I just feel drained

We had court yesterday for the initial hearing on the termination of W's mom's parental rights.

DCS had made it clear before hand that they would ask for the termination case to be dismissed.  That would mean the case would continue as it has for the past 16 months; as an open "CHINS" case.  A "CHINS" is a "child in need of services", which is what W is because he needs to be in foster care right now.  The reason DCS does not want to pursue termination is because they feel it is still a viable option for W to go home.  In other words, they aren't giving up on the mom yet. 

I think another reason they asked for dismissal is that they feel there isn't a strong enough case or enough evidence to get termination granted at this time.  Which, that may be true.  Granting termination is not something a judge takes lightly -which they shouldn't, its serious stuff-  but at the same time, how long can this go on? 

I talked with our caseworker today and she let me know she isn't really comfortable with things either.   She knows things don't always add up with the mom, but again, its not enough to end this case.   She didn't say what will happen if the mom looses her house.  We found out this week she has been lying about the hours she was working, so her assistance is being taken away for 3 months.  Because it includes this month, her rent won't be paid again until March.  I don't know how her land lord will feel about that.  Its possible she will be homeless for a time.  That puts a new spin on things!

Also, it still isn't certain if she is seeing W's dad or not. He has all of a sudden stopped going to his counseling (not that he was going very much before). But it was brought up that maybe he isn't going because he is seeing W already, so why go through the trouble of all the hoops DCS has put up?

I'm hoping these big questions get answered soon, and truthfully so we can feel good about things no matter where W ends up going.

All of this is just draining lately. It doesn't help that I have been working twice as many hours as I normally do (still less than 40 though!). But its hard when I keep thinking, this case has to end soon, one way or another, because time is running out. Then, something comes up and the case continues on again. I wonder what the record is for the longest DCS case ever? That's a record I'd rather not break!

We have a court date!

We heard from our attorney today.  She has scheduled our court date to finalize Alexander's adoption on December 12th. 

I am so excited and relieved to have a date, finally.  We got this little guy on November 18th, 2011, so it's been a long time coming.  

Its amazing the changes this little guy has went through in the last year.  He is now a happy and healthy little boy. 
I can't wait to post all kinds of pictures!

I just don't understand!

W's mom baffles me. A few months ago I was 99% sure we would be adopting W in the near future. His case was nearing the 15 month mark, which is when the state has to request termination of parental rights. His mom had not progressed in the case at all. She hadn't met the requirements set for her to move to unsupervised visits and didn't really seem too upset about it. I was beginning to think she had given up, or decided it was time to move on. Or maybe she had realized the best thing for W would be to stay with us. Also, we had a report from the judge saying the best thing for W was to be adopted due to his parents inability to provide a safe environment. That was a pretty definitive document, coming from the judge and all. So, I was still taking W to visits, and all the while feeling like there was really no point in it because he was going to end up with us in the long run.

Then, we had a family team meeting a few weeks ago where the caseworker told us that the mom had been clean for almost 4 months. That meant she had actually exceeded the requirement to move to unsupervised visits. So, the following visit was unsupervised.

I was a little skeptical, but felt ok about things. I have never worried that this mom would hurt W. She is very good with him. It's the people she chooses to be around that are a potential danger to him. But, the first few visits were only 3 hours long and a social worker would be dropping in at some point during that time. I was sure W would be safe. And he was. Every time I dropped him off his mom was happy and talkative. He was happy to see her, and things looked good. I was beginning to think, again, that she could do this. Things were just as good when I picked him up 3 hours later. Last Saturday, when I picked W up, I got to talking to his mom. I asked her if she was going to keep things together this time and get W home.

I kind of surprised myself by asking her such a direct question, but I wanted to know. If she was genuinely putting forth the effort to get her son home, I was willing to support her. But, if she wasn't, I wanted to know.

She said she felt like she was on the right track. She was keeping the right people around and the wrong ones away. She had interviewed for a job and hoping she would get it. She had applied for a 2 bedroom apartment so there would be more room for W. She was really excited about things and seemed very positive. She talked to me for probably 15 minutes. I tried to be encouraging to her let her know I wanted what was best for her and W. I felt good about things when I left and even called the CASA and let her know about our conversation. I was really sure the mom was going to keep on the right track and get W home. And I was ok with that.

