The Buzz: It's a Boy!

The news on the Ferrante Family front is that we are taking another Flex Family placement of a 2 year old boy. He's not a newborn baby, but he'll be our "baby". For the purposes of the interwebs, I will call him "Little J". His privacy is very important, so I will not be discussing the finer points of the reasons he came into foster care other than to say that it was because of neglect, which has given him a few special needs for which he is receiving therapy services. I also, alas, will not be posting pictures of him on my facebook page or my blog, at least until his legal status is more secure.

Being a Flex family means that we take him as a foster child, and are able to adopt him if that is the way his case plan goes. This is what we did with Little A, and we all know that we ended up on the losing end of that particular gamble. It is scary to venture into this arena again, but with great risk there is potential for great reward, or so I explain to my frazzled nerves.

It's like we are on the county's radar at the moment, because now that we are committed to Little J, we are getting calls for all kinds of situations. I got a phone call yesterday to see if we could take an emergency placement of a 12 month old baby girl. That tugged hard on my heart strings, but we want to take time to get Little J moved in and settled and bonded before we go adding more kids to the family.

If this post sounds all somber and serious, don't let that fool you. I am super freaking excited about it. We are meeting him next week, and will move him in in about a week or two. I'm buying paint for his room today. I know I will feel much more ready after we get things put together in there.

After having a super girly girl for two years, I am now trying to figure out how to raise a son. I have my own ideas, but I am open to suggestion as to what cultural touchstones are important for raising a boy to be freethinking and sort of hip and unconventional. Does he need comic books in his life, which ones? Are ninja movies essential? Any really good books? I'm shaping a person here, and I want him to be someone you can stand to hang out with. I don't want to raise him to be pretentious, but to have discerning tastes.

Oh me and my lofty ideas. A month from now all I will want is some sleep! ;)

Bend, but don't Break

I am sorta half decent at yoga, but being emotionally flexible is a bit more challenging.

I’m bending into some unlikely and highly uncomfortable shapes these days. I’m angry. I’m full of sorrow. I’m hurting.

Bending. Bending over backwards and twisting sideways and sometimes inside out. Last night entailed very little sleep, because when Little A can’t sleep, neither can anyone else. But it is understandable because last night we had to tell her that she is moving on Friday. Tomorrow. We told her kindly, somberly, and truthfully. She took it ok, which just means to me that she doesn’t fully understand it.

And the things she says these days! Tearful proclamations that announce her fear of abandonment by us. A fear, I am sorry to say, we are going to have to validate against our will. I wish I could repeat them here, if only to get the plaintive voice out of my head and on paper. Out of my body where it drains me.

I did tell her that this wasn’t our choice. I told her that I will love her forever. I told her that every time she sees the moon in the daytime, smiling at her, that she should remember that I love her. I hope she remembers.

In the meantime my whole body aches. My heart is utterly shattered. If I didn’t know for a fact that my symptoms were a result of extreme stress, I would think I had cancer or some other serious illness. I feel like I am dying. I feel broken.

Little A, you have been a wonderful daughter. I will never have another like you if I live a million more lives after this one.


Image credit:
http://www.pbase.com/britestar/image/66583996

Confidentiality

I hate having secrets.

I mean, I don't mind keeping other people's confidences, but I hate having things about myself that I can't share with the world. Not things I am ashamed of, but things I can't say because I am prohibited by laws governing confidentiality.

There are so many things I wish I could say about my experience as a foster parent. About the frustrations of dealing with an overtaxed system that can only give partial justice to anyone. The truth is that everyone gets hurt in some way when a child gets taken into foster care. But the worst part of it for me is the various gag orders that seem to prevent me from working for reform. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin.

I can't discuss the particulars of the case I am involved in, or talk about the experiences of other children in foster care that I know. I can't address the endless court delays that stand in the way between children in limbo and some kind of permanence.

It is a very helpless feeling to watch the machinations of the lawyers, the judges, and the various interested parties struggle over their disparate needs with regard to a child who is too small to voice her own opinion in a legally meaningful way.

