Our Adoption Story: Part 4...Six Months

By the end of the first six months, we had begun to form a sort of routine. Because of the distance I was having to drive, they consolidated the visits into one visit a week for two hours--only one hour supervised. Because she had missed so many visits, Birth Mom was required to call the parent aid an hour and a half before the visit to verify that she would be there, otherwise the visit would be canceled. She was averaging about 60% of the visits.

Visits always made me nervous for many reasons. I always felt like I was being judged by Birth Mom. I refused to give her any excuse to complain about her children's treatment. The kids were always freshly bathed and I generally put them in a new outfit--at least a new shirt for each visit. I cringed any time Conner tripped and scraped a knee or got a bruise anywhere. I felt like I should put him in bubble wrap for the days leading up to a visit just to be on the safe side.

Talking to Birth Mom made me nervous also. By this time I had realized that most of what she said was a lie, with enough truth to make it plausible. When she would make a comment that made me cringe, I simply smiled and said as little as possible (like when she told me how much 7 month old Airianna liked french fries--Airianna was not able to sit up on her own at that point and was still on stage 2 food). But I was doing my best not to offend.

I was worried about their health during visits--specifically Conner's. In October he got a cold. This cold immediately turned to pneumonia and he was returned to breathing treatments. The doctor told me that because of his previous treatment, he had developed a "cigarette allergy" and if he even smells smoke residue on a shirt when he has a cold, it could turn into pneumonia (I now realize he was trying to tell me that cigarette smoke was a trigger for his asthma, the point was the same). I had him write up a note to give to the case worker, who gave it to Birth Mom. At that time, she was back with Airianna's birth father. When we arrived at the visit, both of them were standing outside the building smoking. When I approached with the children, Birth Mom said, "yeah, we smoke and that isn't going to change." I smiled and nodded and walked away. And reported what she said to the case worker.

And of course I always worried about what the kids were seeing and hearing during their visits. I knew that Conner was getting spoiled at visits (and expected it), but I also knew he was being exposed to strange men and other weird visitors despite being specifically told the visits were supposed to be for family only. By the end of the six months, Birth Mom had introduced two new "Daddies"...they weren't the last.

After each visit, Conner would come home a different person. Every week I would have to "reprogram" him. I would send him off as mild-mannered Conner and he would return as the evil villain "NO Boy". It would take me a day before I would have to stop sending him to the "no fit corner" every hour. Also, Birth Mom spitefully messed up his clothes each week--did she really HAVE to give him cherry kool-aid at every visit? (I know...not that big of a deal, but EVERY week I sent him in new clothes and EVERY week he came home with kool-aid stains and ketchup and mustard all over them...sigh...)

I mentioned his disposition to his case worker and was told that the court would look at it in one of two ways: either they would see it as Conner getting whatever he wanted at visits and thus behaving accordingly when he returned to my house, or they would see it as Conner acting out because he missed his birth mom. I personally thought it was the first reason: Conner never talked about his birth mom. When I came to pick him up, he never cried (unless she buckled him in the car seat. On those times, she would give him something to play with and then take it with her when she left--like her iPod that she "found" at her work--then he would cry). When I dropped him off, he ignored her and went straight for the toys. He never called her by any kind of name. He never really knew her before so to him she was just the person watching him while he played for 2 hours...no different than the nursery workers at church.

The judge in our case would say the latter.

At the 6 month court hearing, the judge gave Birth Mom the warning that if she missed any more visits, the case plan would change to severance at the next hearing. She never missed another visit.

He also told the case worker that--despite the fact she had done nothing that the case plan had asked--he wanted to up the reunification process. Visits should be increased to four hours once a week--still only one hour supervised. She should also be allowed to take the children somewhere besides the CPS office as long as she had approved car seats (she claimed she had sold their car seats at a garage sale sometime in the first six months).

This was a hard pill to swallow, but it was just the beginning. Shortly after Thanksgiving, I received a phone call from the case worker stating that there was a plan for an overnight visit.

"Excuse me?" I asked, certain I'd misheard.

"Birth Mom has requested a weekend visit over Christmas and the GAL is thinking about granting it," the case worker restated.

"So, you're telling me that she is going from a 4 hour visit to 48 hours unsupervised? Over CHRISTMAS!"

