People often ask us if we are happy when they hear that we have two kids that are new to our family. We are a long way from happiness, but we no longer feel that we are constantly panicking, either.  The crisis that we had in mid-December and the subsequent threat of the placement not lasting seemed to motivate our social worker to get the services that we needed rolling.  It still took over a month to get everything in place.

We actually feel more like we are recovering from a major accident than we do happy.  Although we read so much about parenting and attachment, none of it really absorbed in a way that could ready us for our kids. Not only does much of the normal parenting advice not apply to our situation, both for legal and psychological reasons, but what works and doesn’t is also very individual.

We were completely unprepared for how difficult the two week winter break would be. Many of our friends and childcare options were out of town.  I had planned on being back to work by that time, which wasn’t even close to possible. Instead, both Jeff and I became full-time child care practitioners/social managers/crisis mediators.

Now, T-4 has been in preschool for a few weeks.  Luckily, it is close to our home and it is free for us, since it is covered by Medical.  The downside is that it is a very short day, since she is out by 1:30, so it has basically just freed me up enough to squeeze in a shower and 1 client per day.  On the other hand, it is breathing room. And while we are anticipating her move to a program with a longer day and more challenges, we are also dreading the added expense.

We now have T-6 in an after school program 3 days per week and on breaks and some holidays.  That seems to be helping a lot. There is just a lot less time for fighting at home and more time where her energy is spent on focused activities and diffused among a variety of people.

We have finally started PCIT (Parent Child Interaction Therapy) with T-6 and we expect to be there every week until she can get in and out of the car without screaming at the top of her lungs.  Who knows maybe she will stop hissing at me with her face 2 inches from mine…  Maybe she will stop disagreeing with most of what I say, even if she knows nothing about it. (Okay, but to be truthful, this is already about 75% better than it was during her first month with us.)

We still only carefully leave one parent alone with both kids. It is just asking for problems to do so.  Instead, we make a lot of use of “divide and conquer”, where we actually take the girls out for separate activities for the day or for simple things like getting dressed in the morning, we bring them to different parts of the house.

A huge stress relief has been finding out that T-6 will be repeating her grade.  Every night, homework was a struggle and ultimately a fight. It was adding a huge amount of stress to our family.  Our social worker (who is usually very insightful and full of very good advice) suggested that T-6 is just not capable of doing homework and that an appropriate goal for her is to be living with the same family in 1 year, which will be much more important for her in the long-term than repeating a grade.  T-6 asked me why we aren’t doing her homework anymore and I responded that right now, it is more important for her to learn to be happy than to learn what they are teaching her in school. 

It also takes the pressure of when she has to miss school, which is at least monthly for visits with her birth parents.  Since the offices are not open on weekends or holidays and the visits are legally mandated, we have no choice but to take her out of school.

The girls’ social worker has applied for a .26 hearing, which is the court hearing to terminate the rights of the birth parents that would free them for adoption. We expect the judge to approve the termination, since the parents have been denied any services to assist in reunifying with the girls.  But we also expect the birth parents to appeal the decision and are prepared for lengthy delays in the process.

Initially, it was our attachment ot T-4 that made us feel sure that we wanted to keep moving forward. She has really taught me the joys of being a mom and we couldn’t imagine sending her back into the system.  Now, T-6 is actually nice to us sometimes, the girls are getting a long better, and we are able to recognize our successes see some change, we are more confident about her, as well.  So, maybe the more appropriate question is not, “Are we happy?”, but “Have we found our family?” and now, Jeff and I can both answer resoundingly, “YES!”