I haven’t written in a long time. A SUPER long time. I tried to for a while, but just couldn’t. Oddly, it didn’t have so much to do with my feelings as it did an IRL person reading my blog and using it against me. That shut me down. I took it too personally I guess.
Well a lot had happened since then. Namely a certain 11 month old baby girl who is, I think, currently spit painting my fire place glass as I sit and watch. (don’t worry it’s a completely enclosed model).
Anyway, baby girl came to us nearly three weeks ago out of the foster care system. (After only 4 days notice! Holy cow!) She was tiny, not crawling and timid. She spent 3 days with her face in my neck. It took two weeks to get her in a bath, and 1.5 weeks to get her to allow me to sponge bathe her without her screaming. She never stops eating. She eats like it’s her last meal. She might think it is. I don’t know. Either way, baby girl seems to have no problem bonding, is NOW crawling (just 3 days after the SW said she was going to order physical therapy to work with her and get her going). She loves bath time. She never stops smiling. She is still timid with new people but warms up. She now has elbow dimples and fat rings on her legs, and her skin is a healthy non-sickly white color. She has cheeks. I don’t know if it’s possible but even her hair seems healthier. Basically, she looks like the almost 1 year old she should look like, not like the infant she did look like.
Today is the first hearing to start terminating the bios parental rights. I feel too much empathy for them my husband says, as she was severely neglected the first (nearly) three months of her life and has been in foster care for nearly nine.
I am freaking out. I want to know that today’s hearing has gone in our favor. That her parents, who went from living in squalor to now being homeless, her parents who have not worked a single portion of her case plan, her parents who have been MIA for the last three weeks, will not get a second chance. They have not even tried.
I am living in fear that a family member will show up out of the blue. But then again, where were they the last 9 months that she has been in foster care? As my dad said last night, in any “normal” family the situation would have been handled before baby girl even got removed. In a “normal” family, baby girl would not have sat in foster care for nearly nine of her 11 months.
For me, I can’t see how someone could NOT WANT this child. I can’t see how anyone could harm a hair on her head, or turn a blind eye and let her sit in a foster home for months on end. And maybe it’s because I’m think as myself, that I am terrified.
Maybe if I learned to think like them, I could understand how they don’t care. Thank G-d I don’t think like them. I can’t even imagine.
I know every child SHOULD be with their birth parents. But let’s face it. They’re not competent. And either the grandparents aren’t competent or they don’t care.
I care.
My husband cares.
My son cares.
PLEASE send thoughts, energy and prayers this way if you get a chance. We are in love and we want to dedicate our lives to baby girl.
We don’t want to lose her.
