There are things, as the typical American child, that we take for granted. Things like warm food, clean clothes and bedtime stories every night. These thingsthat are new to my kids.
In conversation and behavior, we discovered slight things that gave us clues as to their past existence. They fought us at bathtime for the first week. We then realized through interaction with them, that they did not have regular baths at their last home and did not understand needing one everyday at our home. We have some bath toys and bath time has become a fun experience for them as they can play with boats and rubber ducks.
They also have interesting habits with food. When they were found they were about 10-15lbs underweight each. Food was not readily available to them. We discovered the reality of how they survived by one simple incidence.
My husband was going to cook hotdogs for them for dinner one night. We realized that one of the packs of hotdogshad expired the day before. We threw them in the trash can. My husband turned his back for a second and the youngest dug the hotdogs out and was chomping away on one. We quickly rushed and got them out of her mouth. She has repeated this action a couple of times. We realized that this was probably the only way they got food at their other home. The eldest hides grapes, snacks, books and toys under his bed. We have to check from time to time to make sure there is nothing under there. We have heard these are normal actions of children who were deprived of food at one time from the DSS case workers and other parents who have adopted in similar situations. They are so afraid of not having enough to eat. We are working with this. We show them our pantry and refrigerator are full with food and snacks for them. We also let them know that they can have access to it anytime they are hungry. We are hoping this passes within a few months of being in our home.
We also saw how little they had in the way of toys, books and other educational items before. When they came into our home, the first thing they ran to was the basket of dog toys we keep by the fireplace hearth. They grabbed out two a piece like they had found gold. We quickly took those from them and showed them the toys we had for them. The fact that children thought old chewed-on dog toys were the best thing ever, showed us that they had not been provided with such simple things. Every thing they receive is greeted with such amazement. It warms my heart, but breaks it at the same time that they were never given such things in the beginning of their lives. Our kids may come out a little spoiled, but I would much rather that, then having them go back to what they came from.
We got some hopeful news from the caseworker. In November, the judge may order an early termination of rights proceeding. I am trying not to hold on to false hope that may not pan out. The fact that we are even having to fight this battle is ridiculous. You abuse a child you lose your rights, period. This is another example in our legal system, where the prepetrators have more rights than the victims.
We are willing to fight however hard and long we need to so we can try to give these kids a better life. Please keep us in your prayers. Thank you for reading my blog.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Getting Our Name Out
I left off on my last post with Mark and I getting approved. During the approval process, we were told by several people that it should not be a problem to get children within the age range we were looking for (Birth-3 years old). They did not explain how difficult or how long it takes to terminate the parental rights (or as DSS calls it T.P.R.) After we got approved, we met with the new caseworker that had been assigned to us. She then proceeded to tell us that the likelihood of us getting a child under the age of 6 years old was impossible because the judges in our region are extremely lenient with birth parents. She had been a children's representative before crossing over to representing the families' on the adoption side. She told us a story of a sibling set of 3 boys. She lined up an adoptive family to take all three. The oldest had already been T.P.R.ed. The mother had not cleaned up her act. She did not have a permenant address or employment. However, since she had passed a couple of months of drug testing the judge gave her another six months to try and get her kids back. The judge knew that each kid had been in the system for over 2 years and she had already lost rights to the first one. She said that was the last straw for her and she requested a transfer. We appreciated her honesty, but it spent us around. After meeting with her for an hour and a half, we went and sat in our car feeling very misled and heavy hearted.
We decided that if we could not get a child under 6, then we would be open to children that were older because we felt this was what we were called to do. We received an invitation to attend a children's fair at the DSS office. We did not know quite what to expect. We RSVPed anyway. We showed up that day. There were foster care workers galore from every region in South Carolina. You walked from table to table and wall to wall looking at the hundreds of pictures of children needing homes. Mark and I had to step outside and take a break after about 10 minutes. The emotional weight of all those children, of different ethnicities and localities all wishing for the same thing: a loving forever family. We regrouped and went back in and continued through the displays. Faces smiling at us, that with their experiences should have no reason to smile.They were all victim. Children born to idiots who did not realize their beauty. Then by no means of their own were cast on system that is broken and full of bureaucracy. I wanted to take them all home. We stopped and requested information on a few of them, then we waited.
