Not Boding Well

Remember when I said Susan's IEP transition to high school meeting went well? (Bullet 5) Well...

At that meeting, we all agreed to make a specific change in one class that she's taking next year. (So, think of it as taking World History in 9th grade instead of US History.) There were good, long-term thinking reasons for the change and everyone in the meeting agreed to it, even though it puts her in a slightly harder academic schedule. We also agreed to remove a support class they'd inserted (without asking us. And her current teacher of that subject stated that a support class was not necessary) and talked about the elective options to replace that class in her schedule.

Last week, school got out for the summer. I happened to meet with one of the high school counselors about something else to do with Susan's schedule for next year and she read off the entire course list to me. The support class is gone and has been replaced with Susan's third choice elective (because the first two were already full by the time we got her out of the support class we never asked for or needed. Grr.). But the "history" change hasn't been made. I expressed surprise. I was told that the counselor couldn't change the schedule of a student on an IEP and I would need to follow up with the IEP caseholder (a rule that I'm sure is in place to prevent IEP caseholders being left out of the loop). Of course, we don't have a high school IEP caseholder yet and the counselor said I should contact the person who represented the high school in that transition meeting.

So, I did. He's not responding. I've also copied her eighth grade caseholder who is WONDERFUL, and she has forwarded that on to some others who she says can "hopefully get this corrected before school starts." I'm not OK with "hopefully...before school starts." I want it done before she gets her official schedule the week before school starts so she can walk her schedule and figure out how to get to each class. (We even talked in the IEP meeting about how she should do that --familiarize herself with her route and figure out the best times to take locker breaks. We can't do that if her schedule isn't right.) Today is the last day of post-planning, although the person I'm trying to reach is supposed to be working all summer as well. I tried calling today to find out when I might be able to catch him in the office. I got told that email is really the best way to reach him and he was already gone for the day.

This is not a good start to high school scheduling issues.

Radio Silence

M's biological mother has not responded to any attempts at contact from the caseworker.

The Facebook page I've been stalking since M's case started has had no new updates for months and it has now apparently had its privacy settings adjusted, so I can't see anything. I can find other older pages, but no newer ones.

Other online searches are turning up nothing.

The person who told me about the pregnancy told me that Kayla is "keeping a low profile." I assume that means that she hasn't been able to find out more either.

I'm sure she's hiding from DFCS, knowing they will be "monitoring" her during her pregnancy.

I'm worried that it will also mean that she's minimizing her prenatal care, possibly putting the baby at risk. With M, she may have tried having the baby in neighboring state to avoid DFCS knowing about it. (That didn't work.) I'm scared that this time she'll try having the baby at home. If she'd done that with M, they most likely would have both died.

I've tried every avenue I can think of to reach out to her without crossing the boundary lines we set as a family.

There's nothing I can do. I pray for her daily: for her safety, for her mental health, that she will find the strength and discernment she needs to make good choices for herself and her child. I'm trying desperately to leave this at the foot of the cross and let God take over from here, but this is a hard thing to let go.

As best I can tell, one of several things could happen now. Option 1: We will never hear anything at all. I will have to assume in that case that she miscarried or the baby was stillborn. That will be the only conclusion that will allow me to sleep at night, because the alternatives are that she had the baby and either successfully hid him/her from DFCS (what kind of medical care can a newborn hidden from the state be getting?) or that DFCS removed the child but didn't even let our agency know to potentially place with us. Option 2: We will get a phone call in a few months telling us the baby was born and asking if we are still interested in being a placement either immediately or "just in case" something shows up during a protective order.

I supposed there's a 3rd option where we get some information about a due date or her health at some point along the way, but I'm thinking those two are the most likely. It's really hard for me to set this aside and tell myself that "someday, if we're needed, I'll get a call...."

The Choices

So, the biggest hurdle for us potentially taking in another baby is the sleeping arrangements.

We've got, realistically, 3 options that seem possible. (We've ruled out some options; No to construction to add another bedroom -- Even if we leave aside the financial question, that would probably cause our house to be difficult to sell down the road. No to placing the infant in my (very large) master bedroom closet -- caseworker says the "room" has to have 2 exits, usually a door and a window. No to moving.)

Option 1: Put Peter and Edmund back into the same bedroom.

Pros: 

1. They've shared before, beginning when they were 6 and 10. 
2. They are both permanent family members, so the state cares less about their sleeping arrangements than it will about the baby's.

