Monday, June 15, 2009

court day


at this moment, my sister and brother-in-law are in court learning the fate of their custody situation with baby sam. it's been awhile since i've blogged about this, mostly because it's hard to do without making myself turn into a blubbering baby, but i'll try to give you the whole run down:

sam was born August 15, 2008 to my brother-in-law (jason)'s 21 year old cousin. sam's the 2nd child of his bio-mom and a forty something year old man. they've both had their fair share of run-ins with the law, drugs, alcohol, etc. yet still managed to produce two beautiful little boys, for which i am thankful. a few weeks before the bio-mom gave birth to sam, she dropped his old brother, sean, who was a little over a year at the time, off at my brother-in-law's sister's house, (have i lost you yet?) and didn't show back up to get him. sean was neglected to say the least, but jason's sister was more than happy to give him a stable home for the time being. the bio-mom didn't resurface again until she gave birth to sam. upon his delivery, she contacted an adoption agency about "purchasing" sam from her for an adoptive family. needless to say, when the bio-mom called my sister and jason about getting involved, they gladly obliged. at first, they just wanted to be there to provide support and encouragement to the bio-mom, who had completely isolated herself from all her family and friends. however, a day or so after sam was born, the bio-mom decided that she wanted them to adopt him. she was released from the hospital while sam fought withdrawal in the NICU for 5 days. she made sporadic visits back to the hospital and claimed she was ready for my sister and jason to adopt him, until CPS got involved. (now, i want to be clear here- i am glad CPS did get involved. they definitely should have and if they hadn't, someone at the hospital was not doing their job. however, this does seem to be where the breakdown happened, and that makes me sad and mad at our crazy system.) so, CPS decided to award temporary custody of sam to my sister and jason, and temporary custody of sean to jason's sister. the bio-mom disappeared for awhile again and didn't care to check up on the boys for several weeks. it was not until a social worker got involved and a case plan was set that the bio-mom seemed the least bit interested in her kids' welfare or being a mother again.

however, after months of dealing with her excuses and half-hearted attempts to work her case plan, it seems the state is thinking about awarding her custody of the boys again. can i say, that this thought makes me crazy!?!?! i mean, i have been through the fost/adopt classes. i read social worker's and other foster parents' blogs, books, websites, etc. i'm no dummy when it comes to the system but when it hits this close to home, it really hurts! while i know the goal of foster care is always to reunify the biological family, i still do not understand how that is always in the best interest of the child -especially when there is a child involved that knows no one but the family that has been caring for them since birth. my heart is breaking thinking about sam being returned. my sister has 2 biological daughters who are going to also have to weather this storm with us, and that saddens me so much.
today, they will learn what the next step will be. their guardian ad litem has already told them to expect to send him to his bio-mom sometime in august. while i'm seriously praying for God's intervention, at this point, i'm also praying for peace no matter what the circumstance. will you please join me in praying for this? i am beginning to get a taste of how much this loss will hurt, but it's nothing compared to what my sister, jason and the girls will experience. please pray!

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