Weeks went by and we never heard from DSS about any of the children we requested information on. We were saddened. My aunt had a conversation with her good friend that works in another region of the DSS adoptions in SC. We requested that our case file be sent to that region so it could be available for the children's workers up there. My caseworker said that her supervisor would not allow her to send the case file to a different region. The process followed this line: the caseworker from the other region would have to email that supervisor and request families for the children they represented. Then the supervisor chose who of the families got submitted for review by the children's case worker. However, the supervisor gets rewarded on how many of her region's families receive children from her region. Even though at the time she had about 800 families approved and only about half of that number of children available. She would not "share her families" with other regions in SC that were desperate for adoptive families. The territorialism was unbelievable. The only ones that were suffering were the children in the system. No one cared that there were hundreds of children in other regions in the same state that needed homes. It was all about placement numbers.
After, that episode, we did not hear anything from DSS for months. We had all, but given up hope. We found out in July that we were pregnant. That was something the doctor said could not happen. We were estatic and the sting of the let down from DSS did not hurt so bad. Over Labor Day weekend, I lost the baby and had to go to the ER for emergency surgery because of where the pregnancy had attached. We were devastated. I will be honest with you. I fought with God after that. I yelled, I screamed, I cried and stared off blankly feeling alone and forgotten. I hear all these stories about women leaving their babies in trashcans or in strollersin a park and walking away to go score some drugs. Those women can have babies, but why can't I? I was angry. I had several people say you can try again. What they did not understand is it took us 3 1/2 years and a miracle to get that one. Even though they meant well "it wasn't meant to be" does not bring one comfort.
Mark and I were in a dark place for about two weeks. I came back to my desk one day at work and had a message. I checked it and it was a new caseworker calling us to introduce herself as our representative. This made the third in two years. I rolled my eyes, but was very nice to her because it was not her fault. She said I am calling to also tell you about two children we would like to place with you. I wanted to leave work and be read in on their case that day. We had to wait a week. She also said that we knew the children's representative that had picked us. It was a first caseworker. If she had not known us and chosen us for these children then we would still be waiting. As with anything else in state government, it is all about who you know.
We went and were read in. It lasted about 4 hours long. They had to read through all the history they knew on each child, medical, educational, emotional, abuse, etc. We had to sign off on each page as they finished. The last thing they showed us was their pictures. We saw pictures of how they looked when they were brought into custody, dirty and half starved. She then showed us a picture of how tthey appeared after being in the system for a few months. They looked like different children and had gained about 10 pounds each. How anyone can treat children like that is beyond my comprehension. I wanted to say yes right then. Mark being ever logical wanted to go home and talk about it. I had him convinced by the time we got halfway home. He called the next day and said we wanted to proceed.
The next step was a visitation with the children the next Friday. We got it approved to take them to the zoo. We had an awesome time. Just seeing the wide eyed joy on the children's faces as they ran up and pressed their faces against each exhibits glass. To think that no one had ever given them a loving positive experience like this broke our hearts.
At the end of the day, we told the caseworker we wanted to move to the next step. That step was an over the weekend stay. She said since they were so young, if everything worked out over the weekend, they could arrange for them to start living with us. That occurred this past weekend. We called the case worker on Sunday night and told her we wanted them to stay.
So now the adoption process has just begun. The mother still has her rights to the kids and it could be 15 months from the date the kids entered the system before the judge orders to start the T.P.R. process. Then it could drag out of a year or two more if she decides to appeal. We are praying that she will grow a heart and relinquish her rights on her own, but we know the likelihood of that is slim to none. As we have seen over the past 2 years, anything can happen.
I will add to this blog as more develops. Thank you for reading my post!