Cons: 

1. When they started sharing before, they were both in elementary school. They are now 10 and 15, 5th and 9th grade.
2. Their daily schedules are wildly different. Peter is in extracurricular sports activities and often up working on homework or just relaxing in his room until 10pm; Edmund's bedtime is 8pm. Next school year, Edmund will start school later, so could stay up later, but will then also not need to get up in the morning until after Peter has left for the day.
3. Lately, they have been sniping at each other a lot. Nothing especially nasty or worrisome, just typical brothers-who-can't-help-point-out-each-other's-mistakes.

Option 2: Put the baby in M's room.

Pros:

1. Umm. It means the boys don't have to share a room?

Cons:

1. M is a light sleeper. She sleeps well through the night and sleeps through noise outside her room, but if you so much as open her bedroom door, she wakes up. There's no way she'd sleep through a baby needing night-time feedings.
2. When M is awake, she is noisy. She talks and babbles and screeches. She will be perpetually waking the baby as soon as she herself is awake.
3. M is too little to understand that she might need to be quiet if the baby is asleep.
4. If the baby is a boy, we are only allowed to do this until M is 3 years old. (Unless we finalize his adoption before then. Given how fast M's case went, that's entirely possible as she will likely be about 18 months when the baby is born.)   
   

Option 3: Put the baby in our room.

Pros: 

1. This causes the least disruption to the rest of the household

Cons:  

1. We're not even sure we're allowed to do this. When M first came, she was in our room in a Pack-n-Play because the respite boys were in the room that was to be hers and one of them was in her crib. The caseworker said it was OK "for now" because of the special circumstances of the respite boys being here for a short term. I don't remember whether it was the "in our room" or the Pack-n-Play part that was a potential problem. (I seem to recall the Pack-n-Play was not considered a "suitable" bed by the state. I'm not certain if that was the only issue or if she was supposed to have her own room, too.)
2. If we are allowed to do this, I'm sure there is an age limit after which the baby has to move out of our room.
3. Mr D is a pretty light sleeper. The Pack-n-Play tends to be a little noisy. M was also a noisy sleeper -- making little sighing and grunting noises in her sleep a lot. If this baby is similar, Mr D will not sleep well. And when Mr D doesn't sleep well, he is cranky. 
4. How to put this delicately? I'm not comfortable being intimate with my husband with someone else in the room, even a newborn that's unlikely to notice or care what we're doing. Hence, I'm a little concerned about our marital relationship with this option.

I suspect we'll end up with some sort of hybrid, like:

Option A: We set up rooms as though the baby is sleeping in M's room, but actually s/he usually sleeps in a Pack-n-Play in the office. 

Pros:

1. Nobody is really sharing a bedroom
2. Everyone has as much of a chance at normal sleep as is possible with a newborn in the house.

Cons:

1. We're lying to CPS. 
2. The office contains computer equipment used by Mr D for work and by the children for school. This equipment would be off-limits when the baby is asleep?
3. The office also contains our answering machine, which I'm not sure can be relocated.

Option B: We start out with the baby sleeping in our room, but move him/her to M's room when s/he begins sleeping through the night.

Pros:

1. We're not lying to CPS
2. Having the baby in our room has an approximate end-date

Cons:

1. Mr D still won't sleep well for however many months it takes for the baby to sleep through the night.
2. M will be older -- probably 2 -- when she's expected to begin sharing "her" room. (Is that a Pro or a Con? Not sure.)

Option C: The baby sleeps in our room, but we actually sleep on the sofa bed in the living room. (Again, this probably a temporary thing until the baby sleeps through the night or Peter and Edmund get to ages where they can share a room again.)

Pros:

1. Nobody is really sharing a bedroom   
2. We're not really lying to CPS. (Although we would probably make it look as though we were still sleeping in our own bedroom.)
3. Sometimes it might be just Mr D sleeping on the sofa bed, while I do night-time feedings in our bedroom.

Cons:

1. We have less privacy overall sleeping in our living room (it doesn't have doors). 
2. This has to be temporary, but it's harder to say what will be the end-date.

Option D: The baby does actually sleep in my master closet, but we tell CPS that s/he is sleeping in M's room or in our room.

Pros:

1. It really is big enough to be a small room, which is all a baby needs. 
2. No one is really sharing a bedroom, as the closet has its own door. 

