaddled with a light blanket over her face. Total sensory deprevation, or else her eyes pop right open and she's AWAKE.
At this point, she's to the point where we can get her to fall asleep in 5-10 minutes, no problem (usually). She'll nap anywhere from 45minutes - 3 hours (with a daily minimum of 3 hours of naps), and she gets tired after 2-2.5 hours of being awake. She sleeps around 12 hours/night and we put her to bed between 8 and 8:30pm. However, she usually fusses after 45 minutes or so for another bottle (because she drinks so little while she's awake), and then she gets 2 bottles overnight. Besides the bottles, she fusses for her binky at least twice a night and usually many more. She never sleeps for more than 2 hours at a time between fusses. It's exhausting.

She's also very high needs. For the first few months, she wouldn't nap for more than 20 minutes unless she was in the sling, cuddled up against one of us. We couldn't put her down for more than 5 minutes until she was big enough for the exersaucer - about 2 months ago. Now she'll stay in there for 10 minutes at a time. But if we leave her line of sight, watch out! She just wants to be on our laps all the time. Or playing on the floor with us. Occasionally, I can get 15 minutes alone if I put her in the crib (she sleeps in a hammock, so the crib is for playing), turn on the mobile, and give her a bunch of toys. But as soon as she can pull herself up on the side of the crib and reach the mobile, I'm thinking that'll be over. We'll see.

This is long-winded, but what I'm getting to is that, many months ago, an online friend mentioned that the things we were describing about Her Fussiness sounded like "sensory integration disorder" of some type. Bingo.

When we went to the developmental pediatricians, they said that sensory integration wasn't something they could evaluate and wasn't something that you could get early intervention for. Fortunately, at her last appointment with them, they referred her to EI...because she's not yet rolling over. Yay for that!

The Early Intervention rep TOTALLY understood the sensory stuff and even brought it up herself when we were talking about the baby's issues. We got the evaluation and the area for which she qualifies for service is "Adaptive Skills" - e.g., self soothing and sleeping. They recommended she get services from an Occupational Therapist trained in Sensory Integration. Yay!
and, sure, they'll work on her gross motor delays and get her rolling and crawling like a champ, but really the most important thing in my opinion, is to teach her those self-soothing techniques.

Her Royal Cuteness, however, would like for them to teach her how to walk, please! She has increased tone, which causes stiffness and the flailing that kept her awake, but also gives her muscles of steel. She has been standing with assistance since before we got her, and is now able to stand holding onto something (the couch, for instance) all by herself. She is learning how to "cruise" a little bit, too. Unfortunately, she can't sit down and get back up, so if she wavers, she falls and she doesn't like that one bit. We're pretty sure that, once she learns to crawl and stand up/sit down, that she'll get working on that walking thing. And then we're in BIG trouble!

We were supposed to get a call about the OT by yesterday, and we didn't, so we'll be following up on that. Hopefully she can start the therapy by next week. She'll be getting it twice a week and we're hoping that we click with the OT person. We know the baby will love whoever it is. She makes friends wherever she goes and if someone wants to play with her and give her their full attention - she's all for it!

2006-03-20T12:56:00.000-05:00

So there is some initial interest in our blog. Yay. :)
Here's a little background...
We have been foster moms for a little over a year. We're signed up to take babies under 1 year old, and we've had quite a few. Three for long periods of time and then a handful of 1-2 day stays. We've really enjoyed each and every baby.

Since our goal is adoption, even though not all the babies were available for adoption, we called them "practice babies" and, whoo boy, have we gotten some practice!

We've had colic, reflux, milk allergies, crying jags, babies who wanted to be held 24/7, babies who wanted to play 24/7, and on and on and on.

Our friends and family are very supportive and that's been really important.

Our little bundle right now has been with us for 4.5 months and we'll have her for at least another couple months. She will possibly be available for adoption. This is the outcome her case worker is hoping for, at least.
It's hard for me to really hope that we can adopt her - I mean, yes, I love her with all my heart and want to raise her - but hoping to adopt her means hoping that her parents fail at their goal of reunification. That's a hard place to be in for me.

Realistically, I know it's up to them and if they really are at a place in their lives where they can do the work and get her back, then that's what will happen and that will (hopefully) be the best thing for all of them. And if they can't do that at this point, for whatever reason, then here we are ready to adopt her. Win-win for her. [And then there's the issue of the judge and how he can do whatever he wants, basically, regardless of what the parents have been doing...but that's another post...]

If she does leave us, however, we'll be completely heartbroken. Because you can't not hope and dream. We have to live our lives as if she'll be here always. It's the only way we can provide her with the best care. And I'm willing to do it, I just know it'll suck big time if she leaves.

None of the other babies we had were this close to being freed for adoption, so we've never gone down this road before.

2006-03-15T18:46:00.000-05:00

Looking to meet other folks who're trying to adopt through the foster system. It's a bit lonely to be doing things this way. There are so many uncertainties and stresses that are specific to this situation. Our friends who are having babies in different ways are sympathetic and supportive, but we don't know many people who're in the same boat as us.

I already have a blog where I write about this stuff, and lots of other things, on LJ, and it's friends-only to protect the identities of the kids. I'm not sure how I'll use this blog, but a couple of people have pointed out recently that having a public anon blog is a good way to connect with people in similar situations.

So if I get interested and interesting comments to this post, I'll probably start writing some stuff here.

Oh, and right now we have a baby placed with us who we've had for 4 months. She's cute! :)