"Look, you are going to have to get used to the idea. The judge is ordering that the reunification plan get moved forward. We will start with weekend visits every other week, then every week, then four day visits until they are moved back full time."

I almost dropped the phone. Prior to the 6 month hearing, the case worker had been certain that severance would happen at the 1 year mark (which is the earliest it would happen unless there was severe abuse). Now he was saying that reunification was inevitable. I wanted to strangle him. He got our hopes up for nothing!

And what about Airianna?

"Airianna can't handle that. She cries at every visit. She wouldn't be able to handle a weekend."

"Well, she'll just have to deal with it. Look, I have to go. I'll call you when I know more details." Click.

And that was it.

I hung up and cried.

And sent out prayer requests to every single person I knew.

The next day I received a phone call stating that the visit wouldn't be allowed because she has only had 4 hours unsupervised up to that point. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued hanging up their Christmas stockings.







I found this e-mail I wrote to a friend of mine who is also a foster parent...it sums up how I was feeling at this point in the process:

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The reason I'm writing (besides saying hi and seeing how you guys are doing) is I was just curious if any of your kids were ever seriously thought of for reunification. Birth Mom has been doing what she needs to do since September--before that (the first 6 months) she missed 60% of her visits (including Conner's second birthday) had not attended a single parenting class, was not doing counseling, etc. Then in September she moved back in with her parents and since then she's done everything she needs to do (she got a steady job as a waitress at a gogo night club for 3 months, is about to graduate her parenting class, has been attending her counseling and has been making it to visits) (Side Note: I found out later that she wasn't doing any of that stuff...she was just telling them that she was...) except she can't live with her parents (they have been ruled as unacceptable for a living place for the kids). So because she is doing everything she needs to do, they are moving forward on the reunification process. They will have their first completely unsupervised visit on Wednesday for an hour at the mall. They had originally requested Dec. 24th-26th for their first unsupervised visit, but were denied because they hadn't had a single unsupervised visit before then to have a 48-hour unsupervised. We were heartbroken they had even considered it!

Anyway, I was just wondering if any of your kids went so far as to have unsupervised visits. I personally still don't think she'll get the kids back if she has to move out on her own (her lawyer is fighting that she is in a stable place and she shouldn't have to move) because we feel her parents are making her go to her classes, the visits, etc. The kids don't like their visits--Conner has actually kicked her! He has never done anything even remotely like that to us (or anyone in the nursery). He ignores her and tells her no and throws fits the whole time. Airianna only does okay because it is a consistent place every week--the entire month of September (when the mom came back after a 6 week "vacation") she cried every visit. But we are scared that she will get them back because the system really works hard to put the kids back with their "family".

Conner has a severe smoking allergy because they used to blow smoke directly in his face as a baby--when we got him he was on breathing treatments that we have weaned him from--the allergy is so bad that if he has a cold and he even smells smoke on a shirt he will get pneumonia. I told this to his mom and she told me that they smoke and that is not going to change. I make them bring clean clothes to the visits or I won't let Conner go. A couple of weeks ago Airianna was vomiting (we didn't know why at the time, but it turns out she had a double ear infection poor thing!) I went ahead and brought her to the visit anyway because it was the week of Christmas, but I told the mom 3 times that Airianna had thrown up her pedialyte that morning (1 hour before) and that she shouldn't eat anything and she should only drink pedialyte that I provided. That afternoon I took her to the doctor and she threw up on me...couldn't figure out why until I called the parent aid to tell her about the ear infection and she told me that the mom had not only fed her, but had given her an entire "meal" despite the warnings from the parent aid that I had said the doctor said not to feed her--her response was 'she's fine...see she's not vomiting.'

Then there's the whole gothic world that she's apart of. She is actually registered online as a sex slave to 3 different men and wears her bar-code proudly. That really concerns me because if she isn't in control of herself, who's to say she won't hook up with a pedophile??? As you can see I really don't want reunification and I was just hoping that maybe one of your kids started the reunification process and it didn't go too much further...Any words of encouragement?

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CPS would talk about removing the kids from my care seriously at least 3 more times. The thought of Airianna being placed in a home with sexual deviants scared me beyond belief. Even now I tear up just thinking about it...

In my next post, I will talk about the words of encouragement I received from my friend and the lessons God chose to teach me during this time.


Part 5