Asking for Help

I have never been good at asking others to help me do things that I think are my own responsibility. I've always been independent and self-sufficient; what I think of as "my responsibility" also includes a lot of things that I'm probably not supposed to think I can always handle on my own. And once we had three kids (more than the "norm" in my area), I had a bit of an attitude about covering their needs without asking others for help; I never wanted to be the family that other parents looked at and thought "why did they have so many kids when they can't handle it?" (By the way, no one ever said anything like that to me about myself or any other family; no one ever even implied it. This was all my own internal judgement twisting myself up in knots.)

When we started fostering, I really had to work on this. And I did. And I got a lot better. It helped that asking people to help me care for foster children felt a little less like I was failing; it was easier to see it as a way for those other people to do some of the work of caring for children in need. I managed to develop more of a "it can't hurt to ask" attitude about calling or emailing friends to see if they could babysit or transport or pick up some item or whatever the need was. But I still tend to only ask when it's for the foster kids or, at a stretch, when it's for one of the Originals and I can't due it because of a foster commitment.

I still have a very hard time asking for help when I'm the one who needs something. I have a doctor's appointment this week. It's nothing major or terrifying, but the doctor told me I would need to have some sedation at the appointment and could not drive myself home. The office also told me it would have to be done on a specific day of the week (because that is the only day that the team that does the sedation is in that office). Of course, that day is one when Mr D absolutely, positively cannot miss work. So I need another ride to the doctor's office and home.

Mr D and I had a long conversation about how to do this. I said I didn't want to ask my mother to drive over from a different state for a one hour appointment. He hesitantly offered to ask his mother. (I'm better at accepting this sort of help from family members.) The problem with asking his mother is that she is a retired nurse who worries. So, she will know all the possible worst-case scenarios about the procedure and the medication and she will stress over them. It is quite likely she would insist on staying at the house with me afterwards until Mr D got home from work, which would be excessive and not relaxing; however, she would be offended it I refused. Finally, I agreed to ask a friend. We came up with two or three for me to try, agreeing that if none of them could do it, I would call my mother-in-law.

As often happens when I hesitate to ask something of someone, the result was gratifyingly positive. The first friend I spoke with was enthusiastically willing to drive half an hour to pick me up, drive another half an hour to the doctor's office, wait about an hour, then drive me half an hour home. This was in lieu of the lunch out we had been trying to plan for a few weeks. When I texted Mr D that it was all settled, he responded, "See? You do have friends."

The moral, of course, is one I have seen many times but still haven't quite managed to internalize. There is no shame in asking for help. People want to help, but they can't fill needs they don't know you have.

Goodbye, N!

I had been packing all day, because I didn't really think there was any doubt he was leaving.

So, when I got the call, it didn't take long to put the last few things in the boxes and bags and start loading the car.

I drove him home, unloaded his things and gave him to his mother.

She looked straight at me -- which she rarely does -- and said, in a clearer and louder voice than I have ever heard from her, "Thank you."

I bawled the whole way home.

I know N is where he belongs.

I trust that God watched over that day -- the day he went home -- with a smile.


I believe his time with us has served its purpose.

(Mr. D put it well when he said that what we did for N was prevent this time of his life being a period in which he did not feel loved. He will not remember any of this and that is good. He will not remember the hospital stays and the needles and the staples and the IVs. He will have the scars and whatever stories his family tells him about them. What we hope he will also carry with him is the emotional strength that comes from the simple fact of having been loved through all of it.)

But right now? Oh, right now, I am struggling. Everything rational in me says "this is right, this is how it should be, this is good." But rationality is not the order of the day at the moment. Because this was the case. This was the one where I loved that child as deeply as the ones I birthed. This is the one where I never reached the point where the hard was outweighing the good -- even for a moment or a day. This is the one where it was hard to let him go.

Or maybe it was just the first one of those.

N's Court Date

When the CASA arrived at court, she learned that DFCS was planning to ask the judge to continue the case for another month.