As for my own needs, they have no place in this process. That I continue to be permanently altered by this experience seems moot. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could spray paint on a giant wall for all to see how many fears this stirs in me. How much pain I quietly swallow so that I can show a calm face to a little girl who just needs to focus on preschool and her continued resistance to eating vegetables.

Some days it is easier than others. But there are days when I want to scream. I want to scream at all the people involved with this. This isn't my fault. I didn't create this situation. I just agreed to help, to shelter a child who needed a home while her life gets sort of sorted out for her. That I have fallen in love with her and she with me isn't anyone's fault either. That I would do anything in this world to protect her would be natural in any other circumstance. But my maternal instincts do not dictate public policy and they never will.

I wish I could tell you all of it. But it is probably a good thing that I can't. This post is depressing enough. I want to lighten it. I want to give you a Hollywood happy ending so badly, but I can't. And this is just ONE child out of the hundreds in foster care in my county alone. I want to make it okay for you to be involved in my story, because then maybe I can make it okay for the amazing and beautiful little girl this affects. I want it to be okay for me, too.

Dream-Here, You Take This!

I had another variation on the "sudden baby" dream last night. I sorta dislike that dream because it is mostly an indicator of stress, kind of a parenting "in the weeds" dream.

I dreamed that a car pulled up in front of my house and an African American woman got out and was shouting for me to come out. She was well dressed but disheveled. When I went outside, she opened the door to the backseat of the car and pulled out a very tiny baby girl. She thrust it at me and said. "Here, you take this. I can't handle it right now." While I stood stunned cradling the little one in my arms, she got back in the car and sped off. I didn't even know the baby's name.

The baby had medium-mocha skin that was very dry, and frowzy, unkempt hair. She had only the clothing and diaper she was wearing. She felt a little cold to me, but she wasn't crying.

I was, to say the least, unprepared. We had no formula, no diapers, no clothes for one that small. The crib was disassembled in the garage as it is now. I think we were also broke, so just throwing money at the problem wasn't going to work.

I got out my purple sari from Bali that Kari gave me years ago and made a sort of makeshift sling to carry the baby against my body. She rooted around at my breast because she was hungry, and I felt a pang of sadness that I had no milk for her.

The last thing in the dream was me trying to turn our car seat to be rear-facing. Anyone who has ever installed a car seat knows what a pain they can be to get right. It was really frustrating, and I was still trying to figure out how to feed and clothe this baby.

I woke up feeling all groggy and out of it. I also reminded myself that if Little A gets reunited with her bio family, there are literally hundreds of children in Washoe County alone that could use my mothering care. I don't know if I have the wherewithal to deal with "the system" that much, but Little A is certainly not my last chance to be a mother if she should have to leave. The court system is just so, how shall I say, messed up. And this process has so wounded Tony and I that I just don't know if we could go on. It is too heartbreaking.

I hate having that dream where I have a new baby that I am unprepared for thrust upon me. I have had that dream more times than I can count. When I wake up, I always wonder who that baby is. I also wonder why I would long to be a mother all my life, only to have achieving that so damn hard.

But I found a kernel of strength last night after having a protracted cry. I AM Little A's mother. Just ask her. No matter what happens, she will always be my daughter. She has changed me for life, altered me down to the bones.

I know this is far from over and far from resolved. We have a long way to go. When she moved in with us, it was projected that we would finalize an adoption of her this month. Now, everything is hanging on a trial that is set for April, and the outcome is far from certain.

Little A's birthstone is Aquamarine. I am going to buy myself an aquamarine ring and wear it on my middle finger. I may not have any rights, but I am a mom. It's my thing.

The Case for Being Closed

What is inside? Who, me? Who cares?

Despite my scientific leanings, I'm really more of an alchemist. I consider myself an artist in search of the ultimate day job. I was a chef and I know what it takes to make money off of your art, and it involves sacrifices in the realm of family life that I just wasn't willing to make at the time. Sometimes in my dark heart I worry that means that in making the choice to walk away from that career, I chose to never be a great artist.

I still write, though, and do other artistic things. I am coming to realize that I would much rather that people look at me through the lens of my art than looking too close at me personally. My art is something that I can edit and polish and hide altogether if I am not happy with it. To a degree I like to hide behind it. It is still me in that it is an expression of who I am, albeit a more abstract or esoteric one.

