The real struggles

So as many of you know, the foster to adopt process is very difficult.  This past Friday morning, I finally got to a point where I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  The week started out with a successful court date with LR being severed.  

That afternoon, we picked the kids up from daycare, but on our way, I received a call that our little guy had a fever.  Upon arriving, I decided to get our boy from his room and Nick was going to get our girls.  I got to his room and the children were outside.  As I entered the patio area, I slipped and fell (with an already broken foot) because they were painting the patio with no warning signs.  

The next day, I called in sick to work to stay home with our little guy.  Poor thing had a fever all day and just wanted to cuddle.  As the day went on, my back began to throb from the fall the day before.  I headed to the chiropractor.  When I got home, I noticed Our other little girl had two small scratches on her face from daycare…I better ask daycare for the report in the morning!

The next day Nick called in sick as our little guy was still running a fever.  I texted the parent aide to let her know that he was home sick and would not be available for his visit with his parents.  

Nick took him to the dr. And they stated that he had a virus.  In the meantime, I receive a text from the parent aide asking about the small scratch on our little one’s face.  I let her know that daycare will have a report by the end of the day.  

Later that day, I contact our case worker to ask her to extend our daycare service, she ignores my request and asks how our little guy was doing.  I said…better..she then said…well then why is he in the hospital.  I asked her where she heard that from since it was not accurate…she said it doesn’t matter.  Then she also asked about the scratch on our little girl’s face.  

We know that this form of parenting is a call from God, but sometimes I wonder why it has to be so difficult!  We are treated like the hired help…we get no say…we are questioned at every turn and made to feel that we are never good enough! 

To make matters even worse, on Friday morning, we get an email from bio mom for our little guy and a text from the parent aide asking what the dr said.  Seriously!!!!  I feel like I am in Office Space with a million people to report to….oh and on top of it, we both work full time!  

We absolutely love our kiddos, but our system pushes out great people.  We do not do what we do for money, we don’t do it for fame, we don’t do it for any other reason than to provide the love and respect these children deserve and weren’t getting.  

Imagine having your home searched every other month, monthly visits with your worker (and accommodating your worker’s schedule), visits with the kids attorney, emailing bio parents updates, attending court dates, foster care review board meetings, etc.  

Friday was my day that I felt it hard to literally breathe!  The above requirements aren’t even mentioning anything that we do in actually caring for our children.  Healing them from illness, going to the zoo, children’s museum, science center, park, etc.  These are the things that really matter in this whole process.  Nobody in the above list cares about that.  

In a conversation with my mom on Friday, I was reminded that we are great parents and that we have to keep fighting for these innocent beautiful faces.  We need to let the constant negative comments from these people roll off us like water on a duck.  This is our truest testament of faith…when we can allow God to protect us and show us the good.  

Today we woke up with all healthy kids…where we enjoyed our day together and nobody can take that away.  

Our Day at Court

Today was LR’s next court date.  We arrived to court about 30 minutes early.  You never know how long traffic will take so we left a little early.  Walking into the court house we go through a metal protector and make our way down to the court room.  It is a long hallway and there are other court rooms on the way.  Lots of people and families trying to make their own ways through the system.  Finally we make it to outside our court room and find two seats together.  

We sat and waited, people watching.  I wondered to myself the many stories that brought them here.  About twenty minutes of waiting we finally see a fimiliar face, the bio mom’s attorney.  She stops and asks us if we have seen the bio mom, we had not.  She merges back into the crowd looking for her client. A few minutes later we see the GAL.  Before making her way over to us, the GAL stops and talks with the the mom’s attorney.    

In the hand of the bio mom’s attorney was a piece of paper; the two attorney talked about its contents for a few minutes.  Finally the bio mom’s attorney gets up and leaves.  We get a chance to talk with the GAL and she says that the document was a concent letter to severe bio mom’s rights.  Cheryl and I have a moment of a sigh of relief.

We go back to waiting 10:30 ( the court time comes and goes).  Time creeps to 10:50 and the court room sign clicks off.  A feel a lump in my throat as the court room attendant comes out and calls for a different case.  Repeat 11:25 same lump same results, another case and again at 11:40 and again at 11:55.  By this point the crowd has wind led down to just the people in our case.

Finally 2:15 and we are called in.  The proceedings are fairly technical, but by the end the judge made the ruling that the bio mom’s rights would be severed.  Now, we are onto adoptions.  We have all ready contacted our lawyer.  We will have to wait to be assigned a new DCS worker for adoption.  From what we have heard, the process and timing takes about 3 months.  However, as we have learned over the years, time may take longer.  We will keep you posted.  Thanks for reading