Mom Will It Take This Long To Adopt Solana?

That was the question Stella posed to me tonight. It broke my heart to have to remind her the goal is return home.

I reiterated we are keeping Solana safe, for as long as she needs. 

"But you would adopt her right?"

Yes, of course. That's what we hope because she is your sister and part of this family but that is just as true no matter where she lives.

I was honest with the kids that both Sheila and Bio Dad are complying with the case plan (although Dad missed a visit this week). And I promised we would keep building relationships so that if she does go home we can still see her. 

Such a a hard thing for my kiddos. And a sad thing that they understand adoption takes years.

Trying to take my own advice and not worry about the future. Whatever will be, will be.

Phone Calls

Sometime early afternoon I got a call from Caseworker #3 calling to follow up on some adoption paperwork and my email about Stella's concerns over her sister, Solana. I tried to get information about the progress that was being made in that case to help us decide if introducing her would be beneficial or long term but he was like "it's too early" "can't really say". Boo. 

A few hours later he called back. "I have some news. It looks like the foster mom is giving her 14 day notice. It's not official yet but it's very likely to happen. So you are my 1st call. Will you take the baby?"

We've gone over and over this scenario and decision. All the reasons we said no before are still true. She could go home. She will have visits my kids won't. This is a foster care case and could be years before it goes to permanency. She's 4 months old and we have 4 kids.

But...

We don't have TPR looming. The adoption is under way. And the likelihood that she will actually return home seems pretty small. The kids are worried about their sister and at least we know she is safe with us. We can prevent any further trauma in the event that she does need a permanent home, which we have already agreed to do. 

It boils down to two things- does the fear of the loss trump the fear of trying to heal the trauma?

We decided that it did not and we said we would take Solana. At least the kids will know we tried to help their sister if she does go home. And they have lost siblings before and we have reunified children also and we all survived. It will hurt and there will be fallout but that seems easier to handle than the alternative of missing Solana's 1st 2 years until the courts decide that they've given Mom enough chances for the 7th kid and she comes to us after multiple

moves. 

Now this is foster care, so it is possible that this will not happen so it's not official. But I did say that it was likely this placement would disrupt. This was a "friend" of Sheila's that only knew her a year. She has grown kids and didn't sign up for foster care. I totally understand how you could agree to "help" not realizing that this is way more than watching someone else's child. 

I was told she's fed up with bio Mom, and the state. It also sounds like the visits  used to be in the foster mom's home with her supervising and have changed to a supervising agency at Bio Mom's house. I predicted that the relationship would sour pretty quickly when she was setting boundaries. I'm sure we will get a text from Sheila about how glad she is that the siblings are together but I have a feeling she will  be pissed and pretty quickly start giving us more attitude than we already are getting. Maybe she'll remember to call her kids? 

So we are strapping in and heading back into foster care land. With a baby, which is also a little scary since we've never had one. We expect the kids to have mixed emotions. I also expect some backslide in behaviors from Smiley and Sarah. And some parentified behavior from Stella. Simon, my sweet Simon, will be great because in my sea of girls he is the anchor. 

I should mention we got calls about 6 other children today. Say a prayer for those we said no to.

Stay tuned! 

Today's Trigger Brought To You By Mangos

I spent a lot of time this weekend rocking my children. It's a little more difficult to do when they are 10 years old but that's what trauma looks like.  Today's trigger was a mango.  Like the fruit.  It reminded one of a former foster home and all of the loss came crashing down around her.  Then the other one felt the loss and it all came crashing down on her.  It was a repeat of a few days earlier, post visit with Sheila. The letter with the questions was left behind and hat caused upset. Then Smiley and Simon decided to scratch and spit on each other in the car on the way home from the visit.  (They spend an hour driving each way.) So they went to bed crying while the other two cried about the letter and the loss of their Mom.  Stella was also upset about the baby clothes that she saw in the closet. Complex feelings for kids all under the age of 10. 

We went over again the reasons the kids are being adopted, "Remember how we discussed your Mom's problems with depression and how she choses relationships where people got hurt? The judge said she didn't fix the things that she needed to prove she could take care of you?  She loves you, she just can't take care of you like she needs to."

Stella isn't sure she wants to be adopted today.  And that's ok.  We reassured her that she can feel that way.  We went over the importance of sharing those feelings and reminded her that we understand that and that she won't hurt our feelings. 

She has lost so much. siblings, family, culture.  She's never had stability for more than a few months.  All of this is scary. "I must try and control everything and be perfect" kind of scary.

