I got the call from the head of the Homefinding unit on Friday at 11:20 am. Could we take two babies?? One 4 weeks old and the other just about to turn 1.
I called Seth who was working but thankfully between c-sections at that moment and he picked up. I begged for both. He (wisely) said no. I made him call the head of Homefinding back and she informed him she’d called the ENTIRE LIST of foster parents and no one could take both, and she’d have to split the babies, and would we take just one?
I’m so sad that we can’t keep the siblings together. I HATE being a part of splitting siblings. Thank god the baby is so little that the doesn’t know much about what’s going on. It’s still absolutely heartbreaking.
I called our amazing daycare provider and asked her which kid she could take, and she said the 1 year old – she could not take the 4 week old once he turned 6 weeks. So that settled it. We were going to take an almost 1 year old baby boy and there was truly no way we could take both kids. I could finagle 2 weeks of baby holding at home, but need daycare after that.
It turns out our new little dude was already in a foster home and had been for almost 2 weeks. He was supposed to stay there for only Labor Day weekend but the County couldn’t find another place for the kids so they got left there for a couple of weeks. The sweet foster mom was going out of her ever loving mind with two teen kids, three-year-old twins, a 1-year-old, and a 4-week-old. My god. I would have been losing my mind too!
Our little guy cried and cried when I took him from his foster mom. He’d already bonded with her and felt safe with her and who the heck is this strange white lady taking him away?? God I hate that part of foster care. Being a part of breaking kids’ hearts and bonds is brutally hard. He eventually fell asleep in my car and when he woke up he was much more chill, and Tiny was there to comfort him too.
I’m hoping? The kids will be placed together somewhere soon? I hate the idea of their staying separated. But there’s no way we can take the sibling without daycare. Gah.
Plus I’m honestly not sure I could juggle that many kids. We’d need a new car STAT. And I might need to quit my job. It would be a huge stretch for me. Just with Tiny and our new little guy I struggled Friday evening because little man can’t be out of eye shot of me or he freaks out, the house isn’t baby proof yet, and the bottles I needed and the diapers I needed were all the way in the attic. How the heck to get there without leaving the kids alone for a few minutes was an impossibility. I called Seth and begged him to hurry home, and he and Kiddo made fun of me for saying I could take both siblings when I could not handle the 3-year-old and 1-year-old together for a few hours. I protested that if we had already gotten the playpen out and the diapers and the bottles out I’d have been fine, but I get their point!
Here’s what scares me terribly about this whole situation. Foster homes in my county are FULL. And there’s always a rush of CPS calls and removals in late September as kids get back to school and teachers and psychologists realize there are serious problems at home for some of the kids. Where on god’s green earth are THOSE poor kids going to go if no one has beds available now? It’s a scary prospect.
For now, our beds are full too. More critically, our car is full. No room for more kids. Possibly no sanity left for more kids.
But I’m happy as a clam wallowing in kid chaos with a fat baby to love on and my toddler to love on and my 9-year-old to love on on weekends.
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