One of the hardest things about being a foster mom is dealing with this horribly helpless feeling that I am powerless to do what needs to be done to take care of these little hearts. I can make sure that booboos are kissed and tummies are fed, hair is combed and clothes are clean, but I can't take away their past neglect and the fact that they are still waiting on the foster care system to decide who their family is. One thing I've learned over the past two years though, is that luckily, little girl's hearts are very strong.
It's been exactly 21 months since two little girls stumbled into our lives and created the most chaos I could ever even imagine. Ok, so some of the chaos is fun and we are all still in one piece and have now softly fallen into the ruts of family routine. It's pretty awesome. I believe that none of us could imagine our lives any differently at this point. We have a huge family-of-five-plus-dog photo up on the wall, Little A calls me mommy, Big A is still holding on to that shred of hope that her parents will pull through and of course that's painful to watch. Disappointments abound surrounding those hopes but she is happy here, and knows she is loved. She's not quite ready to give in fully, and hasn't really been given permission to since this case is still wide open, but as they say, these things take time. That is very true. Even my son H, now 14, is a good sport about these little sisters--they are both lovely and annoying.
Adoption is a word that we've started to hear the social workers say more often. But we are working at the speed of the courts which is a lineup of turtle, ant, sloth, snail, worm, slug, well anyway, you get it. Slow. Learning about how this foster care and adoption process works is confusing enough. But throw in its relationship with the court system and 21 months later I'm still trying to figure things out. Basically we are currently waiting for social services to file for termination of parental rights (TPR) within the court. I have been told they would be filing "any day now" for months. It's like the dangling carrot in our lives. Because once they finally do file for TPR, the court has 90 days within to set a termination hearing. And I was told that the social services agency does not file unless they think they can "win" so when they finally do, it will give me more hope. Now, I still won't believe any of them until I have signed papers in my hands but until then we of course hold onto the hope that things will fall into place eventually. Living in the moment is key here because if I dwell on this too much I go a bit crazy. It's a twisted cycle of fear and hope, much like the plot of a horror movie. I'll delve more into this topic more as we go through the process but basically once the termination happens, then adoption is officially on the table.
Another cycle we have been living with is the bio parents involvement in our lives. It's been a roller coaster ride for the girls as far as their parents are concerned. And in my (humble, ha!) opinion no kid should have to live like this. Apparently the agency doesn't agree with me. For over a year parents had 3 visits a week, supervised by a social worker who picked the girls up, drove them 30 minutes to the visit site, an hour for each visit, then drove them 30 minutes back. That's a 2 hr. chunk of time, 3 days a week. Very exhausting for the girls and especially confusing and discombobulating when parents either called ahead to cancel, cancelled at the last minute when girls were already in the car on their way to the visit, or didn't even bother to cancel and just didn't show up. Essentially what happened would be that parents would do great for awhile, consistently showing up for a couple months or so and then start to show inconsistencies for a couple months and then there would be a few weeks of nothing and then they'd show back up and start all over again. Social workers finally after a year of this cut the visits down to 2 days a week and when school started this past fall they moved the visits locally so that girls don't have the long car ride to endure each time which has been so much better for them. Parents are also required to "check in" each morning before the visit that afternoon. If they don't call and check in by 7am, no visit in the afternoon. This was set up so the girls could start their day knowing what to expect. It's also made a huge difference because it provides another level of consistency that they need so very much. Problem is, bio parents have somehow found a loophole to unravel that consistency. Yesterday they called and checked in so I sent the girls off to school and they were expecting a social worker to pick them up for a visit after school. Parents called and cancelled with social worker minutes before she arrived at school to pick the girls up for the visit. Their excuse to the worker was that they had no money for gas to get to the visit. Social worker called me and she agreed to continue to school and explain to big A that there would be no visit. The standard reason given to kids is that their parent's car broke down. This is to avoid abandonment or rejection overtones but these excuses grow old even on the most patient of children. And no matter how it's presented, it's still gotta hurt her little heart. Every time.
So second weekly visit was supposed to be today. Just as A sat down for breakfast, a text popped up on my phone, she heard the familiar tone and quietly said "I hope there's a visit today." Visit cancelled. "Darn," she whispered. And then started chattering away to her little sister about unicorns. Around here, cancelled visits are as common as conversations about unicorns over breakfast and they don't really miss a beat. After all, there were no visits last week, parents never checked in. So the cycle continues and these kids are smart enough to expect it now. I'm struggling very hard to see how this cycle is beneficial at all to these kids. There is talk of paring down visits to once a week. That would be a godsend. Half the opportunity for disappointment? Sounds like a plan to me. This should be decided on the next court date in a couple weeks, along with the possibility of filing for TPR. These two things are huge in our case. A New Hope.
(Yes, this is a Star Wars reference, if you got it, then you are as cool ((or nerdy)) as me.)
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