Covid Sucks

I can’t keep writing blog posts without talking about the elephant in the room: Covid-freaking-19. Ugh. 

It’s presented some unique challenges for us as foster parents and just plain as humans. 

For starters, it delayed my becoming an Attorney for the Child (AFC). After I resigned from my position as Of Counsel to my old law firm, they cancelled the AFC training program because of Covid. I thought I had set aside enough savings for us to ride out the transition between regular paychecks from my firm to getting paid after cases are resolved, which is when I get paid as an AFC. (Which sucks by the way. Sometimes months and months of work will go into a case before I can get paid for it.)

Ha! Enough savings, my ass. 

Remember that Seth is in nursing school full time right now so he doesn’t have any income. And then I up and quit my job and became just plain unemployed for 4 months. Whee! God bless my Mother especially, my Father, and even our church friends for helping us financially this past year. I am used to being the one helping people, not the one needing help, and this has been a blow to the ego and also an exercise in gratitude.

I’m finally getting paid a little for some cases but have lots more work in the books that I can’t get paid for yet. Seth has a semester to go before he becomes a nurse. Those stimulus checks are lifesavers for us, as was the $600 per week unemployment benefit that went on for several of my months of unemployment.

And before you ask “don’t you get paid for being a foster parent?” let me forestall the question. Yes, we do. It’s an absolute pittance for regular rate kids, better for medical kids like Tiny who is paid at a “special” rate. But we’re paying for daycare and food and pull-ups and clothing and lots of my lost work hours out of what we are paid for her, and we are losing money, not making money. Which honestly is probably how it should be. I don’t want people becoming foster parents for the money.

Anyway. Enough about our broke-ness. Back to Covid. 

Unfortunately, being a foster parent means exposure to various people who could pass along the virus. We have had two Covid scares because Tiny’s service providers had contracted Covid. She has had 4 to 5 service providers come each week for things like speech therapy, a nurse, play therapy, and physical therapy. And Covid or no, those services have to happen.

Her nurse (who weighs her biweekly, and used to come weekly) contracted it first. No one told us until she came back to work and informed us herself that she had had Covid. Her employer and the county department of health both failed to notify us that we were supposed to be quarantined. No wonder the virus is spreading like wildfire. Then Tiny’s speech therapist contracted it and notified us herself that she had tested positive so that we could quarantine for 14 days. That time the county informed us we were supposed to be quarantined 7 days into our quarantine period. Sigh. 

Now, thankfully, Tiny’s service providers are starting to get the Covid vaccine, so that risk will be reduced. But even with our wearing masks I’ve been cringing each time I let a service provider come into my home. 

The other exposure we have had because of foster care is through kids coming into care. Twice during the pandemic we have accepted an emergency foster care placement from CPS late at night. Both times we were only able to take the kids for short term placements because we couldn’t afford daycare costs for any other kids. But both times we answered the phone when CPS called and said yes to a temporary placement so some little people would have a safe, warm, loving place to land for a few days until a more permanent arrangement could be made for them. 

The first time it was two little girls ages 18 months and three, and we had them for three days. The second time it was a little guy age 21 months, and we had him for a week. The girls stayed healthy while they were with us, but the little guy came down with a sudden fever of 104 and scared the pants off us. We had to take him for an emergency Covid test, which thank heavens turned out to be negative. But we went through 24 hours of anxiety thinking we’d all been exposed.

Seth is healthy as an ox, knock on wood, and has no pre-existing conditions. Plus, since he’s a nursing student and on the floors of the hospital regularly, he is getting the Covid vaccine and has already had his first shot. Tiny and I on the other hand, are vulnerable to Covid. I have the pre-existing condition of being obese, and Tiny has heart problems. We can’t afford to have the virus in the house, but on the other hand, the little kids who were left out in the cold had to have somewhere safe to go those nights. Someone had to take the Covid risk, and twice it was us. It may be us again.

Visits, too, present an opportunity for Covid to be spread. Tiny has visits with her mother every other Friday, and for one of those visits one of Tiny’s siblings (who still live with Mom) was home under quarantine because of exposure through school, but Mom wasn’t quarantined and was able to come to the visit. It made me nervous to send Tiny for the visit, but Tiny misses her mother so damn much and we already missed a visit because we were under quarantine and I didn’t have the heart to cancel it. I’m not even sure I could’ve canceled it if I wanted to.

Some of my friends have basically been able to lock themselves at home, get groceries through Instacart, and have no one come to their home so as to stay safe from Covid. I’d have loved to have been able to do that for Tiny’s sake – that weak heart scares me – but it’s just not been an option for us. I have to work, which means Tiny has to go to daycare (trust me I’ve tried the alternative and it doesn’t work). And the service providers have to come. And Seth has to be in the hospital for nursing school. And my heart would have broken if I’d said no to the temporary placements. 

It all adds up to a lot of exposure but thank God, masks work, and we’ve stayed healthy so far. Here’s hoping we make it through this home stretch to get a vaccine for me, and praying we achieve herd immunity to protect little fragile Tiny.