The Rollercoaster

People quite often liken the adventures of fostering-to-adopt to a roller coaster ride. There are so many ups and downs along the way and sometimes when you get off, you didn't like the ride you were on and other times, you can't wait to go again. This week has certainly been no exception - our life is one big rollercoaster with FABULOUS highs and some big lows as well.

On Wednesday, August 18th, we got a call....okay, I should say not just A call but THE call. In our world, when you're waiting for a placement, you are always waiting for THE call but you just never know when it might happen. For those that aren't aware, we have been trying to foster-adopt a baby for a while now. Not to say we aren't happy with the girls and we're still going forward with them but we ALSO wanted a baby. We haven't had a baby since October of last year and after 10 months of waiting and a budget crisis that put contract placements with our agency on hold, we got THE call....except it wasn't without a rollercoaster ride of its own.

My new case manager (have I mentioned how happy I am with her?) called and said that there was a baby boy in the NICU at a local hospital and would we like to have him? He was born drug addicted and nine weeks premature but all of his issues we had either dealt with in other foster children or in our own children (my daughter was 8 weeks premature and preemies are a learning curve all on their own). Of course, I immediately said yes and the wait began. She has to call DHS and ask for us to have him and then wait for case workers to check out other family members, etc. She said they were planning to release him that week and she would let us know as soon as she heard something. I sure TRIED to be patient but I didn't do such a great job. It was all I could think about and I prayed so hard that I'm pretty sure God had to crank up the volume on his IPod just to drown me out. I called on Friday and we still had no approval - I was SURE that they would put him in a non-agency foster home because they would need to discharge over the weekend!

Monday came around. It was so bittersweet as I had 3 children whom had never gone off to school going this year. I watched MY preemie start Kindergarten and I watched my 4 year old begin pre-k at a magnet school while I watched Little Miss (youngest foster daughter) dive head first into Head Start....and amid the mixed emotions I was feeling, we got the call that we'd been approved (or so I thought.....mwah ha ha). They gave me permission to start visiting Pickle (that's what I'm calling him for the blog) in the hospital. I went that evening and spent 3 1/2 hours with him (that is until his bio-mom unexpectedly showed up)...he was such a dream. He was about 5 lbs 12 oz. and I fed him, held him, loved on him, etc. He failed his carseat study that day so I was told he wouldn't be discharged on Tuesday as was originally anticipated. Tuesday came along and I called the hospital and he had passed his car seat study and was going to be doing his sleep study that evening and would likely be discharged the next morning. I got a call from the therapist to meet her at the hospital Wednesday morning to go over discharge instructions and therapy recommendations, etc.

I went up to the hospital where she spent an hour with me showing me how to secure such a small baby in a carseat, how to loosen up his tight, drug-exposed muscles, and how to feed him therapeutically. Then I called my case manager and found out we couldn't take him home because the state had not officially sent in the paperwork. I was devastated...and I mean devastated. I kept trying to give it to God but couldn't stop worrying about him...they were going to send him to the shelter if we couldn't get the approval that we'd been waiting for a WEEK in about 3 hours. As I was sitting in the parking lot, waiting to pick up my middle son from school, I got the call saying we had been approved....and at 4:30 p.m. I picked up our latest addition.

They currently don't have plans to reunify with mom BUT I know how things work with DHS and that there is a long road before we can call him OURS but here's hoping!!! Obviously, this has been a HUGE high in our world, maybe the biggest one to date....but like any good roller coaster, after a huge high, comes a good low, too!

The girl's mom went to court yesterday. It was supposed to be pre-trial for her termination trial Sept 7 but it turns out she has been arrested again and is in jail. The fact that she wasn't present didn't stop her lawyer from talking, though and she talked the judge into letting bio-mom get a psych evaluation. She argued that her inability to parent MUST be because of a mental disorder and that it wasn't fair that she should lose her children if she could just take a pill and be a better parent. The judge granted her NINETY more days to get a psych evaluation done....so termination is NOT happening in September and I'm beyond irritated. This woman is well into her thirties and has lost 7 children now and NOW she wants a psych eval done???

So we're stalled with our girls and we'll all be waiting EVEN longer for an idea of permanency for them. Hopefully this is just another big dip in our roller coaster and we're about to pull around that last curve back to the loading area where we'll jump off and get in line again....