Hope is a B*tch

We went weeks without hearing anything about the two babies. I will never get used to the "hurry up and wait" aspects of this process.

In the meantime, I decided to call a pediatrician friend of mind and she echoed my concerns about bringing a little one with severe asthma into a home (albeit a very clean home) with pets. It would have been a "let's just see what happens" situation. No thank you. Asthma is nothing to be messed around with and babies are not guinea pigs. I told CW to please withdraw us from consideration. She agreed that that was probably best. I didn't get the feeling that anything was happening with the case anyway.

But my oh my, have we had a heartbreak this week.

Two very medical fragile babies. Beyond gorgeous.

D*C*F*S ideally wanted them placed in a home together, of course, but their care was so intensive that they were strongly considering separate homes until surgeries could resolve some of the medical issues.

We knew that we didn't have the support system in place to care for two babies who would need eyes on them 24/7 (and when I say 24/7, it is no exaggeration), but after much conversation we agreed to take one with the offer to adopt both after their surgeries, provided we could get a few basic questions answered first.

Our CW said she was almost sure they'd have to separate them - that their care would be too much for one foster home.

Our hopes went up.

Soared . . . to the point that I was figuring out how to arrange our bedroom for the baby to sleep with us each night so we could care for it.

We visited them in the hospital. We held and comforted them. We learned a little bit about their daily care. We dared to dream that they might be our babies, until I got an email from our worker yesterday morning.

They found the babies a home together.

Best for them, but heartbreaking for us.

Even O was shaken by the news.

He too had dared to hope.

Hope - - - she is such a b*tch.

When will I ever learn?

And Still We Wait

We've been approached about two siblings, both very little ones.

There is one stumbling block. (It wouldn't be us if there wasn't a stumbling block.)

One of the kids has what sounds like pretty serious asthma. Knowing what I do about allergies and asthma, I requested that someone speak with the child's physician to confirm that it would be okay for them to be placed in a home with pets.

As it is, our home is pretty asthma-friendly. We have no carpet (only hardwoods) and no curtains, and I keep things pretty well dusted and vacuumed because of my own allergies. But we do still have two part-time indoor kitties and two full-time indoor small dogs and they do have some dander. I won't do anything to put a child's health at risk, no matter how much I'd love to be their parent.

So our caseworker will be checking on that and getting back to us before we'll agree to proceed with anything.

We've also sent a list of questions to the caseworker based on the info we were given. One of them was if we could get a photo of the kids. I mentioned to O that I sort of wished we hadn't requested the picture - that if the asthma was going to be a stumbling block, I'd rather not see how stinkin' cute they are.

Cut to Friday afternoon just before 5pm. We're on our way to dinner and an email from our caseworker pops up on my Black*berry. It's the photo. Except the Black*berry has done something to zap the attachment so not only can't we open the photo, but we can't even forward the email to another email address to open.

Torture.

So I've zipped off a friendly email to our caseworker asking her to resend on Monday.

And still we wait.

But really, when you approach these situations assuming they won't work out, it really makes the wait a lot easier. If only I'd know that four or five years ago, life would have been so much easier.

Oh well, live and learn.

One Big Party

Isn't it funny how different things can be from what you'd imagined?

While searching online for things to add to the life books, I visited birthfather's FB page several times to copy and print photos that I thought the kids would like to have someday.

My most recent and final visit was just last week, as I was preparing to finish up the last of the pages. I was jarred by what I saw on his homepage.

He had just "friended" birthmom.

Now, the one and only time I spoke with birthdad, he was very clear that birthmom was Satan incarnate. I guess things have changed.

You know what I did next, of course.

I zipped over to her FB page as fast as my little mouse would carry me.

(I choose to view myself as a modern-day Nancy Drew rather than as a creepy nosy stalker, by the way. Ahem.)

I was surprised to learn that she is still in the area. She's from another part of the country and I figured that her stay in this state would be very temporary once she'd signed her rights to the kids away.

But the thing that surprised me most was a post on her homepage where she talked about how excited she was for an upcoming 3-day trip to the beach and yee-haw, it was just going to be one big party.

I confess, I had to read it a couple of times before it computed.

This is a woman who has walked away from five children.