Me as a person, though? I'm messy, intemperate, and self-deprecating. If you tell me that you like a piece of art that I have made or a performance that I have put on, I will beam and carry that compliment with me for weeks. If you tell me that after a look at the insides of me, that you like me, tongue firmly in cheek, I'm sorry to say that I will probably think you are a little nuts.

Not that I don't have my good points. I know I am the life of the party. I know that I make complex and delicious birthday cakes. I know that I am a loyal friend. I know that in the right frame of mind I am as cute as a speckled pup under a red wagon. But I also know that I can be a pestering, insecure pain in the ass. I'm untrusting and cynical.

I try very hard to show the world my bright and cheery side. It isn't artifice, I really am trying to be positive and allow my destiny to unfold the way it is meant to. But I can't resist the temptation to stick my fingers in it, and that's when things go all sideways.

What's inside me? Like everyone, what is inside me is a measure of pain along with all the other good things. An inner child with a compulsion for picking the fuzz off of her blankie until it is threadbare.

I don't want you to look at what is inside me, because for the most part the things that cause me pain are things that no one can do anything about. It seems almost pointless to talk to people about what makes me sad. Everyone has their burdens, right?

Most people don't have a concept of what doing legal risk foster care placements is like. Honestly, unless I am talking to another foster parent who has been there, people just get overwhelmed when I tell them what is going on with Little A's case plan. Their eyes glaze over. I'm not trying to be a martyr here, but it is horribly painful and terribly scary, so much more so that I could have imagined. I mean, you take all these training classes and everything, but the reality is something else. People wonder aloud why I don't just stop, but at this point we are talking about the life of a small, defenseless and very sensitive child. I remember being a kid like that. I would rather suffer a hundred times daily than see her come to harm. Luckily for her, even though I am damaged in some ways, I know how to shoulder pain. Doesn't mean I don't feel it, but I can take it if it means that she can maintain a little of her remaining innocence.

The fact that I can make art at all right now has to be some kind of proof that I have more grit than I give myself credit for. I can be the strongest woman in the world and still hurt like hell.

If you want to know me deep down, that means knowing the depth of how sad I am sometimes. The benefit that gives me is that I can really give you empathy if you are going through grief and loss. I like to think that the understanding I bring to Little A as a parent will help her in the long run. I hope she is better than me in every way.

There is beauty in me, I know it. I run a metal detector over that beach every day looking for buried treasure. It might not be the shining, incandescent jewel of unmitigated artistic genius I hoped for. It might still be something rare and something good and something true. I hope you are there when I find it. Maybe it will be something I can feel proud of and I'll want to show you every facet of it.

Could you suffer in silence, please?

I have secrets now. I guess everybody does. Only these secrets are ones I would rather unburden myself about, but can't because of confidentiality constraints. But if I had no scruples at all and felt like risking my entire life's destruction, I could tell some tales, boy howdy.

Right now there are hundreds of thousands of children in Foster Care in the U.S. I don't have current figures, and almost don't want to look them up. It is just too grim. What I do know is that the courts are set up so strange that navigating the issues that Little A has just about make me insane, and we are far from being done with it.

With all the kids that are in foster care, there is a really desperate need for more foster parents to care for them. But would I ever recommend that a friend do this? Probably not. Not unless I was really mad at that friend and wanted to see them suffer. There is no court advocate for foster parents' interests. If you are lucky, your goals and the county's coincide. Right now that seems to be the case with us, but that could always change and we could be asked to do things we would rather not do.

I have heard horror stories about foster parents being abused or their opinions discounted outright. Who would sign up for that? It almost has to be a calling, and many of the people I have met have had some kind of faith community that supported then during the rough patches. Alas, I don't really have that, but it would be handy to think that God has a plan on days when it seems that the earthly forces at work are confused and delayed and at cross-purposes.

I tried to guard my heart, but I'm totally attached to this little kid. It took about an hour and I was already sunk. She really deserves no less, but it makes it so much harder for me to maintain my professional demeanor and face the still viable possibility that she could be reunified with her family of origin. That is supposed to be a good thing, and can be if the family can get it together. Currently that is not her legal plan, but that could change pretty easily.

