Texting

So out of the blue Sheila started texting me yesterday. At first it was about the letter of questions the kids had written and could I mail it to her? Sure. Then I asked if she could follow through with meeting with their therapists as she had agreed. Her answer to that was basically to blame everyone else. So I sought permission pass on her number (she claimed she called and their mailbox was full) and she agreed. Then she said she wanted another meeting with us, with the therapists to discuss the adoption as she had more questions. I said court is in three weeks, your are having a baby somewhere in there and I don't think we'll have time to have it before court but we could meet after. I then told her we will also need to learn to communicate on our own and asked her what questions remained.

I got the following messages back:

Sheila: Yes I just felt like four emails and four phone calls was not enough communication for the kids and last visit Stella was very nervous about not being able to see me she mentioned that she still wants to see me and feels comfortable talking to me and I don't know if it seems like I don't care but I do I am always thinking about them and I feel like them not being able to see me is only going to hurt them more and confuse them more I just want to be able to still have a relationship with them for them to know its not goodbye I don't think I can do that to them

Me: Was there anything else?

Sheila: Yes I understand why you were upset I understand that you care and love my children but it's a very hard desicion for both of us and I know I didn't sign last court and you were upset about it but I just want you to know I think we do need more communication between us as well I think you being upset or me being upset doesn't help the children at all I think we need to learn to communicate better and honestly I never had this problem with any of the other foster parents so this is different for me we were usually very open about talking with the kids and the kids were able to talk to me whenever they needed to that's why I kind of backed off 
And I want to make sure we are both on the same page and doing this more for the children then for ourselves.
********
I didn't send a respose. No response I crafted would have gotten me anywhere. 

We said at a minimum, we would send her updates on the kids. All she asked for was that the kids be able to call her when they wanted. In the year and a half they have lived with us, this has always been an option for us. When we had scheduled phone calls she missed 1/2 of them prior to the goal being changed. Even on those phone calls when I tried to explain how the kids were being affected she would respond in an immature way. She didn't back off- she never started and she did have this issue with the other foster parents, she wants to act like they were buddy buddy. It's re-writing history. Even her psych eval said "she is a poor historian".  

We said if she was consistent then we could increase contact. Stella is anxious because she was told her Mom was going to sign the adoption paperwork and when she didn't it was another time she lied or didn't follow through. She's anxious because she's been stuck in limbo for 10 months and she doesn't trust the woman who has been in and out of her life. (But Sheila spent 18 hours with her in th last 10 months so she knows best.) And what about her actions has been for her children? And what about any of that am I doing for myself? If I was doing something for myself, I'd be on a beach somewhere. 

This is projection. This is the last attempt for someone who has no control to try and fool herself into thinking that she has the upper hand and still has an option. She wants to act like she's got their best interest in all her decision making, nothing I say will change that. I do know she loves them in her own way, it's just not the way they need. She is setting us up to be the fall guy. Her whole pattern is to blame everyone else for her choices.

This was my almost response. I didn't send it. Instead I forwarded the above to the team and said here is the issue. She needs to understand the consequences of her actions where her kids are concerned. 

******DID NOT SEND
Sheila- I'm sorry that is how you feel. I agree communication should be better but Hubby and I have to disagree with you that the reason it's not where it should be, is due to our actions. The kids have always had the option to call you when they wanted and they have honestly never asked. They have lived with us for a year and a half so I'm not sure what other foster parents have to do with it. We also don't appreciate the implication that it's our fault that it's this way. We have always been willing to work with you in a kind and respectful manner. We are sorry if you feel different.

You are right we are upset that you did not sign the paperwork but the main reason we are upset has to do with how much it hurt the kids as we were the ones that had to tell them that you changed your mind after you told us you were going to sign the paperwork.  The kids are ready to be out of foster care and they did not handle the let down very well. We have had to handle their sadness, anxiety, and confusion for these past 3 months. The other reason is we feel you wasted our time both with the meeting and court. Driving out to BUFU to support you at your request, only to be told you had changed your mind and to spend 15 minutes learning that the kids were going to have another three months of uncertainty basically sucked.

We do believe you care for your children and as we said in the meeting the amount of contact you have will depend on your consistency. Telling us on Thursday you are going to do something and then not doing it on Tuesday doesn't give us a lot of confidence that you are going to do what you say. Unfortunately, your choice meant that our trust in you was broken and that will have to be repaired. Text messages accusing us of being difficult and not putting the children first aren't going to help repair it though. Truthfully, we don't have to allow any contact with you after they are adopted but don't want that to be the case because we know that it's better for the kids. Accusatory text messages to us seem like you are trying to find a reason that we are the enemy, they don't seem like you want a positive relationship at all.

If you truly don't feel you can sign the identified surrender to us, then don't sign it. It is a difficult decision, one we can't imagine. However, we can promise you that regardless, the decision to be the adoptive parents for the kids is not a difficult one for us and we will take care of the children for the rest of our lives. 

We hope this clears the air, and we hope that we can move forward for the sake of the kids. We would be happy to further discuss with the therapy team as we agreed there are unresolved issues. 

3 comments:

  1. Your head knows how to handle it, but your heart wants to throttle someone. Her texts are the same jumbled b.s. as my FS's bio writes. It's all just last grasp, negotiating, trying to get control any way she can, blahblahblah. It will all be over soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Re-writing history. I think many moms who lose their kids try to do this. It is very frustrating. We deal with the re-writing of history when our girls visit their bio mom (under our supervision). I actually felt it was best to show my 6 and 7 year old daughters their bio mom's online police record because she was re-writing history when they asked why they couldn't live with her. The bio mom told them the next visit that you can't believe everything on the internet (which is true) and that the police and judge just put those things on the internet to be funny for a joke (really?).

    ReplyDelete

Long Overdue Update

Well hello there! It has been years since I've written and published a post and recently I've had the idea that maybe this year was ...