This morning, I got a call from the social worker. She asked if I had gotten any unusual phone calls. I hadn't. She, and the caseworker, had gotten calls from a man who didn't give his name and who said W's mom was seeing W's dad. This is bad for several reasons. 1) there is a no contact order between them to keep the mom safe. 2) there is a no contact order between W and his dad. 3) the mom has said she is afraid of W's dad and doesn't want anything to do with him. 4) W's dad is dangerous and controlling. If his mom is hanging around with him again, knowing that he is dangerous, where has this case progressed in the past 15 months? The answer is nowhere, if she is letting him control her again, how can she keep W safe if he goes home? And the big concern is, has she been taking W to see his dad during her unsupervised visits? That one scares the pants off me. The social worker and CASA are very concerned and are hoping to get down to the bottom of this. The caseworker is taking the approach again of, she can do what she wants on her own time, as long as W isn't put in danger.

The CASA caught the mom in a couple of lies today. I have been sure she has been lying about things here and there all along. She has gotten caught in little lies several times, but she is smart enough about it to not let it add up to much at a time. But, when all these fibs are looked at as a whole, they begin to add up. I think today was the beginning of the lies adding up for the CASA and the social worker.

And, to top it all off, I got a fresh dose of disappointment. I told myself I wasn't going to let this lady disappoint me again because I wasn't going to have faith in her again. But, somehow she got to me, which set me up for a let down for the umpteenth time.

So now I don't know what is going to happen here. Maybe the mom hasn't done anything detrimental to the case. Maybe this guy calling to say she's putting herself in harm's way is just trying to cause her trouble for some reason. But, the things that happened today don't add up in favor of the mom. I don't know. And, I just don't understand.

Will she do it this time?

Of course the mistake I thought was huge was only minor to the caseworker in W's case.  She explained, as if I had no idea how things work, that the mom can have any relationship she wants and the purpose of all this is to allow her to live as she normally would, all while making sure she can keep W safe in the process.  I understand that, and I told the caseworker so.  But what concerns me is why was the mom hiding this guy? Why couldn't she tell him to leave while she had her visit? That is the problem. She still isn't putting her child first.  And this is the same problem the mom had when this case started 15 months ago.  That tells me that she hasn't budged from the situation she was in at the beginning.  But, maybe that's why I'm not a caseworker, I'm too quick to doubt the parents' ability to be good parents.  I hope that's not the case, because I don't intend to be that way.

Anyway, the caseworker has progressed this case to unsupervised visits.  The mom gets her same 3 hours 3 days a week but without a social worker there with her.  In 2 weeks, her time increases to 6 hours a visit,  then a few weeks later she gets an overnight visit.  The trial home placement hasn't been scheduled yet.  We are supposed to meet again after the overnight visit and make a plan from there.  This is all contingent on the mom staying clean and following the safety plan (no unauthorized visitors during visits and maining a safe home).  This is the third time this case has gotten to unsupervised visits.  Each time before, the whole thing fell apart right before the overnights started.  Maybe she can do it this time.  I don't have a lot of faith in this mom at this point, but maybe she will surprise me. 

I can't decide how I feel about W leaving, if it gets to that.  I am trying to feel good about it.  I know his mom loves him and she says she wants him with her.  She has the potential to be a great mom as long as she can stay on the right path.  But that's where the problem comes up for me.  This isn't the first time this mom has went through the system with a child.  She lost custody of her daughter a couple of years ago and it was because of a similar situation, her boyfriend was abusing her daughter and she couldn't keep her safe.  The case ended with her daughter being permanently placed with a relative. Now that it has happened again with W, she has taken 15 months to finally be in a position to possibly get him home.  But if its taken this long, after she already went through this with her daughter, I would be stupid to believe it won't happen again.  She has shown that she isn't strong enough, or maybe not motivated enough, or whatever to put her kids first in her life.  But that's the thing about being a foster parent, it doesn't really matter how you feel, the case is not in your control.  So, that being said, the best thing to do to keep your sanity is to love the kids while you have them, try and influence them in the most positive way possible, and always be prepared to say goodbye.  We try to remember we are only babysitters of these kids, that's the only way to keep our sanity when they leave.

Something finally flipped the switch

Alexander has been great the past few months now.  He has blossomed into a happy, growing, talkative, loving little boy.  About 2 months after his visits with his mom stopped, we started seeing changes happening.  He wasn't getting upset every five minutes.  He wasn't hitting the other kids all day long.  He wasn't demanding to be held constantly.  He was just happier.  It was amazing to watch.  Sad too, though. 

I was hoping things would be better when the visits stopped, but I wasn't sure it would happen.  We knew that Alexander had been abused and neglected and his mom had played a big part in that.  But would simply not seeing her for those couple of hours a week make a difference? It did. And, thank goodness!

