The Powers That Be

Chronologically speaking there are about 8 other things I should be blogging about instead, but tonight the blog becomes the therapist's couch once again.

We had a home visit today from Z's caseworker, the once a month required visit. I was in no way prepared for the news she brought. She had mentioned to me on the phone a couple of weeks ago the slim possibility of Z going to live with his mother in rehab. She also told me that she would never make that recommendation. She perhaps failed to tell me that it really lay all on the judge's opinion.

Mom gets an 8 hour pass this weekend. If she can pass a drug test upon her return , she will be granted custody of him every other weekend. It's like she and I are divorced, sharing custody. He will go to live at rehab two out of every fourteen nights. Rehab.

Then, if that goes well and Mom is still "following her plan" and has been clean for six months total (keeping in mind she's been clean in JAIL and REHAB), he will go and live there full time. We should lose him right before Christmas.

Part of me wanted to say, "Wait right here and I'll go get all of his things and you can take him with you when you go." Instead, I will love him more everyday so that by the time he's gone, it will mathematically be an exponential amount of loss. Every day that I am his mother will multiply the hole he will leave behind.

His birth mother will never have had the opportunity to prove that she can care for him and stay clean outside the walls of a controlled environment. And people who make important decisions think this is a good one. I will not be given any visitation once she has him full time in rehab, yet if she fails (and do the math on those statistics), she will permanently lose him, DFCS will likely send him back to us, and he will have no idea who we are.

And this is a good idea.

I know from other foster moms that some caseworkers are reunification minded and others are more pro-foster. Some judges lean more towards birth parents, some towards foster. Some members of foundations with voices that matter (and there are many) lean more towards one than the other. It's all in the luck of the draw. I'm worried about my draw.

Why can't someone give her one of those simulated babies that cries every hour on the hour and must be fed, burped, changed, ... You know, like a real baby? Why must she see if she can really do this on a real life flesh and blood baby with a brain where actions matter and consequences are real?

I know I signed the dotted line on all this risk. That was when it was all an idea. Now it's real. The stakes are high. The consequences are great.

My God is sovereign. Please remind me of that every chance you get.