Closing in on 1,000 isn’t “lucky”

Sprout has been in foster care 921 days. 

By the time we get to court next, it’ll have been 963 days. I am a nervous wreck. I don’t know what to expect in court other than an excruciatingly emotional day. I’ve worked as a lawyer in the system but never got to this stage on any of my cases.

Can you imagine being a parent and having a court decide you aren’t fit – for whatever reason – to have any rights to your child anymore? A child you grew and birthed and raised in this case for nearly 2 years? No matter how hard I try I can’t imagine it.

I also can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for Sprout to look back on the day when she’s older and trying to understand what went so wrong in her Mama’s life.

We are closing in on 1,000 days and even if things go “smoothly” with this upcoming proceeding I assume we will hit the 1,000 day mark. Sprout desperately needs permanency so she can get specialized medical care which she needs to be on our insurance to get. But there’s no part of this situation that doesn’t feel like an absolute tragedy, any way I look at it.

She’s been without her Mama for 921 days. She still sometimes wakes up in the night crying for her. There were visits for a while but for a whole host of reasons they’ve largely stopped. There *might* be a visit for both girls on Halloween, but it’s a big ugly might and I already have two excited girls who will be devastated if it falls through, which is very possible.

The next time someone refers to my kids as “lucky” to be with us I may cry, or I may throw down. There’s no luck in these girls’ lives. With their endless medical problems, being brown and Muslim in a Christian and ignorance dominated country, and the losses they’ve experienced and continue to experience, these are some kids who drew a seriously short straw in life.

I know what people are meaning to say when they say my kids are “lucky” to have us – they mean they could have landed in a foster home that’s less caring and capable and willing to go out of their way for them. I get that. But please, find another way to say it other than “lucky.”