The thing I feel bad about is that he hasn't seen his brother, G, either. I haven't talked directly to G's dad, but I have been told through a few people involved with the case that he wants to get the boys together. I understand what he is wanting to do, and I think he has good intentions. He wants G to know his brother and maintain a sibling relationship with him. But, being a parent to G is different from being a parent to Alexander. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but we gave G a good start in his life. He was subjected to some terrible stuff, but he came to our family when he was only 6 months old. He doesn't remember being abused or neglected. And, the shorter time he was subjected to all that, I think, has made a big difference in the way he reacts to things. G acts like a typical kid. He is happy and carefree, like a kid should be. Still, Alexander is very observant of his surroundings. He asks frequently what we are doing, whats happening next, and who will be there. His start in life was different than G's and we haven't gotten him completely beyond that yet.

So for the two boys to see each other probably would be a good experience for G. He would have fun playing with his brother and probably talk about it for a few days. But for Alexander, it would be different. Visiting with G would get him thinking about his mom again. It would remind him that he used to go to visits, but doesn't any more. It would affect him for a while, and I can't say how long. As his mom, I can't subject Alexander to something that will affect him in a negative way. Not when I can't see a benefit, anyway.

I do think it may be good to get the boys together later, I'm not sure how much later, but definitely later. Alexander has made strong bonds with Hannah and Addison, but I know some day he will want to know his brother. During our foster care classes, our instructor brought in her adopted son to talk. He was adopted around age 4 I think. His family was made up of several children, all adopted. He did have one biological brother that wasn't placed with him (this happened 20 years ago and things have changed now). He explained that he loves his adopted family and feels a bond with them, but felt like it would feel different to be with his biological brother. He felt like that bond would be stronger or just feel different. He hadn't met his brother yet so he couldn't say how he felt about him. I would be interested to hear how things went when they did meet.

But anyway, the lesson I learned from that story was, even though this guy had a healthy bond with his adopted family, and knew why he had been adopted, and knew that it was the best thing for him, he still felt like his biological family would be better in some way. I don't want Alexander to always feel like he is missing out on something by being adopted. If he sees G some, hopefully he will know that his bond with us is just as strong as one he would have with his biological family.

Reading back over this, I guess I have gotten away from the original point of this post. So, to sum up, Alexander is doing great. He has made great strides over the past year, but even greater ones over the past couple of months. We are so happy to have him as a part of our family, and I think he is pretty happy to be here too.

I need a break!!

Here we go again.  The ups and downs of foster care are getting to me today.  I feel like I have been on the phone all day, which is hard to believe because I was also at work for about 10 hours today.  W's mom is going to give me a stroke from all this.  She has been doing really well lately.  I talked with the caseworker on Tuesday and we both agreed that things were leaning more toward W going home.  All the drug screens have been clean for almost 3 months now. The mom has been talkative and happy when I see her. I have been thinking she might be taking steps in the right direction.  The next step is unsupervised visits.  Then, today happens.

When I got to the mom's house to drop W off for his visit on Monday, the mom was standing at the visit supervisor's car talking.  I got him out of the car and walked up.  The mom told me that she had found her pilot light off on her stove and so she didn't want to be in the house for a while.  The visit supervisor suggested they go to the library for a while.  I handed W over and they all loaded into the car and left.  It was no big deal, they go to the library sometimes during visits so I didn't think a thing about it.

Then, when I got there for Wednesday's visit, it was a similar scene.  The mom was outside.  This time, she needed the visit supervisor to do the visit someplace else because her furnace was being worked on.  This time I was suspicious. She was obviously keeping us out, I just didn't know why.

I called the visit supervisor today because we needed to talk about this. She told me she had some concerns too and was glad I called. Of course she was thinking the same thing I was, what or who was she keeping us from seeing? She was going to do some investigating and get back to me. I called the caseworker to let her know about these concerns too. I got her voice mail so I called the CASA next.

Again--I'm so thankful for CASAs! She was driving near the mom's apartment anyway, so she drove past. She saw a man who she initially thought was W's dad, but turns out it wasn't. She went up to the door and the man answered. He wouldn't tell her his name, but he did say he was living there. This was the reason the mom was keeping us out of the apartment.

I was shocked. I shouldn't have been, but I was-- and still am. This is a game changer, I think. How could this mom have a man living in her apartment and not let anyone know? My guess is he has a criminal record, so she wanted to keep everyone from knowing about him. There is no problem with her having a boyfriend, but she can't have someone around W without being able to show it is a safe situation. The only explanation for her keeping this guy a secret is that she knows he is bad news. So, she knows this, and she knows that she can't keep this guy a secret for long. And, she knows that her actions are going to end up keeping her from getting W home. That's where the shock comes in. How can she afford to do something so detrimental to this case at this point? She knows that she is so close to loosing W for good and any mistake at this point is going to be huge. But she also knows that her screens have been clean for 3 months, and that is huge.