In the meantime, I have to love her like I will never lose her. I'm not brave or noble. I love her fiercely. I have never had so much of my future on the line. If we lose her we go back to being childless, which seems impossible now that we have integrated her laughter, her tears, and even her laundry into our lives. Even picturing her bedroom empty for more than ten seconds makes me physically ill.

In any case, my life is being forever altered on a daily basis, and I have to keep my mouth shut about it. The petty little details and things that annoy me and even the things that make all of this worth it are all under the table. I hope I can talk about it openly someday, because holding it in sometimes really hurts. I worry, and in the vacuum of my own head, the echo chamber gets a little out of hand.

So, should you be a foster parent? May is Foster Parent Awareness month. I can't answer whether anyone else should do this. All I know is that as long as we are all contractually obligated to do whatever we do in silent forbearance, the media makes up whatever they want. All people hear are the horror stories about "those kind" of foster parents. You know the ones: they grab headlines for further abusing the delicate lives in their care. They eat steak and give the kids hot dogs. The dress the kids poorly. They end up representing all of us, because the good foster parents are the silent ones. We are the invisible parents (or ersatz babysitters on the bad days) that care for some wonderful kids whose parents have made some less-than-beneficial choices.

I'm a foster parent, and this isn't my story. My story is in the details, in the small gestures, in the way Little A feels about me when I give her reasons to trust me. Trust me, it is a pretty good story sometimes. Maybe someday, if she still has me in her life, she can tell you. I can only hope in the meantime that I am giving her the means to tell it with a measure of pride.

Is it jealousy?

I sometimes have feelings that make little sense. Then at other times, they make sense in context, but cause me so much shame I just pretend they don't make sense.

I hate to admit this even to myself, but I am harboring a burgeoning jealousy of A's biological parents. They have almost infinitely more rights than I do at this point, and I am just annoyed by that. I would not ever trade my life for theirs, but they do have something I will never have. Even if they lose their rights, they are still A's mother and father.

I will never get to be A's only mom, no matter what happens. There will always be a line, however tenuous, that connects her to these other people, other families. She's connected to people with pasts and human mistakes and roads I wouldn't dare travel. Someday she will have perspective on that, I can only hope.

I can hope to give her good skills for life, but I can't give her my genes, my laugh, or any of the good things in my own heritage. I feel bad for the strange way we have to graft her into the family tree. As much as I love her as if she were my own flesh, her history diverges from mine in strange ways and travels back through unknown destinations.

I love her, but she isn't all the way mine yet. There is always the chance that the courts will make a drastic reversal and I could lose her forever, and I would never know what happened to her. I'm jealous that I have to face that fear through no fault of my own. I'm a good parent to A, but I'm not blood, and blood trumps a lot. It doesn't matter how good of a person I am or how good my intentions are. It is going to turn out how it turns out, and I have to wait and see if I get to be a real, legal mom.

The Cheerful Chapeau

Image: http://www.qualityfleece.com/hats.php

I had a pretty crappy day Friday, so crappy in fact that I don't even want to go into my feelings about it to write it down.

One of the things I had to do was take A for a visit with her bio-dad, which means that I have an hour to myself downtown. I walked to my favorite coffee house, the one where that cute boy flirted with me. I think the cute boy has moved on, because I haven't seen him on subsequent visits.

It was bitterly cold outside, so even though it didn't match my coat, I was wearing a pink fleece beanie hat sort of like the one pictured above, but with little embroidered snowflakes on it.

Another scruffy-looking, blue eyed, dark haired boy was working that day. This place seems to employ a number of them. I ordered the usual, a medium sugar-free hazelnut latte.

He asked me how my day was going, and I was having such a bad one that I was prepared to lie and say I was doing great, because telling the truth, even a little, would have caused me to leak from the eyes in public. He then smiled at me and said "You must be having a great day. What else could you do with such a great hat?"

I had to smile. There I was, feeling about as low as I could be, and some angelic person came along to lift me up just a little. I wouldn't be shocked if I never see that kid again. It was almost like he was placed in my path to keep me from feeling morose when I needed all the strength I could muster. I'm always grateful when that happens, because to me it means that I still have the power to see spiritual forces at work in my life.