Cons:

1. We're lying to CPS again. And this lie is much harder to keep hidden, as the things currently in my closet would have to be moved elsewhere to make room for the baby. And then, when caseworkers come visit, I have a completely empty closet? 
2. Also temporary, also a vague end-date.  

Stalking

I don't know why I'm still doing it.

Whenever I have had foster placements in the home, I'm in the habit of "stalking" them online. I find their Facebook accounts and browse whatever they make public. I Google them regularly to see if their name pops up anywhere -- some of my kids' parents have been in towns where the local online paper posts a "blotter" of recent arrests. I search (less often) for the names of the people I know they are spending time around to see if anything shows up there.

Usually, after the kids are gone, I stop doing this. I guess I'm still doing it because M's not gone. But, by that logic, I will be stalking her parents forever.

I was never able to find much on M's biological father. He's not on Facebook, which is usually the best source. I found the occasional report of his arrests, but they were all in the past and things we knew about through other channels.

M's mother, though? Whew, boy, does that woman need to learn how to lock down her Facebook privacy settings. So, I keep checking. I'll admit to being curious if she would say anything more about M. She posted newborn pics and gushed about her occasionally early in the case, but nothing since the surrender.

I need a name for M's mother. (Birth mother? First mother? Biological mother? I'm still struggling with the terminology.) Let's call her Kayla.

The last time I looked, I read a conversation between her and another woman in which it was pretty clear that M's mother is lying to the people around her about what has happened with her children. The other woman asked about M's oldest half-sister, age 8. I'll call her Neveah. Rights to Neveah were terminated in the summer of 2013 and her adoption (by her foster family) was finalized this past fall. I've had contact with that foster mom -- we tried briefly to arrange a sister-meeting -- and Neveah has some pretty heavy emotional scars from the experiences that brought her into care and from the time she spent waiting to see if her mother could pull it together. (In the end, the sister-meeting didn't happen because Neveah's therapist didn't think she could handle it right now. I told Neveah's adoptive mother that the door is open whenever she's ready; M is too little to care right now.) So, Neveah has not lived with Kayla in over 3 years. When the other woman asked about her, though? Kayla said Neveah goes to an after-school care program and then will go spend the night with "my cousin" while Kayla has "a party at my house every night."

Kayla also made an off-hand mention of having been in jail, it seemed recently. She lives in a town where at least some arrest records are online, so I searched for her. Remember, she surrendered her rights in July. In August, she was arrested for a DUI. In October, she was arrested for burglary and theft--I think that's when the jail time happened. On Thanksgiving night, she was picked up for a parole violation. She is spiraling downward out of control -- again -- and I can't help wondering where it will end. At the moment, there is no plan for ongoing contact between her and M; Kayla is just too unstable. But I struggle to know how much of this to document in order to share with M when she's older, especially if it turns out that Kayla doesn't ever become someone I'm comfortable introducing into M's life. (In our state, M will have access to any and all available information about family members when she's an adult. At that time, she can choose for herself whether she wants to meet Kayla if she hasn't met her already.) I want to be able to honestly tell M as much as I can understand about why her mother chose to stop fighting for her; I want to be able to give M as much of her biological history as possible; I don't want to be lining up "evidence" to prove that Kayla doesn't "deserve" M or anything like that. I tend to err on the side of  "document everything" probably because that's been my standard foster-care M.O. I guess I can do the editing and cherry-picking when it's time to share. Just wish I had some more good things to add into the mix.

New Caseworker Meeting

After 3-plus years as a foster parent, I like to think my expectations for caseworkers are reasonably low.

Our new one is already disappointing me.

We had a meeting scheduled with her (and our agency caseworker) for 3 pm. Mr. D came home early from work, but had to leave again at 4:30 pm. This meeting was scheduled by the agency caseworker ("Anna") -- I did not even have the new caseworker's contact information at this point, although the Anna had given her mine.

Seconds after she walked in the door (a few minutes after 3pm), Anna got a call from the new caseworker ("Meg"). Meg was so sorry, but she was going to be late. She got stuck in a meeting, was just now leaving the office (which is about 30-45 minutes from my house). Anna had to leave by 4pm, told her that and said she hoped Meg would be there soon enough for them to at least meet.

Had a nice, hour-plus visit with Anna, who we already know quite well. After delaying her departure as long as possible, Anna finally completed her part of the home visit and left. No Meg. No follow-up call about the fact that she was now over an hour late.

4:30. Mr D had to leave. Still no Meg.