Sarah had a tough weekend with loss but also with her PTSD.  Loud noises and sirens are a big trigger for her PTSD.  We know she struggles with fireworks so we tried to prepare for that. We talked about it, we bought her ear plugs and we gave her the choice to stay home from the fireworks show (special time with Dad). Nope. She was going. And she decided that she wanted to try to watch without her ear plugs. She was a little skittish but as we waited for our town's show to start we could see 3 other neighboring towns.  She started out sitting and watching them on her own.  When it got to be a little much she came and sat on my lap  She had no issues until the finale. I think the noise was just too fast for her to calm herself down between the booms. What I love, though, is as soon as she's regulated she's like "that was awesome".  She just get right back up.

After his sisters melted down at dinner, I checked in with Simon.

"Simon, how are you feeling about all this stuff?"

"I'm kind of excited to be adopted." It's that simple for him.

Smiley, she acted out about the visit in the car and that was about it. My guess is she didn't get much attention and whatever attention she did get was negative as the kids fall into bad habits at visits. Of course everyone was like "Little miss smiley scratched someone? I don't believe it!" She's generally happy and smart and a little lady. Seriously, the kid wears a dress or skirt all.the.time. Most mornings she tells me she has nothing to wear. She has a great giggle and a beautiful smile and so its hard to believe she's the most stubborn kid I've ever met.  When she doesn't want to do something she doesn't do it.  One day she will use her powers for good instead of evil. :)  
 

Just Done

My post from yesterday about the insensitive family members didn't save or publish. :( I've decided today that I'm tired. Tired of fighting others for what comes so naturally to me. Acceptance. Of other children. Of other families- of all shapes and sizes. Of differences. 

We fall into that category. We are an adoptive family. My children are not my "natural" children. They don't look like me. They come from another culture. A different economic class. We aren't seen as an equal to biological families and the world seems determined to remind me of that today and I'm just done. D.O.N.E. Done.

It's not the same kind of fight as racial equality or marriage equality but it's in a similar category. How my family is formed doesn't really affect how your family operates so why do you feel the need to belittle it? And the fact that you don't even realize that is what your are doing, says more than your hurtful words and your turned down nose. Why can't everyone just stop being jerk faces and worry about themselves? 

*******

I spent part of my day writing a letter against sibling visits with the new baby. It goes against everything I believe in but highlights everything that is wrong with the foster care system: Policies that don't address every situation and leave no room for common sense. Foster parents who bear the brunt of poor decision making on the part of others and kids who languish in limbo. Not to mention resources burned through for the fun of it. I actually included a sentence that if the court process had been timely we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I also included a sentence to the effect: If you people pulled your heads out of your asses you wouldn't be giving her a chance to inflict trauma on a 7th kid when she walked away from 6 others and this would be moot because the sibling would just be placed with her siblings for adoption and by the way the other two in the other state she left behind haven't been kept in contact with so why do you think my four or the baby would be different? It might have been written a tad more tactful.... 

The really, really sad part is that I'm not sure the letter from us or the therapists with the clinical recommendation is going to help and I have feeling deep down that the state of Illinois is actually going to pay an agency to drive 4 kids ages 6-10- an hour each way to go sit and stare at a baby.

Oh but Foster Mom R- you could supervise. Ummm no I can't. Because if I'm being really, really honest with myself I want a baby more at this moment then I ever have in all my life. Now when it makes no sense, and it's clear I couldn't do it without all kinds of medical intervention, at the worst possible time in terms of other crap we are dealing with and all kinds of other responsibilities, I want a baby. And I would get attached to the baby that is not meant to be mine and it would trigger my unresolved grief of my fertility and I would fall apart with each visit. 

So clearly I need to get on the ball and get myself back into therapy to talk some of this crap out of my system. Because I've got the above mentioned other stuff I have to handle.

Breakthroughs/Triumphs

• Mr. Mohawk went to sleep without threats last night.
• When I told LM we would talk about the issue layer as I could tell she wasn't able to at the moment she apologized for giving me attitude and told me she was having a rough day.
• Jelly Bean was praised and praised again by her sisters for the good choices she has been making. They TOLD her they were proud of her without being prompted, BOTH of them!
• Gabby told her therapists she feels that her Mom should have placed LM for adoption at birth. She feels LM got cheated out of a better life. She then felt guilty and they had a nice heart to heart which ended with LM telling Gabby "Sisters Forever"
• Gabby invited LM an JB to do another sister family therapy session (The last one ended with the therapists swearing never again because Gabby was in tears due to Jelly Bean being under the coffee table calling her an F***ing B**** under her breath.)

First visit of the school year and a team meeting tomorrow. Should make for an interesting week.