Only slightly meta.

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?

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

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!

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!!

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

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!

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.