Foster Care Cliche

I'm not even sure where to begin this post. My head is swimming from today's events. It started with a secretary at the new school telling me Stella was classified as "homeless with the district" while she was standing next to me. The day ended with us finding out Sheila (Bio Mom) is pregnant. 

The information came from the loose lipped investigator who was clearly on a power trip. She asked all sorts of questions that had nothing to do with Sheila's Domestic Violence incident and everything to do with the stability of the children's placement with us. It was totally wacky. I've since learned this investigator has a reputation for being especially demanding of foster parents and totally out of touch. Lovely.

I guess the actual interview was fine as Hubby was allowed to sit in. Our therapists tried hard to get this nonsense stopped but the meeting happened anyway. Like me, they felt it was unnecessary for the kids to get dragged into this event. We still don't know what happened but I was able to see Sheila was in court trying to take an order of protection out on someone. I believe it was denied.

As for the pregnancy, if it's true, I'm not all that surprised. This would make #7.  Since the kids were taken for neglect and there is another domestic violence incident it's possible the department will be following up on the baby. If the case is still open its possible the baby would be placed in foster care at birth. If her rights are terminated its also possible the state could move to terminate her rights on the grounds that her rights were involuntarily terminated for siblings of the child. This could mean she'll sign an identified surrender. It could also mean we may be asked to take the baby.

A baby was not on my radar. In fact, I was just coming to terms with the idea that I'm not meant to have a baby. I was letting go of that possibility and becoming settled in the knowledge I'm a Mom of 4. I'll have a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th grader next year. A baby means starting over. A baby means diapers and no sleep. A baby also means more love, another beautiful sibling to my kids,a child who needs protecting (Sheila has not corrected the issues that brought her children into care 2 years ago or 5 years ago, or 10 years ago.)

They always tell you the bios start over when their rights are terminated. I guess I was hoping that she would really try to learn what choices she was making that put her in this predicament but that doesn't seem to be the case. After yesterday I'm even more certain that these kids need to be out of the system.