Five.

She did not one thing to get her two youngest back - just signed them over.

I suppose I always assumed that she was suffering as a result. Like, suffering to the point that she probably couldn't function very well.

Don't get me wrong, that's not what I HOPED for her. I'm clear that she has many serious issues and needs HELP more than she needs my disdain.

But, I guess I always just imagined that she must have been nearly paralyzed with grief.

How could it possibly be any other way?

I was wrong, though.

Because yee-haw, it was going to just be one big party.

I will never ever understand some people.

Never.

And I'm okay with that.

One Final Gift

When the kids moved in with us, they came with the stereotypical foster kids’ black trash bags filled with crappy, stained, too-small clothes, and a lot of broken toys.

We replaced almost everything. It was our pleasure to do so.

While they lived here, I never left the house without returning home with something for them. Often I didn’t make a big deal of it, tucking whatever I’d bought into their toy box, drawers, or bookshelves (so many books!) for them to run across later. I didn’t want to try and buy their love and certainly didn’t want them to become spoiled, but I really wanted them to have nice things.

Now, after all these months have passed, I am finishing up what I think will be one of our most important gifts to them.

Life books.

Life books are generally scrapbooks that tell the kids’ life story as best as it can be pieced together.

Their previous foster mom agreed in her ISP to maintain life books for them each of the 18 months they lived with her.

The kids came to us with nothing.

In fact, after the kids moved in with us, I asked her to please make me copies of the photos she’d taken of the kids so I could start the life books myself. She stated that she didn’t know how to do that, though I was welcomed to take the memory card from her camera and have them made myself.

She DID, however, know how to upload all those photos to her Facebook page, which is strictly against foster parent rules, by the way.

She simply didn’t want to pay the few dollars that it would have cost to have the photos printed.

Shameful.

As it was, I simply swiped the pictures off of her FB page and printed them out myself. There were probably only 20 photos each of the kids, but they were certainly better than nothing.

I then worked with birth grandmother who provided me stacks of photos from the kids’ earliest years.

I researched online and found photos of the kids’ sisters whom they have never met.

I found additional photos of the kids that birth father had put online from the one time he visited with them while they were in foster care.

I added photos of the hospitals where they were born, along with the dates, times, doctors’ names, their heights and weights at birth, and even what the weather was on those days. (It’s amazing what you can find online when you start poking around.)

I included copies of honors certificates and report cards and pictures they'd colored, along with letters written to them by the people they were closest to when they lived here.

Then of course, I added the ridiculous number of photos that we’d taken of them during their time with us, describing each one.

All told, each life book is well over one hundred fifty pages. Our caseworker will be picking them up in a couple of weeks and delivering them to the new foster family next month when she visits their home.

Given that all contact to/with the past has been cut off for the kids, I am quite certain that they will not see these books for years to come. I am hopeful, though, that foster mom will keep them for the kids to have when they are older (or send them with the kids if they are moved).

When the kids do see them, I hope they will understand that although some really awful things happened to them during their childhoods, they were also cared for by a lot of people who loved them dearly.

That’s what I hope, though I'll never know for sure. 

Choice

Sixty-two months have passed since I sat down to write my first blog post.

Holy Bananas. Sixty-two months.

It was January 17, 2007. We were about to make our first visit to the RE to hopefully get some help in adding to our family. I was excited, scared, and quite frankly angry that we were to the point of inviting doctors into a part of our lives that should have been private and sacred.

In closing, combining, and “sanitizing” my two blogs to start this one, I read back through each and every post I’d written over the years. Once I removed the identifying information, O also read through to double check that I’d taken out everything I’d meant to.

“Shell shocked.”

That is how I would best describe both of us after reliving the past five years.

For each sweet memory that my words evoked, there were so many more that were devastating to revisit. We could not believe how much we’d been through and sadly, how much of it we’d simply forgotten.

We have had so many children pass through the periphery of our lives – children we were approached about adopting either through foster care or privately. I thought about figuring out of the exact number as I read, but decided that it was probably best that I didn’t know. I’d guess that it was close to a hundred though, and for whatever reason none of the situations have lead to a forever child in our home.

Five years is a really long time. Five years can bring about a lot of change. And a lot of changes of heart.

