Thanks, But No Thanks
Journal Entry from November 11th, 2020
Thank You.
"Thank you for taking good care of him" were the words uttered to me yesterday during visitation with the casualness like the last 14 months of caring for her biological child were equivalent to me babysitting her kid while she ran out to run errands for the day.
...deep breathe....
It's so strange. I use to long for the thank you, the acknowledgment that I was caring for her child and doing a really great job, and now...man... it's borderline insulting and so incredibly unsettling to me. I guess mostly because a few months into caring for little man I really felt like I was doing just that, caring for someone else's child, which is weird guys no matter what the circumstances are but that's basically the essence of foster care. Despite the fact that her child was removed because she couldn't care for him, I secretly deep down still wanted her approval that I was doing a good job caring for him. But now....things are so different. I want to scream at her. I want to tell her with every ounce of my body to relinquish her rights. I want to tell her to let go before it becomes super confusing for him. Now, this sounds like I don't believe in reunification, and I do. I want to make that VERY clear. That I support reunification when appropriate but we are over a year into our case. Mom has not done anything she was supposed to for her case plan, and we are finally moving towards starting the TPR (termination of parental rights) process so why does she show up now? She hasn't shown for visitation in 6 months, why now? I'm sure it had to be hard for her to see him. The little person on the other end of the screen looks and acts nothing like the baby she saw 6 months ago. He has grown so much, both physically, developmentally, and in personality. And she missed all of it, by choice. So I don't need her thank you. I actually want to thank her. My life has been forever changed by this little person in every way possible. Every day is so much richer because he is in it. I get all the baby snuggles and the giggles and the "hi's" and the best baby hugs! We get to love this little person every day with everything we've got and there isn't enough gratitude in the world to express how grateful I am for that.
But after I finished the call yesterday I was not in that headspace. I was somewhere else entirely. There are so many parts of foster care that no one talks about and that no one could possibly prepare you for. Yes, the attachment happens and that's a good thing and the fear of losing them is crimpling if I give myself any time to think about it. Those parts, the big things, I was prepared for. Doesn't make them any easier but I was ready for them. It's all the little parts in between that knock me down in a way I never expected. The smallest thing in this process can fuel a fire in me that I can't put out and shake me to my core. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just the way I process things, or maybe this is how every foster parent feels. Who knows. I have tried from day one to put myself in her shoes. Even before getting my first placement, I thought a lot about that, about the parent losing their child, whether temporarily or permanently. No matter what the circumstances are that weighs on me in such a big way, has since the beginning. But I can't for the life of me imagine why someone wouldn't do everything in their power to get their kid back, do everything they can to see their child, to spend as much time with them as they are allowed, to take full advantage of the resources provided. I literally can't wrap my head around it. So I sit there and I tell her about his first words, and answer her questions about his favorite foods and make sure she gets to see how well he is walking. I ask him to make a few animal noises and he obliges. But then...I'm sitting there playing with little man, while she basically observes, trying my best to make him sit by himself even though he wants to sit with me. He keeps coming over to me because he wants to snuggle, he wants to hug me (our little guy has a serious personal space issue, and it's the best thing on the planet) but I want to respect her. I don't want her to see that. I don't want her to see him snuggle into me. I don't want her to know that he says mamma and dadda. It doesn't seem fair to share those things with her and at the same time, seems totally irrelevant to share them with her. They are our moments, our life with him.
I'm not really sure how to reconcile that in my head so I hugged him a little tighter last night, and I woke up a little more grateful. And I write because it cathartic to me, and hopefully will resonate with at least one other person who feels the way I do. But man that Thank You really shuck me this week in a way I didn't expect.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Are you ready for the gut-punch of this story that makes it just oh so foster care? A week after this visitation our caseworker told us that she would now be attending every one of our virtual visitations with bio mom going for. I found this odd since she hadn't supervised any of our visitations since they had switched to virtual because of covid. Mom has always been fairly pleasant with me so when we switched to virtual I didn't feel the need to have a caseworker present. Well turns out after the call where she thanked us for taking such good care of him, she called the caseworker to complain that he wasn't being appropriately cared for. Yup...that actually happened. Thankfully she hasn't filed an official complaint yet, and hopefully never will but talk about a punch to the gut. Of course, we aren't worried as we know he is in a very safe and loving home but a formal complaint from a bio parent, which happens all the time to foster parents, would mean a ton of paperwork and more visits from case management.