We decided that if we could not get a child under 6, then we would be open to children that were older because we felt this was what we were called to do. We received an invitation to attend a children's fair at the DSS office. We did not know quite what to expect. We RSVPed anyway. We showed up that day. There were foster care workers galore from every region in South Carolina. You walked from table to table and wall to wall looking at the hundreds of pictures of children needing homes. Mark and I had to step outside and take a break after about 10 minutes. The emotional weight of all those children, of different ethnicities and localities all wishing for the same thing: a loving forever family. We regrouped and went back in and continued through the displays. Faces smiling at us, that with their experiences should have no reason to smile.They were all victim. Children born to idiots who did not realize their beauty. Then by no means of their own were cast on system that is broken and full of bureaucracy. I wanted to take them all home. We stopped and requested information on a few of them, then we waited.
Weeks went by and we never heard from DSS about any of the children we requested information on. We were saddened. My aunt had a conversation with her good friend that works in another region of the DSS adoptions in SC. We requested that our case file be sent to that region so it could be available for the children's workers up there. My caseworker said that her supervisor would not allow her to send the case file to a different region. The process followed this line: the caseworker from the other region would have to email that supervisor and request families for the children they represented. Then the supervisor chose who of the families got submitted for review by the children's case worker. However, the supervisor gets rewarded on how many of her region's families receive children from her region. Even though at the time she had about 800 families approved and only about half of that number of children available. She would not "share her families" with other regions in SC that were desperate for adoptive families. The territorialism was unbelievable. The only ones that were suffering were the children in the system. No one cared that there were hundreds of children in other regions in the same state that needed homes. It was all about placement numbers.
After, that episode, we did not hear anything from DSS for months. We had all, but given up hope. We found out in July that we were pregnant. That was something the doctor said could not happen. We were estatic and the sting of the let down from DSS did not hurt so bad. Over Labor Day weekend, I lost the baby and had to go to the ER for emergency surgery because of where the pregnancy had attached. We were devastated. I will be honest with you. I fought with God after that. I yelled, I screamed, I cried and stared off blankly feeling alone and forgotten. I hear all these stories about women leaving their babies in trashcans or in strollersin a park and walking away to go score some drugs. Those women can have babies, but why can't I? I was angry. I had several people say you can try again. What they did not understand is it took us 3 1/2 years and a miracle to get that one. Even though they meant well "it wasn't meant to be" does not bring one comfort.
Mark and I were in a dark place for about two weeks. I came back to my desk one day at work and had a message. I checked it and it was a new caseworker calling us to introduce herself as our representative. This made the third in two years. I rolled my eyes, but was very nice to her because it was not her fault. She said I am calling to also tell you about two children we would like to place with you. I wanted to leave work and be read in on their case that day. We had to wait a week. She also said that we knew the children's representative that had picked us. It was a first caseworker. If she had not known us and chosen us for these children then we would still be waiting. As with anything else in state government, it is all about who you know.
We went and were read in. It lasted about 4 hours long. They had to read through all the history they knew on each child, medical, educational, emotional, abuse, etc. We had to sign off on each page as they finished. The last thing they showed us was their pictures. We saw pictures of how they looked when they were brought into custody, dirty and half starved. She then showed us a picture of how tthey appeared after being in the system for a few months. They looked like different children and had gained about 10 pounds each. How anyone can treat children like that is beyond my comprehension. I wanted to say yes right then. Mark being ever logical wanted to go home and talk about it. I had him convinced by the time we got halfway home. He called the next day and said we wanted to proceed.
The next step was a visitation with the children the next Friday. We got it approved to take them to the zoo. We had an awesome time. Just seeing the wide eyed joy on the children's faces as they ran up and pressed their faces against each exhibits glass. To think that no one had ever given them a loving positive experience like this broke our hearts.
At the end of the day, we told the caseworker we wanted to move to the next step. That step was an over the weekend stay. She said since they were so young, if everything worked out over the weekend, they could arrange for them to start living with us. That occurred this past weekend. We called the case worker on Sunday night and told her we wanted them to stay.
