Thursday May 19th, 2011 Helpless!

Today I am NOT cleaning, even tho it would probably be a much more productive way to spend my time...today I am just sad and mad.

I usually do not post about my feeling related to foster care and the foster care system/process, but today, I am going too....

We have 3 foster children in our home, Bean and thing one and thing two, I cannot use their real names. Thing one and Thing two are soon to be 11 month old twin boys- we have had them since Dec 2, 2010. Bean is 21 months old, she was 14 1/2 weeks premature, we have had her for 19 months. She was born in August, released from NICU in November, home for 11 days and then came to us...for 7 of those 11 days she was with a relative on a safety plan...she has lived with her biological mother for 3 days...3 days...she is now 21 months old.

Now, they are doing everything they can to send her back to that home, back to that mother that she knew for 3 days, and has known sporadically from supervised visits of 2 hours a week (when her mother showed up) for 19 months

I am not an idiot, I knew when I signed up to do foster care that babies go home, I knew it would be hard. I tried to prepare myself for it...I also thought it would have happened way before now-way before 19months.

They decided to start the process with something called unsupervised visits. This is when the mother (in this case) gets her child for a certain amount of time, alone, with no one else watching...apparently this happens when you can no longer make the mother have supervised visits because she has excelled at the art of motherhood in two hours a week by bringing in cheetos for breakfast and braiding and rebraiding her hair.

Now she gets to do that at her house, where the child was taken from in the first place, because the mother couldn't follow the physicians instructions as to how to prepare a 26 calorie bottle needed for the growth of a premature baby. Yet this is the same baby who now needs 4ml of an antibiotic, one tablet of a steroid, and ten ear drops pumped with specific instructions into her ears nightly.

But they had a really good time watching cartoons today, nevermind that her mother bought her size 6 diapers...she wears a size 3...she came home in the huge size 6...even though I sent the size three, and at the cheeto eating, hair braiding visit she also wears size 3 diapers, and apparently, she changes her diaper every week and it does have the number 3 on the outside of it....

She played with all her old toys, her mother told me...I find this fascinating as she was the adjusted age of a newborn when she was there last, for three days, I have yet to see a newborn play...even at her then chronological age of 3 months, this would have been quite something to witness

I called the social worker, she was so excited that the visit went well, she immediately talked about extending the visits. No one mentioned the ear drops, or medicine, or tablets, or the fact that mom couldn't properly mix a bottle...

I am well aware that reuinification is the goal, and should be the goal, but I do not think that this should be true at all costs. When she has to go home, but then has to go into protective daycare...what's the point? If you have to go into protective daycare folks, you should not be going home!

When they don't make you take parenting classes because they don't think they will work for you, because you won't understand them, you should not be getting your child back.

When you didn't show up for your visits because you didn't have any bus tokens left, because you used them to go out with friends, you should not be getting your child back.

When your child is happy, and with the only family she has ever known for 19 months, safe and protected, able to be given medicine, and not have to go into protective daycare...your child should not have to go back

Just because the court is running out of time, and needs to make a quick decision, because all of this has dragged on for so long...you should not be getting your child back

I have been the one at all the doctors appointments, at the assessments, at the therapy appointments. We have been the ones to mix the bottles (correctly, I must add) administer medicines, spend the night in the hospitals, walk the floor endless nights, endless due to one malady or another...and she shows up with cheetos and braids her baby's hair??? And they seriously start to hurry up and make a plan to send her home, soon...before time runs out on her mother...even food in the freezer has an expiration date of a year!

Apparently, cheetos and hairbraiding is all it takes to get your baby back.