She finally showed up about 4:45pm. NEARLY 2 HOURS LATE. She did apologize, but the apology included the statement "I'm often late, but not usually this late." And the kicker to the tardiness? She then told me that she was working in her office and someone came by to ask her if she was going to use the rental car out front and she realized it was 3pm, the time she was supposed to be at my house. There WAS NO MEETING. She just lost track of time. Which, fine, it happens. But, then she lied to Anna about why she was late. Followed by telling me a different story? Ugh.

She had not yet met with the parents and did not know how things were going on their case plan. She "hopes" to meet them before court. Given that she's "often late" and feels OK about lying about why, I will not be at all shocked if she doesn't meet them before court. I'm hoping old CW is still going to be there.

When I tried to ask about the TPR plan and timeline that Old CW had talked about, she looked at me like I was insane. At one point she said, "Well, that may be what Old CW thinks, but we don't really do it that way." Oh. So, the supposed supervisor who handed you this case is just flat out wrong about how it's going to go? What kind of nasty politics are going on in that office?

I got a lot of responses that sounded like her rote replies to parents desperate to adopt. She told me to "just wait it out" and "give them time to hang themselves." Ugh, again.

The "staffing" was the transition from Old CW to Meg, but apparently none of this quick TPR plan was communicated. (Or if it was, it's being ignored.)

She also appeared not to understand why I didn't think M should be in the courtroom or know anything about the error in the case plan goal. (In fact, she thought the reunification case plan goal was correct, but said we could "talk about that at court.")

We'll see, but I am not optimistic that this woman is actually going to pay any attention to what anyone else thinks.

Foster Care Sucks

We are very close to S's return to her mother. I believe that is the right conclusion to this case and I support it wholeheartedly. Well, mostly wholeheartedly.

The transition "plan" is fuzzy. She is currently spending a few nights a week with her mother -- her father is still on supervised visitation. That's not the problem -- the parents aren't "together." The problem is that there is no set date planned for the actual final return. It's just "we'll do this for a while and then submit a petition to reunify early next month."

That doesn't work well for a 4 year old.

I've asked for a target date.

I've explained that it really helps S when we can mark big days on the calendar, so she can watch them get closer as we mark off days at bedtime. I've even explained that she does OK when the date changes a little bit, but I really need a date to work with. (As in, we could manage it if we'd told her it would be August 12th and found out on the 8th that it would actually be the 14th. Or the 10th.)

I still don't have a date. I have a vague "before school starts."

This isn't a transition. Not for the child, at least. At this rate, from her perspective, we will go from "you're spending a couple of nights a week at Mommy's" to "this time you don't ever come back" with no notice.

I am beginning to talk about "soon" to her.

Last week, she melted down and told me that Mommy's house is not "safe." She told me a story of seeing a man living there hitting Mommy. I nearly crashed the car, thinking I'd been advocating all this time for her to return to a dangerous living environment.

She is, however, 4. And I know that her sense of elapsed time is not very strong. So, it was hard to tell whether this had happened during a recent visit or some time in the past. Of course, I documented it by sending a description of the conversation off to the caseworker. About a day later, the caseworker called me to let me know she had looked into it -- S had a name for the man, which I'm sure helped -- and the man in question is incarcerated, has been since before S came into care, and will be for years to come. Big sigh of relief. She may be remembering past trauma that happened in that house, but at least we really aren't sending her back into an unsafe place.

Today, she melted down again. She told me that the only things that are ever on Mommy's TV are scary and that she doesn't want to go back there. She wants to stay here.

I don't know how to help her with that. I can't. I held her and rocked her and told her I was sorry. I told her we loved her and we were glad she liked it here, but that Mommy loves her too. I told her it's OK to tell a grown-up something is too scary for her to watch and then to leave the room so she doesn't have to see it.

The reality is that it's been nearly a year -- a quarter of her life. Our house is home to her now. We are the stable, loving family that she thinks of as "hers" and Mommy is someone she sees and plays with on a regular basis.

I think we've successfully taught her that WE will keep her safe and cared for. That OUR boundaries are firm and reliable. But she is struggling -- oh, so much -- to believe any of that is true in the home to which she is returning. And I can't promise that it is. I believe her mother loves her enormously. I believe she will go to the ends of the earth to TRY to care for her. But I am not under any illusion that the structure and routine that we have built that helps S thrive will be continued. I doubt that there will be monitoring of television and radio content to ensure that it is appropriate for little ears and eyes. (This is a parent that has claimed more than once that the child's favorite movie is Coraline. This same child who was too scared to watch all of The Little Mermaid at my house.)