The visit supervisor (who is also a counselor of some sort) feels the mom is self sabotaging. She is going to talk point blank with the mom about this. She is going to tell her she knows about this new guy and the mom has to tell him to leave for visits because these are her visits and she should not be leaving her own house like this. That won't work because this mom can't demand anything from anyone. She can't give an answer when she is asked a question. Her response is always "whatever you think". She thinks the mom knows W is safe with us and feels relieved and satisfied with that. She wants to talk to the mom about this and try to get an honest answer from her. Again, she won't get an honest answer, because the mom can't stand up for herself.

I hope the caseworker takes this all seriously. I hope she puts some consequences in place because of this. That has been some of the problem. The mom gets 3 visits a week for 3 hours each, that is a lot of visits. Even after several bad drug screens, her visits haven't changed. I feel like the visits should be reduced and moved to the office, not in the home. She has shown that she can't maintain a safe home--again, so how can the visits continue in the home.

I don't know, I'm frustrated I guess.

Alexander's caseworker stopped by this evening.  She brought by some paperwork we need to sign to get the next step of the adoption going.  Nothing too exciting, just some papers to allow our lawyer to get reimbursement for her work on the case and a few other technical things.  Still, it's one step closer and that is exciting.

In Indiana, lawyers can be reimbursed up to $1500 for completing an adoption.  The lawyer we are using, and most others according to our caseworker, won't charge families any more than the $1500.  So, that means we won't have any cost associated with this adoption.  So many people I have talked to say they can't consider adoption because of the cost, but I can say, cost isn't an issue with foster-to-adopt situations.

We have had some other nerve-racking developments this week.  I got a call from the caseworker saying that she has discovered some issues with the situation with G and his dad.  G is Alexander's half brother (same mom, different dads).  He was with us from the time he was a bruised up 6 month old until he was an ornery 21 month old.  He was able to be reunited with his dad last May.  I was nervous about him leaving, but I felt good about it overall.  When I got that call, saying the placement with dad might not be working, my heart sank.  A part of me was excited to have G back with us, but a big part of me was dreading the thought of all those visits with dad starting from the beginning again.  I was ok to say goodbye to G last May, but I'm not sure how I would feel to say goodbye again.  Plus, I would worry about how it would affect Alexander and the girls to have G with us only to leave again.  I have said a few times that it isn't as hard as you would think to tell a foster child goodbye, but that doesn't mean it's easy!  It's harder on the kids I think, they just aren't able to understand all that's going on well enough.  Plus, it's hard for kids to see what is best for someone in the long run vs what's easiest for them in the moment.  But, even with all that, I would still take him back in a heart beat if he has to be removed again.  The caseworker told me this evening that she is really hoping to not have to remove G.  She said even if it comes down to the grandparents taking guardianship for a time while the dad gets himself together again, she will do that.

I'm not sure where W's case is going.  We were to the point where the caseworker was going to file termination on the mom next month, which would be 15 months and the point where the state says termination has to be filed.  But, the mom has been passing drug tests for the past 2 months.  At this point, if she continues to pass screens, the case will continue and the mom will still progress toward getting W home.  I'm not sure how to feel about this.  I have always said I like this mom, and I still do.  But this has gone on so long that I'm not sure what would happen if W went home.  His mom is capable of being a great mom.  But, I'm not confident in her being able to keep on the right track once the support DCS is giving her is gone.  Right now, she is being drug screened weekly and knows that the screens will continue and if she fails one now, this case is basically over.  She is getting counseling a couple of times a week.  She is getting help with transportation to appointments, to the store, to the library to apply for jobs (the visit supervisor takes her places during visits which I'm not really on board with).  We provide everything W needs on a day to day basis including food, clothes, a bed, daycare, going to appointments and therapy.  Can she manage everything on her own? I don't know.  I know she has been a victim of domestic violence, and that is not something to take lightly.  I am so glad she is not in a bad relationship anymore, at least she says she isn't in a relationship.  But, I just can't trust that she will stay around the right people, people who will support her and W, help her when she needs it, keep W safe.  She lost custody of her daughter a few years ago because she wasn't able to make the right decisions to keep her daughter safe.  Maybe she learned her lesson from all that.  Maybe she has gotten valuable help from all the counseling she has had in the last year.  But, I'm scared to put W into a situation with so many risks.  Of course, this is part of foster care.  DCS's job is to get kids home, even if us foster parents aren't 100% comfortable with things.  I know I don't have a very objective view of all this and I am biased in this situation, but that doesn't make this any easier!  I'm just going to keep taking care of W and try to follow my instincts about my feelings toward his mom and what she is capable of.  Maybe she is ready to be a mom.  And if I know, or at least am pretty sure that she can do this, I'm ok with letting W go.