As I said in a post a while back, I don't know if I want to be a mom. 

Perhaps it’s not so much the passage of time, but rather the fallout from the hell we lived through last year living with a violent child. I don’t really know.

I remember quite clearly retreating with O to our front porch so often last summer, holding hands and silently rocking, desperate to find just a moment of peace in our hearts and in our minds. We could not have felt more like prisoners if we’d been looking through the cell bars at the local county jail. It felt like a nightmare that we’d never wake up from.

If that's still impacting my views of what motherhood would be, I’m sure that time will bring more healing and my desire to be a parent will return.

But I’m starting to think that maybe it’s something bigger than that.

Heaven knows that we started this whole family-building adventure pretty late in life, relatively speaking. Tack on five years and I am now nearing my mid-40’s. I wonder if I have simply moved into another phase of my life, one where I’m just not certain that I'm still willing to give up all that we'd have to sacrifice in order to become parents. I love my husband madly. I love our little home and our pets who share it. I love spending time with friends and family. I love that we can travel when we want to. Simply put, I love that we come first. 

I have always appreciated this life we have created together because quite frankly, I never thought I’d have someone like O. But since the kids left nearly six months ago (to the day), I treasure it all the more. I revel in it. It feels like the most precious gift in the world to me and I am so very grateful for it, and for the return of peace to our lives. I have not forgotten what it was like to live in a war zone.

So I can’t quite put my finger on why I’m no longer in a super-motivated-must-make-it-happen frame of mind anymore when it comes to motherhood.

But I’m not.

And that leaves us with a choice.

Pants on Fire

A week or so ago, we were approached about an adoptive situation through D*C*F*S.

From the beginning, something hasn’t added up.

They state that the child has some pretty typical challenges for a child in foster care.

Nothing terribly dramatic.

Yet their current placement indicates issues well beyond what they are describing.

If our experiences over the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that if something doesn’t seem right, it’s probably very very wrong.

After sending a question-laden email, I think we landed on the answer.

Apparently the child’s issues were “magnified” to get them into the placement.

(Ahem.)

So let me get this straight.

You admit that you fudged information to get this child into their current foster home.

Yet you want us to agree to work with you to place the child in OUR home?

How could we ever, ever believe that you were telling US the unvarnished truth about this child?

We could’t.

We wouldn’t.

We’re out.

We're Southern - Of Course We Named Our Dog Biscuit

We have a new addition to the family. He is warm, soft, fluffy, a bit flaky, and brown around the edges.

Meet Biscu*it.

Bisc*uit and our other inside dog, The Squirrel, run and play and slam into walls as they slide across our hardwood floors. There have been occasional minor squabbles as they try to figure out who will be the boss, but they are having so much fun.

Biscuit is eight months old and spent the last three months in a cage at a “rescue”, waiting for someone to adopt him.

So we did.

And we are all pretty happy about it.

Certainly Not Me - now with added clarification

Did I tell you that we were approached about a newborn a while back?

I got the call while we were in Gettysburg in early November.

A teenage acquaintance of one of my friends found herself pregnant and had no desire to raise the baby.

It was a brief, fact-finding, “Are you interested?” call.

I said that we would be.

And that was about it.

I didn’t really give it any more thought.

Those calls come in about once a year or so, if you’re publicly trying to build your family through adoption.

Nothing ever comes of them.

Then a few weeks ago, I got a more urgent call.

This girl was in an unbelievably heartbreaking situation – adamant that she want to place her child for adoption yet being challenged by a family member who, while unable to safely keep/raise a child, would not support her decision and beyond that, was threatening her.

I was told to contact an attorney right away. To get answers to some very specific questions.

She wanted to meet us and time was of the essence.

The baby was due in about a month.

I literally spent an entire day on the phone.

Getting legal advice for her and for us.

Getting information on free legal services for her.

Getting information on places she could stay if she was thrown out of her home.

Getting information on free medical care.

Getting information on organizations that would drive her to and from doctor’s appointments.

Getting information on religious organizations that would support her in the days and weeks after the birth.

Whether she chose to keep the baby or not.

