Not our baby.

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.

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

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

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.

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...

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?

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.