A status hearing was held yesterday for W's case. The fact finding hearing was set for June 7th.
Since that is so far away, the caseworker is planning to reduce visits from two hour visits twice a week to three hour visits once a week. I'm glad she is reducing them because I think it will help to make the transition from having visits to no visits easier for W and his mom. This case is so much different from Alexander's. In his case it was painful for me to take him to visits and this case is the opposite, I think I will feel guilty for not taking him. I shouldn't feel bad because none of this is my fault. And, I have encouraged this mom as much as I felt I could. And, I know it is time to move on with things and have a permanent situation here for all of us.
So, after June 7th, parental rights should be terminated for W. He won't be legally free for adoption for another 6 months after that to allow for the appeals process, if either parent would choose to appeal. During that 6 months, W will still technically be in foster care, but nothing will change as far as his placement with us and he won't have any more visits. That means we can have our adoption attorney start the process some where around this December. We were hoping to have his adoption done this year, but it looks like it will drag into 2014. But, that's ok.
Since this is all getting wrapped up now and it still looks pretty certain W will be staying with us forever, we have decided for sure about his new name. (Well the first name at least, we haven't settled on a middle name yet.) So, if you see our little guy out and about you can call him Isaiah.
The boys started at a new daycare last week. I told them at the new place that they could all call him Isaiah because I new it would be easier to start out with that then try and change in a few months when they were all used to calling him by his birth name. It is kind of strange when we walk in and everyone yells "Hi Isaiah!", but I'm getting used to it and I think he is too.
People have asked me why we would change his name after we have called him that for so long. We had thought about calling him Isaiah a long time ago, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Its one of those defense mechanisms we use as foster parents. Calling him by his new name is saying that he will be a permanent part of our family (at least that's how it feels to me) and that isn't something we could do before we were certain he would stay. There have been two separate times that a date has been set for Isaiah to go home to his mom. It was hard to deal with that both times, but we got to the place that we were ok with it. I think we were able to cope pretty well because we had made sure to maintain enough distance. Even though it seems like a simple thing, calling a foster child by the name we have chosen for them vs what their birth parents named them is a big step.
I have talked before about the reason W needed a new name in the first place---he is named after a bad guy and we can't let him go through life with that as his role model.
Well, even though its still going to be quite a while before this case is totally over, I'm excited that we now have end in sight.
Since I can't post any pictures yet of the adorable Isaiah, I will put on a few of the less adorable kids.
Just kidding! I think they are all adorable! But Isaiah is pretty cute!!