So now the adoption process has just begun. The mother still has her rights to the kids and it could be 15 months from the date the kids entered the system before the judge orders to start the T.P.R. process. Then it could drag out of a year or two more if she decides to appeal. We are praying that she will grow a heart and relinquish her rights on her own, but we know the likelihood of that is slim to none. As we have seen over the past 2 years, anything can happen.
I will add to this blog as more develops. Thank you for reading my post!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Getting Approved for SC DSS Adoptions
It has been a long road from where I left off yesterday. We took the last two seats in the DSS Foster Care to Adopt Orientation Class. We were to fill out paperwork before we came to orientation and mail it back to them. Mark and I could not believe the quality of the copies of the paperwork that we received. They we copied crooked on crinkled paper and some parts were so illegible that we had to call to see how the questions read. We had to provide financial records (account numbers, balances,etc), medical and psychological history (including a physical given by our physician), etc. We had background checks run on us through SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Dept), CPS (Child Protective Services), Federal fingerprint analysis, and a 10 page personal autobiography. If all parents had pass through what we did just to attend the orientation (not yet to adopt the kids), half the children in the United States would not have been created. We filled out the paperwork and sent it ceritified mail back to DSS.
We attended the orientation and the lady assisgned to us as our family adoption case worker said she did not receive our paperwork. Luckily, I am very detailed (ok, I admit it, anal retentive) when it comes to things I really care about . I printed out the receipt from the USPS website showing that the paperwork had been signed for by a member of their office and brought it to the orientation. The next day we emailed the Supervisor to see if she knew where our paperwork went. I expressed our concern because it had our social security numbers, financial instituational information, medical and psychological history on that paperwork. She replied that I was "so silly" to be concerned because she had it on her desk. This frustrated me because our family case worker is the only one that can process our information and she was unaware that her supervisor had it on her desk a few cubicles away. That was only the beginning of the lack of communication with us and amongst themselves.
The next step was we needed to attend 16 hours of training. This consisted of an outside contractor coming in and teaching us how to take care of abused, neglected and special needs children. We had to watch videos. I felt like I was in health class again. The contractor was a former social worker that could make more money doing this. She wasn't suppose to, but when the family case workers and supervisor stepped out of the room she told us real stories of what she had seen when she was a children's case worker. She told us of a little boy who's mother would beat him with her stiletto high heeled shoe about the head and he had permenant scars. She told us of another little boy that everytime he was "bad" his mom's live in boyfriend would hold his face under water in the toilet. The stories went on and on. It broke our hearts and occupied our minds for weeks after.
The next step was for the Fire Marshall, DHEC and Home Study contractor to go out inspect our home. We had to buy commercial grade fire extinguishers, put fire alarms every 16 ft and label when they expire visibly on its base. Our windows had to measure 6 square feet when open. Their reasoning for this was that a fireman with his pack on had to fit in the window. My thoughts were if there is a fire at our house and the firefighter needs to get a child out of the room, I doubt they will stop to open the window. They will just take their ax and break it open so they can get them out fast.
For the DHEC inspection we had to lock up everything chemical. We santizied and scrubbed everything. We had to change the setting on our hot water heater and have an emergency evacuation plan on our fridge. We passed both.
The next step was the Home Study Caseworker. We met with her at our home. She came though and did her own inspection. She had to look in cabinets and closets and even inspected the backyard. She was very nice and very helpful. She had to come out the standard two times for a couple hours. She interviewed us about education level, how we were disciplined as children, what surgeries we had in the past, what values were we raised with, etc. She had to find out if we were closet abusers. Which with what the kids in DSS go through to get in the system, I am glad they do that before they place them.
The Home Study Caseworker wrote up our home study and we did not hear anything for two months. Please keep in mind that this process had already taken us over 6 months, thus far and we were not even approved. We emailed our family case worker to follow up and she said she was no longer our caseworker and she had no idea where our case file was now. It frustrated me that no one had contacted us to let us know that we were represented by someone else. I contacted the supervisor and she again patronized me for being concerned about our missing case file. Two and a half months later they found it, but would not reveal where. Our home study report had never been sent back for revision and that took another month. It took another month and a half to finally get our approval letter. We were approved to start the process of adoption after over a year. Please keep in mind, I am not discouraging anyone from adopting through DSS, I just want to illustrate a realistic picture of what the process is like. You are dealing with a government agency that has too many people that have been there too long without our any accountability. Is the process worth it? ABSOLUTELY! I look into the faces of the two children I have in my home and praise the Lord for the beauty he created.
