Tuesday, December 29, 2009

parents' visits with the boys

so as promised, i will now give you all a little update on where things sit with the boys, however, first let me issue a warning...it is most likely that along with this post, there will be quite a bit of whining/complaining. sorry in advanced for this, but sometimes a girl's got to vent!


well, as i've said before, the boys' case plan is set for them to be reunified with their parents, and nothing has changed with that. the first week of december, they began weekly supervised visits for an hour at a visitation center with their mom. also, two weeks ago, P began visits with his dad at the center for an hour on a different day. it's a lot of running around to do, but so far we are managing. i think once ryan begins traveling a lot more for work, we're going to feel the burden of all the back and forth a little more, which will kinda stink!


so, the visits have been alright. we have been less than impressed with the visitation center's staff though. on the boys' first visit, i asked the visit facilitator to make sure that P was fed both containers of his food around a certain time. when ryan brought the boys home that night, i noticed P was pretty fussy so i checked his bag. low and behold, he had not been fed as requested. more than frustrated, ryan called the visitation center to see what had happened. we unfortunately live about 40 minutes from the center, so since no one made us aware that P had not been fed as requested, he was more an hour and a half past when he was supposed to eat. the visit facilitator told ryan that she mentioned the food to the boys' mom but didn't remind her about it when the time came because she wanted to see if their mom would remember on her own or not. well, obviously she didn't! however, ryan and i were still a little frustrated that the facilitator couldn't have mentioned that to ryan when he picked the boys up so that ryan could have fed him before driving all the way home.


since the first visit, bio mom has only fed P one other time as requested. he also has not ever gotten a diaper change by mom or dad while at a visit at the center. dad has also not succeeded in feeding P. during dad's scheduled visit times, P is supposed to get solids and a bottle but has only gotten half of one or the other, never both. also, since beginning visits at the center, bio dad can no longer bring his mom along for visits so i think he's just generally lost on what to do with P. i decided to stop fixing the bottles before the visit myself so that bio mom and dad can learn to do it on their own, but i don't know if that's going so well. after P's visit with his dad, he came out with a half full bottle of ice cold formula. thankfully ryan noticed and was able to run it under some hot water so P would actually drink it on the ride home.

also, P's dad showed up to his first visit at the center 12 minutes late. now, if i only had an hour with my child once a week, i'm pretty sure i would do everything i could to be there for the full hour, but call me crazy!! however, the last 2 weeks, we have not had any visits at all with P's dad. on the 19th, he decided to not show up to the visit and didn't call either, so the center cancelled his future visits until he could call and explain why he missed. being the savvy internet stalker that i am, i checked P's dad's facebook wall (he doesn't have any privacy settings) and was able to find out that bio dad spent the weekend in another state visiting his new girlfriend. sure would have been nice to know that before ryan and P made the drive to the visitation center! as of yesterday though, we met with the boys'/their parents' worker, and she said that the reason bio dad didn't show up or call was because he was in jail. she said he went into jail that thursday (the 17th) for violating the no contact order with the boys' mom. i kept my mouth shut about the info i saw on facebook for the time being because the worker said she was going to double check the dates his was in jail to be sure. i would love to know if he was in jail, how he had such great access to the internet! i printed the screen on his facebook page, so i have some back-up for future reference. i did get a call today though that bio dad called the vistiation center today, so his visits are back on starting this saturday. we're hoping to get the visit day changed for the future so that our weekends don't have to be interrupted with drama...

the boys' mom did not have a visit with the boys last week either though because the visitation center is closed on Christmas and new year's eve. they said that she was one of the only parent who visits that day that didn't request for her visits to be rescheduled. when i told the boys' worker about that yesterday, she seemed a little annoyed that i didn't suggest to bio mom to ask the center to reschedule the visits for her. i guess i didn't realize that holding her hand through all of this is also my job...

well, that's it for now. that's everything (and more, i'm sure!) about what's going on with the boys' visits with their parents. as i mentioned, we had a visit yesterday with the boys' worker, so there's much more to share but i'll spare you for now! thanks for listening to me vent, but don't worry, there's more where that came from :)



1 comments:

Danielle said...

Girl! I dont know how you do it! You and Ryan are super strong...praying for you both..