None of that is a reason not to reunify. It just sucks.

Stealth Evangelism

Disclaimer: I'm a Christian foster parent. If you don't want to read about my struggles with some aspects of my faith, skip this one. If you do read and feel compelled to comment, please be kind. :)

I've always had a difficult time with evangelism in the sense of converting others to Christianity. I know the scripture verses -- "Go and make all disciples", "No one may enter the kingdom of God, except through (Jesus)" -- but when it comes to actually approaching someone who is not a believer and attempting to convince them to change their minds about that? Really not comfortable with doing anything along those lines.

Part of this I blame on the Southern Baptists of my childhood, whose idea of evangelism was to passionately proclaim that those of us who did not attend their church were all doomed to eternal torment. (I wasn't Baptist, but I was raised Christian. I thought the evangelical Christians of my high school were misguided and offensive....especially when I saw how they interacted with friends of mine who were Jewish or Muslim.) Another part if it is simply me shrinking from the logical result of the whole process, since that might require me to attempt to convert several of my own close family members. Family members who have always treated our difference of opinion when it comes to faith with tolerance and respect. Family members who have never attempted to convince me that I am wrong and should agree with them. I struggle to believe that I am called to be the one to shatter that family harmony.

So, I don't evangelize. I rationalize this pretty well and, on a certain level, I believe that my rationalizations have merit. It is not "honoring my father and mother" to treat them with less tolerance and respect than they treat me. I spread the gospel by living what I believe, not by talking about it. I behave in ways that I hope puts a positive light on "what Christians do." I raise my children in the church... and I mean, really, in the church. We are involved in all sorts of small groups and mission projects and fellowship activities and Bible studies. And our children are aware that our motivation for becoming a foster family is rooted in a belief that we are called by God to do so.

I realized recently, however, that foster care has led me into a type of evangelism that would never occur to me otherwise. As a foster parent, I am raising other people's children. And I am raising them in the church as well. (Aside: We foster through a faith-based agency. When counties place children in my home, they know they are getting a Christian family that is actively involved in a church community. This is one of the reasons we chose to foster through this agency -- they just aren't going to send me a child who is actively participating in a different faith, although they will send me children with no faith background at all.) We have always discussed our faith with children in terms of "what we believe" and "at our church, we do this".

S was recently given a children's Bible. She actually already had one, but she loves both of them. She "reads" them over and over. She picks them for bedtime stories almost every night. She has talked about her Bibles to her parents.

When this child came to us, she knew nothing about God or Jesus. As far as we can tell, she had never attended church. Her mother was not opposed to our teaching her about the Christian faith -- when S asked her mother if she went to church, she mumbled something about "needing to get back to that" -- but it was not a part of their lives. 

10 months later, S talks about what she has learned in church. When she sees a cross, she talks about Jesus dying and coming back to life. She knows that Jesus lives in her heart and in the hearts of others. Someone asked her teasingly one day why she was so pretty; she replied calmly that it was just how God made her. She watches VeggieTales and she loves to go to church.

Soon (I hope), I will be sending this 3 year old girl back to her mother. The child that I am sending back is certain that God loves her. She is equally certain that He loves everyone else, too. The child I am sending back is likely to ask her mother about "her church" and to pressure her to find them a church home. (I'm under no illusion that this is going to be the norm. But S is one determined little person.)

It's almost like I'm sending in a little stealth evangelist to convert her mother. That's a form of evangelism I can be comfortable with. Even if does seem a little sneaky.

Reunification isn't Always Pretty

Sigh.

I love L and O's caseworker. I really do. I think she truly has their best interests in mind and I can see that it's frustrating her that there is no "great" choice for where they should go. Mom has a long way to go on her case plan and they've been here nearly a year. CW is getting pressure to go ahead and move them to a relative who could become a permanent placement if Mom doesn't make it. She doesn't want to move them there, because that relative is on Dad's side and she doesn't trust that they will support reunification with Mom. Mom has burned all the bridges with her own side of the family, so there are no placement options there and no hope of ongoing support from them once the kids are returned home.

Dad has been denied as a placement. He's been given a case plan to work, though, and making progress on it could cause the court to reconsider. He won't do it. He keeps telling CW that it's too hard, too expensive, not fair. (He doesn't give her details, though, just that it will cost him $10,000 to take his court-ordered parenting classes. Which are actually offered for free in several places near him. Hmmm.)