The next step was keeping our names out there so we would get chosen for children. I will describe that process in the next blog posting. Thank you for reading my entry!
We attended the orientation and the lady assisgned to us as our family adoption case worker said she did not receive our paperwork. Luckily, I am very detailed (ok, I admit it, anal retentive) when it comes to things I really care about . I printed out the receipt from the USPS website showing that the paperwork had been signed for by a member of their office and brought it to the orientation. The next day we emailed the Supervisor to see if she knew where our paperwork went. I expressed our concern because it had our social security numbers, financial instituational information, medical and psychological history on that paperwork. She replied that I was "so silly" to be concerned because she had it on her desk. This frustrated me because our family case worker is the only one that can process our information and she was unaware that her supervisor had it on her desk a few cubicles away. That was only the beginning of the lack of communication with us and amongst themselves.
The next step was we needed to attend 16 hours of training. This consisted of an outside contractor coming in and teaching us how to take care of abused, neglected and special needs children. We had to watch videos. I felt like I was in health class again. The contractor was a former social worker that could make more money doing this. She wasn't suppose to, but when the family case workers and supervisor stepped out of the room she told us real stories of what she had seen when she was a children's case worker. She told us of a little boy who's mother would beat him with her stiletto high heeled shoe about the head and he had permenant scars. She told us of another little boy that everytime he was "bad" his mom's live in boyfriend would hold his face under water in the toilet. The stories went on and on. It broke our hearts and occupied our minds for weeks after.
The next step was for the Fire Marshall, DHEC and Home Study contractor to go out inspect our home. We had to buy commercial grade fire extinguishers, put fire alarms every 16 ft and label when they expire visibly on its base. Our windows had to measure 6 square feet when open. Their reasoning for this was that a fireman with his pack on had to fit in the window. My thoughts were if there is a fire at our house and the firefighter needs to get a child out of the room, I doubt they will stop to open the window. They will just take their ax and break it open so they can get them out fast.
For the DHEC inspection we had to lock up everything chemical. We santizied and scrubbed everything. We had to change the setting on our hot water heater and have an emergency evacuation plan on our fridge. We passed both.
The next step was the Home Study Caseworker. We met with her at our home. She came though and did her own inspection. She had to look in cabinets and closets and even inspected the backyard. She was very nice and very helpful. She had to come out the standard two times for a couple hours. She interviewed us about education level, how we were disciplined as children, what surgeries we had in the past, what values were we raised with, etc. She had to find out if we were closet abusers. Which with what the kids in DSS go through to get in the system, I am glad they do that before they place them.
The Home Study Caseworker wrote up our home study and we did not hear anything for two months. Please keep in mind that this process had already taken us over 6 months, thus far and we were not even approved. We emailed our family case worker to follow up and she said she was no longer our caseworker and she had no idea where our case file was now. It frustrated me that no one had contacted us to let us know that we were represented by someone else. I contacted the supervisor and she again patronized me for being concerned about our missing case file. Two and a half months later they found it, but would not reveal where. Our home study report had never been sent back for revision and that took another month. It took another month and a half to finally get our approval letter. We were approved to start the process of adoption after over a year. Please keep in mind, I am not discouraging anyone from adopting through DSS, I just want to illustrate a realistic picture of what the process is like. You are dealing with a government agency that has too many people that have been there too long without our any accountability. Is the process worth it? ABSOLUTELY! I look into the faces of the two children I have in my home and praise the Lord for the beauty he created.
