2 hours in radiology at Willow creek hospital with baby W doing a barium swallow study followed by the remainder of the day spent waiting at the courthouse.... only to find out they held court 2 hours ago with me sitting just outside the room and they forgot to call me in.
They literally forgot about me. Waste.
If anyone else (more important) like casa or dhs attorney or baby's attorney or a caseworker had been there, I know we would not have been overlooked. I missed my one opportunity today to meet a really important person and I'm upset.
I drove home feeling invisible (this is a trigger for me that sends me to a bad place emotionally) and pretty angry with the brokenness of the system. I sacrificed an entire day with my children farmed out all over for nothing.
But then the friend who lovingly picked up my big kids from swim team practice texted me this pic saying she had the best afternoon playing with my kids and spoiling them. Look at my Q working it in the pool! And Corbin never would have lasted the whole hour if I had been there to be his safety net.
And then I came home to my mom rocking and snuggling baby and my dad playing with Sloane. Soren told me about his lunch date and it looks like everyone did just fine today without me.
Fostering is hard, y'all. It's very rewarding, but it's really really crazy super all the superlatives of hardest of hardestness to be so powerless so much of the time. I don't think that frustration or a broken system is reason enough to not do it, and so we carry on here and I will still spend my life recruiting others to this challenging and beautifully messy work.
I'm feeling really bitter about the way my time was taken advantage of today (and like every single week because people can be really ridiculously terrible at doing their jobs) but this baby is worth it. This work is hard but he is just too important. I have no control over the future, but I do have right now, and it appears my little caravan carried on wonderfully today amid the chaos and uncertainty of their day. Thanks to my village, everyone will be just fine. Lots of time was wasted today...and over the entire past year and a half just waiting. Waiting to be approved to foster, waiting for a placement, waiting to come home from nicu, waiting for a casa, a new caseworker, more information, for someone to just do their job, for it to get easier, to hear from the attorney, for appointments, for court approval, for test results, for a visit to end, for a miracle, for court dates, for followup, for answers, and so much more. I truly live in the waiting place from Oh the Places You'll Go, except I have no power to get us out of here. So I guess we will all learn patience. Or maybe my family has learned it and I'm the only one left with a lesson to learn. I do know that even though time was wasted, the work is not a waste. Baby is not a waste. I will fight until I run out of fight to make sure he does not stay invisible forever.
1 comment:
The work is hard. There are days when there are no words. There is so much unknown and the unknown is the scariest of all that is scary. We have been through it so I know what you are going through. There truly is nothing anyone can really say to make is less scary. I DO want you to know it is all worth it. Everything that we went through fighting to build our family, so much stuff and so much brokenness, is worth it. It's worth it to the children you live now, that you will love forever, whether they are in your home or in your heart. My heart broke with each child we fostered and said goodbye too and amazingly it grew back bigger and stronger so we could keep going. This work is not for sissies but it IS for the tenderhearted because it take a tender heart to love with everything you have...come what may. Thank you for doing the work and for loving with your whole self. I love you.
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