Visit Days

Oh how this ordinary bag brings back a flood of emotions and memories. Not just for me, but for my children as well. It’s actually tucked away, out of sight, in hopes of avoiding a trigger. For some of my children visit days were filled with joy, junk food and playing. For some, it was days filled with disappointment and for others they were pure torture. Jeremy and I always try to show the positives of foster care. Rarely do we talk about the struggles that can accompany. Visit days just seemed appropriate to talk about today. It’s not something that’s discussed enough. For those of you that are unaware. When a child is removed from their birth parents, court mandated supervised visits are normally granted. They usually start at 2-4 hours per week and increase or decrease based on the progress the birth parents have made on their case plan. Back to this bag….week after week for the past 6 or so years we have packed this bag full of diapers, wipes, bibs, bottles and snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. Then loaded the bag and our babies in a social services van and sent them on their way to visit with their birth parents. We are firm believers in supporting reunification if at all possible. That doesn’t change how hard visit days are on everyone. These days just have a different feel about them. There is a dark cloud that tends to loom over them. In our experience, even when your foster child loves going for visits, they are hard on them. It brings up lots of questions and BIG feelings. I can recall countless days just praying that the birth parents would show up to their scheduled visit, because the disappointment that would come from a “no show” was too much for our babies to handle. Adversely, many other days I would pray the birth parents would not show. Simply so that my child did not have to suffer through another mandated visit with the same people who abused, neglected and tortured them. One instance, burned forever in my mind, I was sitting in a court room and hearing the judge say that if the birth parents in this particular case had done any number of these things to another adult that they would be arrested and there would be a restraining order in place. Yet my child had to suffer through months and months of weekly visits because there wasn’t enough “evidence” that it was detrimental to their well being. The tantrums, meltdowns, night terrors, and generalized anxiety was not enough. The stress from visit days didn’t end when the visit was over. Lots of times we saw regression, bed wetting, sleepless nights, food hoarding, tantrums and endless tears that sometimes lasted hours to days following a visit. Our babies love their birth families no matter how hard their lives were when they were at home. Visits brought up questions. Infinite questions, “Will I go home? Why couldn’t my Mommy and Daddy take care of me? Why did my parents hurt me? Why didn’t my Mommy show up?” Visit days are a great representation of the roller coaster ride that is Foster Care. As hard as visit days are on everyone, if and when they come to an end, it is extremely sad. I can’t help but put myself in the birth parents shoes. Can you imagine having to say goodbye to your child forever? I can’t. On final visit days, there are even more questions and even more anxiety. I found myself praying that time would slow down during those final visits. Hoping that my children and their parents would find some peace in this chaos. Foster Care is a bumpy road but never the less a road worth taking. I have and would choose this road over and over again. Anything worthwhile never comes easy.