Heartache

I just got a call from the agency that I deeply appreciate having gotten.

Years ago we told our homefinder (basically our case worker) that if ever a child we’ve fostered comes back into foster care, we want to be called first.

It’s happened twice now. The first time I got a call it was for the Happiest Baby Who Ever Lived. She’d only been with us for a week initially before going to a relative, which relative later suddenly decided she didn’t want the baby anymore and called the agency to find another home for the child That Day. It all blows my mind because she was the easiest baby conceivable. But anyway, I said yes to the child coming back to us, but the agency was able to send her back to her parents a little early instead, since they were on track to get her back within the next 2 months anyway. That worked out well.

Today when I got the call for a child we’ve fostered coming back into care, it is very different. My stomach is clenched. I feel nauseated and sweaty and light headed. And though we said no to the little boy coming back to us, it’s a decision that will haunt me.

Gronckle was our second long-term foster placement. He came to us when he was just 7 months old. He lived with us with Kiddo, and the two of them got along like a house afire. He was all little boy energy, raucous and rowdy and rambunctious. By the time Gronckle was a year old, 5-year-old Kiddo was matching his energy, and the two wrestled and giggled and accidentally broke lamps and furniture and kept me hopping.

When Gronckle came to us from another foster home at 7 months of age, we were told he was on an adoption track, meaning no suitable relative had been found and his Mama wasn’t going to get him back. We lived for about 7 months believing we were adopting Gronckle.

Then because it’s foster care and anything can happen, the father was identified, against all odds. He wasn’t an option to take custody because he was incarcerated until after the child turned 18, but he had a relative who was put forward as someone to take Gronckle.

Normally we support reunifications regardless of the cost to us, and we started out doing so in this case. But then we met the relative and her relatives and saw the cockroach infested house, the dog feces and urine around the entire house where kids were walking barefoot. We saw suspicious activity going on, and the people who were coming in and out of the house at all hours. And we knew we couldn’t let this reunification happen without a fight.

Let me back up to say the child had the World’s Worst Case Worker. Legit he was horrifically bad. He was aggressive with us from the start because we had made complaints to the agency about one of Kiddo’s former case workers who was a friend of his. During his first visit to our house, the man stood in my kitchen and gave me a dressing down, which amounted to his telling us we were wrong to complain about the other case worker and it was unprofessional and inappropriate for us to have done so (we had wicked good reason for the complaints – but that’s for another blog post).

After the unprovoked confrontation and after catching him in numerous lies intended to keep us from attending court hearings on the case, we asked to have another case worker assigned. The agency higher up we spoke with asked us to come in and meet with her about it. But when we got there we found we were ambushed – she had the bad case worker in the room and he was prepared to lie his way out of every accusation. They refused to switch case workers and we were told we were becoming “problematic foster parents.” Oy. Happy memories.

Anyway, we hated the dude. He was rude every time we saw him, and since he held a grudge against us, we felt he was seeking relatives in part to spite us. He was also, it turns out (and this is based off the word of someone we trust immensely who shall remain anonymous) trying to avoid Termination of Parental Rights paperwork because despite being with the agency for years, he’d always managed to avoid the difficult task.

So my husband and I talked with Gronckle’s attorney, who agreed with us wholeheartedly. He fought the return with everything he had. But based on the word of the agency’s very worst caseworker, the court deemed the relative’s home “appropriate” and sent Gronckle to go live with his relative without even planning for a transition for the then 16-month-old child who was firmly bonded to us and who had never met this relative.

I’ve wondered and worried about the child ever since.

When I got the call today about his coming back into foster care, it felt like the wind was knocked out of me. I was not an ounce surprised. I knew the situation he was going back to was bad. But this is the worst case scenario. It takes A LOT for the agency and court to remove kids.

Gronckle now has 4 littler siblings. And they’re all coming into care late in the day. They need somewhere to go. But my house???

My husband and I are winding down our fostering journey. We have adopted 5-year-old Sprout, and her 10-year-old sister Sunny is now officially going home at the end of the school year. Both kids are struggling with this transition, especially Sprout. They both deserve a smooth transition and do not need the introduction of a highly traumatized 7-year-old to the household. Gronckle will have seen and experienced a great deal by now. He was always a kid with major destructive energy, and he always had a massive temper. I can’t imagine he’s had help learning how to cope with either thing productively.

Part of my saying no is wanting to have peaceful loving time with Sprout with no other kids around after her sister goes home. Part of it is wanting to protect her from who-knows-what trauma behaviors that Gronckle may have. Part of it is knowing my own health limitations, which are considerable. Part of it is wanting Sprout and Sunny to be able to grieve and celebrate the new upcoming transition in a healthy way. Part of it is having no bedroom to put Gronckle in. There are so many good reasons for saying no. Gronckle doesn’t remember us, so it’s not like he’s wanting to be here in particular.

I admit though, that if the call had been for Mouse instead of Gronckle I would have said yes on the spot. And that knowledge leaves me feeling unsettled. Mouse was a baby and toddler who was with us longer and more recently than Gronckle, though it’s still been a long time. But honestly? Some kids just tug stronger on our hearts than others and that is an unpleasant knowledge. They’re all equally deserving.

Say a prayer or send good vibes to my Gronckle, readers. He deserves good things and a good foster home and permanency. I’ll be losing sleep thinking about him and sending my own good energy vibes to him across the city.