She came to our house yesterday and said she was required to ask L two questions and document her answers. I could tell by the way she phrased it that she didn't like it.

Question 1: If you could choose right now to go to Mommy or Daddy, which would you pick?


Question 2: While Mom is finishing up the work she needs to do, would you rather stay here or go to Paternal Aunt? 

What kills me (and also, I think, kills CW) is that it didn't really matter what she said. Regardless of her answer, they are probably going to transition to Paternal Aunt with weekend visits during the last few months of the school year, with an eye to moving them there as soon as school's out for the summer. So....we're asking for her input, but it will be ignored? I know she's only 8, but this seems like a really awful thing to do to her. What if she said she wanted to go to Daddy and stay here until then? It's not going to happen. Neither of those is going to happen. Why are we presenting her with choices that she doesn't actually have?!

L couldn't answer question 1. She wants to be with both of them. I think she knows as well as we do that whichever one she goes to will probably cut off all contact with the other. Way to make your child take sides, folks! Dad has convinced her that he's ready for them and just waiting for "the paperwork", so she wants to go there til Mom is ready. Mom needs her help, though, so she wants to go back there as soon as she can.

I guess we got lucky with question 2. She'd love to go to Paternal Aunt! Paternal Aunt is her best friend! Can she go today? O doesn't have a clue who Paternal Aunt even is, by the way, and I've never heard L mention her name (even when she was going through the nightly litany of all the people she missed during her first month or so here).

CW and I are both still afraid that Paternal Aunt will not maintain the relationship with Mom. She lives even further from Mom than I do (and the visits are an hour from my house), so maintaining contact is going to be very difficult. Why would she put in that kind of effort so that her brother can lose all contact with his kids?

It's all so very, very sad and frustrating. I want to yell at Mom and Dad and Paternal Aunt; I want to tell all of them to grow up and stop using these children as pawns to hurt each other. But I'm not fighting the move because I have no grounds to do so, other than feeling like it's all just going to be awful. It is going to be awful, they're going to lose contact with some bio family, but they aren't going to be in danger. They will be safe and loved by Paternal Aunt and her family, so I can't argue with the move. It's no different than all the kids out of the system whose parents go through a nasty divorce. I just think it sucks.

Not in Love

When we chose to start fostering, my biggest fear was that I would fall in love with every child that came into my home and that it would tear me apart to have to give them back at the end of their time with us. I worried that I would "get too attached" as any foster parent hears so many other people use as an excuse not to do this.

I told myself that the hard ones would be the cases where I didn't believe they were going back to a safe place. I reminded myself that I would have to learn to deal with it if they went somewhere safe, but not ideal. I prayed and crossed my fingers and tried to believe God would not lead me anywhere that I could not go.

Our first placement was so brief. They were here, we were barely beginning to figure them out, and they were gone. It was hard to see them go when we were barely getting to know them, especially when we'd been given to understand that they were likely to be on a fast track to TPR. We cried when they pulled out of the driveway and the kids talked about missing them after they left.

But they were only here a day and it was pretty easy to convince myself that we had given them a really good day. A safe day. A fun day. And that perhaps that was all we were ever meant to give them and hope and pray that the judge made the right call. (A phone call later from the caseworker letting me know of an excellent new support system for the bioparent that was unknown at the time we were told they would be TPR helped me believe that the bioparent really can do it this time.)

With L and O, they've been here a long time. L never lets me (or O) forget that we are not her parents, but she is not defiant. She trusts us as authority figures and allows us to lead her. They are the sort of case that I feared. There is still no talk of TPR, biomom is making slow progress on her case plan, the caseworker is stalling some family homestudies because she's not confident that those family members would support the reunification process with biomom and would prefer not to have to move the kids twice.

But I'm not in love with these two kids. I try. I hug and kiss and smile and tease, just like I do my biochildren. I remind myself when they push my buttons that Edmund can push that same button. But on some level, I know that I just don't feel the same way about these two that I do my original three.

And that scares me. I wonder if I'm not right for fostering because I am, frankly, eager for biomom to finish her caseplan and get her kids back. I try to tell myself that I'm just really, really supporting their reunification because I can tell that she loves these two and that she is trying really hard to do what she needs to do. But, deep down, I'm afraid that I just want them to go away.