Foster Parenting Things Change Fast (The End)

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Well the girl arrive on August 30, back to our home I was very happy to see this day come.  Well she last all of 3 days, because on August 2 she was taken away again.  She had told her school counselor that she wanted to hang herself in the school bathroom.  So if you count Thursday it was 3 days if not it was 2 day and my chin hit the floor that day.

We didn’t have any calls for placements till September 22.  In the meantime we would visit our girl at the hospital every weekend and eventually were able to bring her home for visits.  We weren’t officially her foster parent then, but her DHS worker would put us on her list so that we could continue to nurture our girl.  In the meantime we still had hopes that she would eventually return to us someday.

The new placement that arrive on September 22 was a 7 yr old boy.  We were told the only issues he had were asthma and that he was very thin.   So we agreed to take him in our home, which meant we would have no room for our girl to return. (more on this in a bit) Our boy arrived and I knew we were not told the truth the moment I saw him.  He had special needs but I couldn’t see all the needs he would have just from first impressions.  I knew this would be a challenge that might be more than we could take on but he was here.  I couldn’t send him away that would just be too hasty, so we kept him on a trial visit.  His case worker left some very important issues untold to us.  Her words were he is highly functional.

We kept him and the weeks went on very quickly.  He needed help with everything from getting dressed, bathed, going to the bathroom and more.  The only thing he could do on his own was eat his meals with everything else he needed help.  In the meantime about a month later we got back our girl. On October 13 we got our girl back that was a day after my birthday.  We had our 2 foster kids and our 2 biological kids.    We were doing okay not great but well enough I suppose.  As the weeks went on our boy just became more than we could handle.

We asked to have him moved and in the meantime other things were going on with our girl.  She had gone back to school and got sick from her stomach.  We called the doctor who asked us to put her on a bland diet till she got better.  She came home from school on Oct 25 and slept the rest of the day.  She stay home on Oct 26, still on a bland diet because she was still throwing up a bit.  At around noon she decided without telling me to  walk out of our home.  My son saw her and told me right away that she had walked out.  I was confused why had she walked out.  I got all my kids in the car and went to look for her.  I found her just a few blocks from my home and asked her where are you going?  She said she was hungry and was walking to the grocery store to buy some food.  I tried to talk sense into her about how upset that would make her stomach and she didn’t listen and kept going.

The police finally arrived and helped me talk her into going back home with me.  She was very snippy with the officer and said she was old enough to do what she wanted so she did.  The officer left and  told me to call them back if I needed them and left.  She was still threatening to leave even after the officer left.  She then got agitated and request to be taken to another home because she was said she was old enough to make that decision and so she did.

Her case worker couldn’t move her that evening and she was pretty upset about it, she just didn’t want to do what we thought was best as foster parents for her.  The next day she was moved to another home, that was the end of that journey.  On Fri our boy was also moved to his new home.

We feel very discouraged and for now don’t want to get any more therapeutic foster kids.  I think about it ofter all that happened but my husband doesn’t he just wants to move on.  Now that I have gotten it written down maybe it will be closure for me too.