I even contacted our caseworker about the possibility of her (the birthmom) entering foster care in the event that she was thrown out of her home with no place to go. As licensed foster parents, I wanted to see if it was possible to move her in with us so we could support her through the rest of her pregnancy and help teach her how to care for her baby.

Throughout, I vowed not to get my hopes up.

I wouldn’t even consider that this situation would end with us having a child in our home and in our arms.  

I just wanted to support her, if only from afar.

I almost, almost made it.

And then one morning as I was waking up, a beautiful little girl’s name just popped into my head.

I was sunk.

Hope had reared its’ ugly head.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll be able to guess what happened next.

Cue the ringing phone just a few hours later.

A brief call from my friend the gist of which was basically . . .

“Never mind.”

 Birth mom had moved in with birth dad.

And that was that.

There was vague mention of seeing how things unfolded as the situation was pretty tenuous.

But I’ve never heard another word.

Baby girl should be here in about a week if she arrives on her due date.

Or maybe she’s already weeks old.

Who knows?

Certainly not me.*
____________________________________________________
*This is in no way meant to imply that I'm upset with my friend for not keeping me "in the loop" on the day-to-day developments of birthmom's very tenuous situation. I have no NEED to know anymore, unfortunately. Any updates would have just kept me emotionally tied to a situation that clearly isn't going to unfold as I had hoped. That would have been torture. 

Sighting

I saw them yesterday.

For the first time since they left.

Just for a moment, as we drove past their church.

On the highway just before noon.

At 65 miles per hour.

They were running through the parking lot.

To their car.

In that way that little kids run.

Flat out.

Racing.

With clothes and hair flying.

Ironically, we'd just been to an early lunch with my parents.

At our favorite restaurant.

Which is also the new foster parents' favorite restaurant.

We went so early so to avoid any possibility of seeing them.

Or more importantly, of them seeing us.

In case foster parents decided that Mexican sounded good after church.

(Not many good places to eat in our/their small town.)

My three-second glimpse told me they were taller.

One's hair was longer.

But still just as beautiful.

It struck like an earthquake.

With no warning.

Shaking everything up just for a minute or so.

It's inevitable I suppose.

Those earthquake moments.

That turn me upside down and make me happy and sad at once.

Someone To Watch Over Me

We’re on high alert ‘round these parts today.

On Monday I got a call from Blooming*dale’s fraud prevention. They asked if I’d placed an online order for a purse a couple of days prior.

A $750 purse.

Ummm, no.

Commence a couple of hours of online investigation and phone calls to credit card companies, Blooming*dale’s fraud prevention, and . . .

*surprise* . . .

the discovery of a $450 charge at Macy*s.com made that very day. (More purses.)

It was all handled pretty quickly. Cards cancelled and reissued. Charges reversed. A package intercept issued with UPS to re-route the shipments back to the senders.

Except that in talking to the fraud prevention guy, he gave me some troubling news.

The person who placed these orders not only had my credit card information, but my correct email address, home phone number, and they were having the purses sent TO MY HOME.

“So you need to understand that someone is or will be watching your home in anticipation of the delivery.”

Say WHAT?

It made no sense, unless it was someone I knew.

I’d heard that a merchant I used had had their computers hacked recently. I called them and the girl I spoke with said that the FBI had traced the “hacker” to either Russia or Vietnam. She explained that the hackers will acquire account information and post it online using only location information. Then low-life dirtbags can log on to their website and purchase information on people in their areas for 25 cents apiece.

Voila!

That explained how a stranger in my area would have my information.

It was comforting to hear, because I didn’t have to then take inventory of my friends and family to figure out which one was a big fat thief. It was also SCARY to hear because holy cow people . . .

Stranger. Watching. My. House.

If the low-life dirtbag is tracking the package on the UPS website, they will already be aware that it has been intercepted and will not be delivered to my home.

If the lowlife dirtbag is simply going by Blooming*dale’s automated customer service, a very perky woman will have told them that their package will be delivered today.

So we wait.

There is no sneaking up on our home. Our street has very little traffic and we know most of the cars that “belong”. Our neighbor is aware of the situation. One of our dogs alerts us to anything that isn’t *quite right* in the area. (The other dog, our 8.5-pound trained killer attack Squirrel, alerts us when the ice maker dumps ice, when the washer is out of balance, and when a doorbell rings on TV. Not as helpful in this particular situation.) We have loaded gun and I can use it if I have to.