When I was done with my coffee I walked back to the county office to pick up A. Her father chose to get confrontational with me and said some hostile and emotionally blackmailing things. I managed to draw myself to my full height (5'3") and held my ground without resorting to saying all the things I was thinking. He is still almost a full foot taller than me, and has a criminal record that includes violence, but I set my jaw and showed him that I wasn't the marshmallow that he thought I was. I doubt it made an impression, but I guess I needed to do that for my own good. Being afraid of him will get me nowhere, and it doesn't help me assist A in sorting out her feelings about him later in life.

After I reported his inappropriate conduct to A's caseworker, I felt pretty shaky and upset, but I jammed that cheerful chapeau on my head and pressed on. I'm always going to have a fondness for that hat now. It has angel-attracting properties.

NEWS FLASH!

Note: for those of you who worry that things I say on this blog will affect our legal standing with regard to parenting "A", please notice that I am giving very few details and certainly nothing inflammatory.

Yesterday we went to our first hearing at the district court, a 12-month permanency hearing to decide the course of "A"'s case plan. I will not really go into the details here, since all sides are now considerably lawyered-up. The overarching outcome is that her case plan is no longer geared for reunification with her parents of origin, but is focused on the TPR, or "termination of parental rights" for said parents. It is my impression that both parents, who each have their own attorney, intend to fight this couse to the fullest extent of their ability.

There are a lot of balls in the air right now, and a lot of unknowns that could still alter the course of her case.

The case worker did get up and told the judge some very complimentary things about us and our efforts to meet A's needs. He noted that she is much loved by us and that we are committed to adopt her should she become legally free. The judge asked us if we had anything to add, so Tony and I both got to get up and express how much we are bonding with A and love having her in our family. We also noted that while in our care we have seen her progress and flourish, and that we are committed to her, no matter what the outcome.

Our heretofore twice-weekly visits with A's father are now dropped down to a more manageable once per month. A had a visit with her father about an hour after the court decision, and he was understandably distraught, although he had not been present at the hearing. Thankfully, A seemed oblivious to his emotional distress, and enjoyed her brief time with him before the visit was cut short at his request.

The next hearing will be in six months. It is expected that a certain amount of legal activity will occur during that time. We are just focusing on being good parents to A and helping her through this turbulent time.

If you choose to comment on this post, please be cognizant that this is still a sensitive legal issue, and that regardless of their shortcomings, these people are A's family. It is sad that she has to come to us under these circumstances, but we are confident that she will continue to be a part of our family as well. She is a wonderful little girl, and deserves all the love in the world.

Is the sippy cup half empty or half full?

Here's what I know: I am a foster mother. The whole idea that we are a flexible family is just a marketing myth propagated by Washoe County to make me their bitch. What I am is a foster parent. That is, until I am not.

A is currently making bad pretense at napping, and I am fretting. We have another visit planned with her bio-dad today, and I am dreading the fallout. After the visit on Tuesday, the first thing she did when she walked back into our house was walk right up to Tony and hit him with her tiny fist. Nice.

Her caseworker admits that the visits are not doing her any good, but even bio parents who don't work their case plans at all have rights. More rights than kids who are horribly confused by the contact. These visits are turning her world topsy turvy. She's mad, she's sad, and she doesn't have the cognitive or language skills to process it. So she cries, she screams, and she rages at any little thing that would normally roll off her back.

All I can do is watch in frustration, and accept the fact that she sometimes wants me to hold her, and sometimes doesn't want me to touch her at all, and has no way of telling me which it is. So I try to comfort her, and sometimes she curls in a ball against my body. Other times she scowls in indignation at the very idea of being offered a hug.

My tender, tender heart. Holy smokes. I already love this little girl. I'm a goner. But I am not her mother, really. She calls me mommy, and I take care of her, but I have to know my place. And right now that place is at the bottom of a legal totem pole.

Pardon me for being morose. Sleep deprivation, etc.

Maybe when she is having her visit today, I'll walk down the street and ogle my cute skater baristo and have a latte. That might cheer me up.

Image: http://www.gearfetch.com/shop/index.php?cPath=125