Hi, there.
Let's not talk about how long it's been.
Let's not talk about all the things you've missed because I haven't been here to talk about them. Maybe I'll back-track at some point. Maybe I won't. But my counselor sent me here, so here I am.
My counselor sent me here because I'm angry. I'm angry and I need to figure out how to fucking cope.
Anger is not my default state. I very rarely visit this state, even. So it's weird to be stuck here in limbo and not know what to do about it, or how long I have to be here. I just want to go home.
We have a darling daughter (DD). She's 14 -- almost 15 -- and bright, funny, complicated, talented, weird, beautiful, sarcastic, and kind. She's a good fit for our family. She's been home a little more than 5 months at this point, and we're all still figuring each other out.
And to be clear, I am not angry at her.
I really enjoy her and I enjoy being her parent.
In the process of her joining our family, we have worked with two different agencies, which I will not name here because we aren't done working with them, and I suppose they could still turn their boats around and finally do right by our daughter. But that all remains to be seen.
These two agencies, I believe, are trying to do right by her and do right by their governing bodies. But red tape gets bound up in red tape, and it's not the agencies that suffer the consequences. It's our daughter that suffers. Here is a kiddo who has been stuck in the foster system for XX number of years, who has had XX number of placements, and who has had XX number of disruptions, and hasn't she been put through the ringer enough? Can't we just let her settle into a family and be a normal kid for once in her life?
As I'm heading to bed tonight, the answer is still no. We (her parents) are working tirelessly to smooth this out for her. Her CASAs are working tirelessly to smooth this out for her. Pardon my French, but everyone else can suck a bag of dicks.
In trying to make a long story, uh, less long, let's say that there was a committee decision to NOT let us adopt her six months ago. But, sure, we could foster her, they said, but it would have to be permanent, but we couldn't tell her it would be permanent, cos then it would sound too much like adoption, which the committee decided was not allowed. Ugh.
So we agree to foster, but at a high level of care because we aren't sure what to expect, and our adoption supports (that we paid for) are now no longer available, because we can't adopt her. With a higher level of care (read: extra supervision & therapy), we can get extra supports. Also, we were promised, we could exit into a lower level of care on a timeline of our choosing.
Which, as soon as we are locked into a contract, we are told, no-no-no-no-no, she has to graduate out of this higher level of care. But they won't give us the criteria for graduation. Or a timeline. Or a rulebook. But you can bet that when we somehow break a mystery rule, they are all over it with stern words and consequences. Ugh.
<<Enter five months of more of the same nonesense. Miscommunication, lies, backstabbing, and general ball-dropping.>>
And after fighting with two agencies, two caseworkers, two case managers, two supervisors, two attornies, a facilitator, and a partridge in a pear tree, for, I don't know, maybe four months? we finally get folks on board with hey maybe she doesn't need a higher level of care because she's doing fucking great. And suddenly things start moving.
A caseworker said she was going to push for our daughter
to be out of a higher level of care by the end of the year. We had
hoped sooner, but we're playing the long game, so whatever.
Then the right person talked to the right State Senator who talked to the right person at the right agency and suddenly the adopted decision from May was reversed. Wait, what? Really? We didn't expect that, we had no idea how this would affect anything, so we hung on waiting for more information.
Then last week, the judge ruled that there has been enough fuckery and she needs to be in a lower level of care by Friday. We turned in all our paperwork within three days. If this is going to get held up, it will not be on us.
So this gets us to my counselling session today. I told my counselor that I didn't believe it. He said it's great news, though. And it is, but there has been so much asshattery around this whole situation from the two agencies we are working with that I just don't believe it. I'm angry at the situation, I'm frustrated with all the hoop-jumping, and I'm tense just waiting for the other shoe to fall.
I am usually a silver-lining sort of person. I get teased all the time for being my optimistic self. Some say I'm naive, and I guess that could be true, but I think I'm more realistic than that. I just know, from my forty years of lived experience, that things have a way of working themselves out.
But my heart has been broken so many times in the past six months by this process that I just don't trust it anymore. I'm having trouble keeping my head up. I'm having trouble staying positive even around things that have nothing to do with the foster system (like my job). I'm having trouble taking the smaller joys in life (like DD has an A in Math! and our dog looks really cute in his Christmas sweater! and I have a new car! and I get to go to brunch with my friends!) and letting those good feelings wash over me and buoy me through the tough times. It's not working. I'm not buoyed. I'm still sinking.
Man, if I were outside of myself, I would totally look at this list and be like, THAT'S TOTALLY ENOUGH GOOD STUFF TO BUILD ON! So I get it on an intellectual level. And if I weren't still sinking, I would totally see my point. So this is really hard and I've been hurt really deeply. I feel broken.
And it really doesn't help that later today, after counselling where my counselor told me to give it a chance that things might work out and go according to plan, we got an email that the adoption decision wasn't actually reversed, silly! Who told you that? And in trying to follow up with stepping down to a lower level of care, it appears as though the right people are not talking to the other right people because there are still some important people who do not know what's going on or that the judge really wanted it to happen by Friday. Ugh.
I didn't want to be right this time.
Sure, I have every right to my feelings of anger. Every right. I'm just really tired of being in this angry state. I'm really looking forward to moving back to my regular brain, which I'm hoping still exists somewhere.
Send good thoughts our way if you're so inclined. Complements and chocolate are also appreciated.
Peace -- Mama
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