But the thing that brings me the most peace as I sit here at my desk?

My loving husband, who decided to work from home today just because he loves me and knows I’m spooked. 

I may not have the money to keep myself in the style of low-life dirtbags (a $750 purse?!?!?) but I have something infinitely better.

I have someone to watch over me.

Thank God

It’s been a while.

I’ve missed writing here but “going dark” seemed like the best plan for a while

My feelings were too raw.

My anger at D*C*F*S, both for the things we were not told before we agreed to move the kids in, and for the help we (and especially the children) did not receive, was too close to the surface. There was a distinct possibility that I might have over-shared or said something that I would have regretted. And yes, the possibility of both of those things still exists, but it’s not as likely as it once was.

I think.

I’ve remained surprisingly plugged in to the kids’ situation in their new foster home these past months. I’d expected communication with the new foster family to fade away pretty quickly once the kids moved. However, they’ve found themselves in the same situation we were in – advocating for the kids to get the services they’ve so desperately needed and having it all fall on seemingly deaf ears. They couldn’t even seem to get the services they were promised.

They were also unable to get answers to a lot of their questions. While the kids were in our home, I’d made it my business to gather and retain as much information on them as I could in an effort to figure out what was going on behaviorally. So I’ve been able to answer foster mom’s questions on many occasions which I am more than happy to do for several reasons.

First and foremost, the more that people who treat the kids know about them and their backgrounds, the more effective they will be.

Secondly, I really want this placement to “stick”. There is no better place for these kids to be than with their current foster parents. They are wonderful and will do everything within their power to give the kids their best opportunity for happy, healthy lives. If it works out for them to stay.

Finally, I am the only person who can truly understand what foster mom is going through, both with the kids and with D*C*F*S. I hope that I have been an “ear” when she’s needed it, because as foster parents, there aren’t a lot of places to turn for support because there is so much you can’t share.

And as we were laughing about the other day, even if you DID tell “civilians” exactly what was going on, they’d never believe in a million years that the agency whose mission it is to protect children is so thoroughly and completely broken. Not in one million years.

I haven’t spoken with the kids themselves for a long time. Contact with anyone from their past is no longer allowed. I understand and even agree that it is for the best, but there’s something about it that still bugs me a little bit. Perhaps it’s just that that decision goes against everything I ever read about kids adopted from foster care. My understanding was that it was important for kids to understand that while relationships may change, not everyone in your life will eventually walk away from you forever.

There are still occasional reminders of the kids that sneak up on me every now and them.

a teeny tiny Lego piece that one of the cats found somewhere last week

a drawing of our home done by one of the kids that I’d tucked in a book I’d been reading last year and found a couple of nights ago

that darned “National Geographic for Kids” subscription that never seems to run out

I’ve taken their photos down from the fridge. All that remains is one of them sitting in a field of buttercups, framed and hanging in the hallway with our family pictures.

Even as I communicate with the new foster mom, I close her emails or hang up the phone and am transported back to the abject misery of last summer. My God I don’t think I have even been so very unhappy.

Or felt more alone.

Make no mistake, O and I were a solid team; closer than we had ever been, I think. But we were in WAY over our heads with no meaningful support to be found. And by support, I don’t mean that we were looking for someone to coddle us and hold our hands and help US. We were looking for help for the KIDS, - crazy things like wanting a  DIAGNOSIS and a getting a TREATMENT plan in place.

Funny how it didn’t really seem to be a priority until the morning we called to disrupt.

Suddenly services I didn’t even know existed were being thrown our way.

Where were they when we were being hit and kicked?

When we begged to be allowed to find a psychiatrist who had appointments available more than once every six months? Even if we had to drive two hours each way several times a week. We were willing to do it.

But by that point, I simply didn’t trust that any of the amazing things that were being offered would actually be provided.

(OH HOW RIGHT I WAS.)

So as I hear about what continues to go on for new foster family, I feel empathy and sympathy and always say a prayer for healing and stability for the kids.

And then I am inevitably left with one simple thought.

Thank God that it’s not us.

Thank God.