The next step was keeping our names out there so we would get chosen for children. I will describe that process in the next blog posting. Thank you for reading my entry!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
What led us to DSS Adoptions
What led us to DSS Adoption
I guess I will start at the beginning. I plan to be honest and emotional so get ready. My husband and I got married later in life. I was 28 and he was 35. We knew within a year or two we wanted to start a family. I was diagnosed Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome which can make it very difficult to have children. My husband also was diagnosed with a medical condition that affected fertility. This was a double whamie for us. We were told by doctors that we could try fertility, but we had more chance of being hit by lightining. (Yes, they actually said that) We were heartbroken over the news. At a loss of what to do, we prayed that God would give us a sign of which way to go. We prayed for one sign, God gave us a million. The first sign occurred in July of that year. We made a faithful trip to visit with some friends over the 4th of July holiday.
My friend was a caseworker in a private group home setting for children for disabilities and who had suffered abuse and neglect. One night during our stay, she and I took her dog for a walk around the neighborhood. I was relating all our difficulties and she asked if we had ever considered adoption. We had talked about it in passing. However,we knew other friends and family that had adopted and spent tens of thousands dollars and we could not afford that. That is when she suggested we look into the Foster Care to Adopt Program with DSS.
I had not heard of this program before and I was not so sure about it. I said I would look into it and went on talking about something else. I talked to my husband about it on the ride home, but never seriously. Then we rented and watched the movie "The Blind Side" and everything changed. I am not saying the movie made us decide to make a life changing decision, but it pulled at our heart strings. I believe God used the movie to unlock a door in our hearts that we were not ready to open yet.
On mundane Saturday in August, we went to get our dogs food from PetSmart. There were pet adoptions going on from local rescue groups. We petted the various dogs and cats and commented on how we wished we could take them all home. We checked out and left. It seemed on every street corner on our ride home there we signs for various Adoption Groups. Some of them just said "Adoptions Today". I made an off-hand comment on how many signs there were about Adoptions. My husband agreed that he had not seen that many out before and we changed the subject. I guess God said they are not seeing my other "signs" so let me give them a few literal ones.
My friend was a caseworker in a private group home setting for children for disabilities and who had suffered abuse and neglect. One night during our stay, she and I took her dog for a walk around the neighborhood. I was relating all our difficulties and she asked if we had ever considered adoption. We had talked about it in passing. However,we knew other friends and family that had adopted and spent tens of thousands dollars and we could not afford that. That is when she suggested we look into the Foster Care to Adopt Program with DSS.
I had not heard of this program before and I was not so sure about it. I said I would look into it and went on talking about something else. I talked to my husband about it on the ride home, but never seriously. Then we rented and watched the movie "The Blind Side" and everything changed. I am not saying the movie made us decide to make a life changing decision, but it pulled at our heart strings. I believe God used the movie to unlock a door in our hearts that we were not ready to open yet.
On mundane Saturday in August, we went to get our dogs food from PetSmart. There were pet adoptions going on from local rescue groups. We petted the various dogs and cats and commented on how we wished we could take them all home. We checked out and left. It seemed on every street corner on our ride home there we signs for various Adoption Groups. Some of them just said "Adoptions Today". I made an off-hand comment on how many signs there were about Adoptions. My husband agreed that he had not seen that many out before and we changed the subject. I guess God said they are not seeing my other "signs" so let me give them a few literal ones.
A couple of days later, we recieved a magazine that highlights things to do, places to eat and special interests stories in and around the lake we live near. I had a few minutes so I took a look. I saw an article on a local family that had adopted through the DSS system. I saw the pictures of the family and thought how well they looked. I showed my husband and said I think God has shown us enough signs. Let's call and check into it. What do we have to lose? I called the next day. They were doing an orientation meeting the next week. The supervisor said she usually couldn't work people in because of space limitations, but they had two seats left for this orientation. If the space had not been available, we would have had to wait another 4-6 months for another one to roll around. This was just the beginning of a long road that is not nearly over for us. However, now that we have two beautiful children in our home, we know it was worth it. I will start my next blog on the trials and requirements of the approval process through DSS. Hold onto your hats. It has been a wild ride. Thank you for reading this post!
Allie. E.
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