The Realities of Being A Fosterparent.

Ok first of all I love being a foster parent. I love having a housefull of children. The system stinks and I know that...believe me... I KNOW that. Sometimes they take children who should not be taken. Sometimes they leave children when they should be taken. Sometimes they give parents too many chances. Sometimes they dont give parents enough chances. The children who have come into our home have come because or abuse, neglect, unsafe home conditions, and one because mom would not get rid of the boyfriend. I have had one little guy in my care for 1.5 years. He has been in care for two years. He came in at 6 months old. Do the math and you know Im his mommy, hubby is his daddy. End of story. We are supposed to start termination of parental rights with him next week. It could take one day for the judge to sign the order and then a 30 day appeal process. It could take one month to years! His mom has done nothing to try to get him back this year. It should not take this long. I have three little girls that we will soon be adopting.They have been in care for 3 years. Their mother took off about a year ago and never came back. It still took 6 months to get her rights terminated. I had two little girls with me for awhile. Sweet as could be. When they came into care with thier two month old baby brother they were severly neglected. When CPS picked the children up there was no food in the house and the baby had tea in his bottle. The children were in our care for one month, the baby was at another foster home we did not have room. They were sent to live with grandparents even though CPS said that the grandparents were at the house and knew the state the children lived in and did not recommended the relative placement. Six months later the baby now 9 months old had not gained any weight and the girls were also showing failure to thrive. They are back in the system and probably going up for adoption. Oh, how I long for a fifteen passanger van. Thats the only thing stopping me from making the call. They will probably be seperated for adoption. Not many people will take three children. All this transpired over a year. I had a little boy for awhile who was one of four. His older brother was five and could not talk, ate everything in sight, and could not sleep in a bed. He had to sleep on the floor. His older sister was three. She'd been run over by a truck at 18 months of age and had none of the surgeries she needed that could have saved her sight, allowed her to have a normal mouth full of teethe, or straightened bones that would help her grow. CPS put all of the children back with the mother ( they were taken from her ex husband) even though she left them in a dangerous enviroment and obviously medically neglected her daughter. They left the three year old in care in a medical foster home so she could continue medical treatments.
"How do you do it?" Im always asked this question. I do it because... well because somebody has to. I do it with a sense of humor. Do any of the stories above make you laugh? NOPE. But there are things in the day to day life of dealing with the system that you learn to laugh at. Its not funny when a child hordes food, but you laugh when you see the imaginative places they have hidden it. Its not funny when the biological mother of a child complains to you about the baby snatchers coming to her house and how she did nothing wrong even though the child came into your home covered in bruises or other emotional scars that you cant just kiss away, but you have to laugh the way she is whining to you. She obviously thinks you are going to believe she is the victim! Is it funny when a bio misses her third court appearence because she is "sick". No, but you learn to laugh when the General Magistrate looks around the room and says, "Well thats convienient. Make sure we send her a get well card!" So you learn to laugh. Unfortunatly, you learn to make some new friends. Other foster parents who will laugh with you because otherwise people are going to think you are strange. :) We laugh, we pray and we hope. Thats our secret.
I have done a lot of posts on being a foster parent. I want other people to be foster parents. Especially Christians. I want people to love these children unconditionally. I dont want to think I have to save them all. I want to think that there are others out there like me who just want to win the lottery so they can buy a couple of busses and a big house with a lot of land. I decided to give you guys reality here.
I wanted you to know that sometimes they will call you at 10:30pm to take a child for a day or two, leave him with you for a month, and then one day out of the blue call and say you have half an hour to get him ready because he is going home. Your husband and your children in school wont even be able to tell him goodbye. You wont be able to understand why, despite the horror stories you have heard from his worker, his Guardian Ad Litem, and his assesment worker, he is going back to the hell he came from.
I want you to know that sometimes they will come and take the sweetest little blond curly headed girl home only to put her back in care six months later with a haunted look in her eyes, that was not there when she left your house.
I want you to know that you will have some workers who care more about getting their papers signed than about listening to your concerns or answering questions about the children.
I want you to know that it is worth every hassle you go through. Every scream of fustration that leaves your mouth. Every tear you cry! There is nothing in life quiet as fufilling as to know that you could be the love and support and encouragement that a child might never have had. That you can be a child's safe harbor even if only for a little while. To teach a child the Jesus loves him and will never leave him is a gift in and of itself. To teach that to a child that will find himself alone and hurting again and again..is a miracle.
Thank you God for giving me this privalege!

Fosterparents.com is the best place for resources on how you can become a foster parent that I have found. I will add some more foster parent links after I go through my files to see what I have.