So our family of 6 didn't last long. Z went home in March and we enjoyed the calm for a couple of weeks. By April though, I was ready for another placement. I started watching my phone again for THE call. It was probably May when a possible new development happened.
See, there are actually 3 boys in this family. They all have different dads. G's dad was arrested at the same time as the mom and Z's dad was not involved in the situation at all --that's why he was able to have weekend visits and then go to live with him permanently. Well, the third little boy, who was actually between the other two boys in birth order, was placed with his biological dad on the same day that we picked up G and Z.
I met this third little guy several times, his dad brought him to the same visits with the mom at the same time as G and Z. He seemed to have had the most difficulty over the course of his life. Neglect had played a big part in his short 18 months. But, after being placed with his dad, he started making great strides.
So, during one of the mom's visits, she discovered some bruises on this little guy. The dad was questioned and the little boy was examined. During this time, it wasn't really known what was going on. We were told that if abuse was happening, we needed to be prepared to take him since we already had his half brother. We didn't know what to think. So, we waited by the phone for a few days. We didn't get any calls and the next time I took G for a visit, the caseworker didn't have anything to say about the situation, so I figured it was all ok. I later saw the dad and he was frustrated by the whole thing. He felt like the mom was trying to cause him trouble because she doesn't like him. He said the little guy was still learning to walk, so of course he had bruises, he was falling down a lot. So, nothing came of that situation and I went back to keeping one eye on my phone.
Then, the wake up call came at 2 am on July 20th. A baby had been brought to the ER by the police following a domestic violence incident. It was discovered he had 4 broken ribs, which had not been broken that night. The baby needed an emergency placement in foster care. When my phone rang at 2 am, I was sure it was going to be a wrong number. I was shocked when the man calling said "Shannon, are you awake?" It took me a few seconds, but I eventually got woke up enough to answer. I'm really not sure what all I said to that poor caseworker, but I hope I made some sense at least. He went on to tell me about the baby and asked if we would take placement of him.
I had gotten Nathan awake while I was talking and I was quickly relaying the information on to him so he was up to speed. He kept saying, "that's two babies, that's going to be a lot. Are you sure?" I knew it would be hard to have an 11 month old and a 3 month old, but from the things the caseworker had told us, it was looking like this could end up being an adoptive placement. I just couldn't let that pass by.
I told the caseworker that we would take the baby. He had the investigative caseworker, who was at the hospital with the baby, call us and give us more instructions. She called a few minutes later and said we needed to come to the ER to get the baby. We got up and dressed, called my mom and got the infant seat all ready. Mom got there in about 15 minutes to stay with the kids and off we went.
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