That was news to me. When I had met with the new caseworker, she didn't tell me much. (She told me she'd just come back from medical leave and been assigned a staggering number of cases. I want to say she said 80, but that seems ridiculous. Surely I'm misremembering that number? Maybe she said 40?)

I told her a lot. The history of the case, the care I have witnessed the family give, the lack of evidence that I have heard that there was any abuse here, the concerns raised by the community panel about the detective in charge of the criminal investigation (whose report fairly oozes racism), the general consensus at the last panel that it was time to reunify this family, the steps that we have taken to restore his bond with them so that he can go home without a transition period.

I thought we were all on the same page. That's why I didn't go to court. (That and the logistics of having a one-year old at the courthouse when court is "everybody show up at 9:30am and wait." They didn't get called into the courtroom until nearly 1pm.)

I wondered why the CASA called me that morning to ask about his last visit with his parents and whether I had any concerns about him going home that day. I thought she was just being thorough. I wondered why she called me later that day to ask me for the name and number of the parent aide.

It wasn't until it was all over that I learned that she was fighting DFCS right up until the case was called to convince them not to drag this out any further.

CASA won, but just barely. She told me she wasn't sure she'd changed their minds until about 5 minutes before the case was called.

Surgery follow up

We had the other surgery. This time, we left a tight bandage in place for a week, to try to make sure the swelling didn't come right back.

It didn't work.

So, less than a week before court, we were squeezing in yet another surgery. The bandage is staying on for a week again.

If court goes as I expect, he will go home with the wrap still on.

Which means I will probably never know if it actually worked this time.

Trying not to think about that too much.

Another surgery, another caseworker

Well, that "last" surgery didn't turn out to be the last one after all.

There was some swelling that kept getting bigger, so I called the surgeon's office. They had me bring him in to "take a look." I could tell from the look on their faces when they saw him that they had thought I was going to be a parent over-reacting to normal swelling....which I was not. We had another surgery scheduled immediately to fix the shunt that was supposed to be draining all that fluid. Praying this one really truly is the "last one."

In the midst of that -- quickly scheduling a surgery -- the caseworker informed me that she was moving to a different role and would no longer be on the case. Less than a month before court. Lovely. At least she could tell me who the new caseworker was.

Even more lovely was the email I received shortly after from my agency caseworker telling me that the new caseworker has a horrible reputation for being unresponsive. This should be fun.

We go back to court again in about a week. At this point, I'm just hoping that the new not-so-good caseworker doesn't mess things up for N to go home!

Nothing to See Here

I haven't been posting as much about N as I did about other placements.

Truthfully, there's just not much to say. He's a sweet, cuddly one year old with no major behavior issues or delays. He's not old enough to say or do things that are likely to be "cute" when retold to others. I don't need the release of venting on here about frustrating behaviors. His parents are kind, hard working people who are doing their best to get their baby back. There's no drama coming from them or because of them. The case is dragging, but the CASA is doing her best to keep things moving. I'm used to cases dragging by now and am just glad that I'm not the one having to jump and down to make progress.

I did just spend nearly a week in the hospital with him as he had surgery. Hopefully, this will be the last one to repair the damage done from his injury, although he will need regular followups for the rest of his life. The hospital experience was exhausting, but as good as any such experience can be. His surgery was done at a pediatric hospital that does an excellent job of making things as easy as possible for family members and patients. His parents came to visit him daily and stayed for hours -- and I could slip away while they were there. He didn't like that I left him, but he got over it quickly and it made it possible for me to cope with the nights and the rest of the day when they couldn't be there. Nurses and social workers and the hospital chaplain all came by to check on him and me regularly (the chaplain making a point to tell me to get a break every now and then, including a little mini-lecture on the importance of self-care). Friends and staff members from our church came by to visit and offered to bring me anything I wanted or needed.

I'm expecting him to be gone in about a month. That month should include gradually increasing time spent with his family instead of here.

I'm enjoying not having much to say that is blog-fodder, but it feels a little bit like I've been neglecting this lately. I probably shouldn't get too hung up on that, though; who knows who comes in next!