The daughter I almost kicked out.

I can’t tell you the number of times we have been told “you are an Angel” or “I could never do that.” Please don’t ever put me or any other foster parent on any sort of pedestal. The reality is, we are just people. We make mistakes, we fall short, we are far from perfect. My husband and I were working on cleaning out the garage last week. There was a Rubbermaid box that we had moved from our old home to our new home and never got around to going through it. My husband started sorting through the items and was instantly stopped in his tracks. He held 8 pages of yellow legal pad papers in his hands. Before he could even say anything to me, I instantly knew what those papers were. As my husband started to read the words on those pages his eyes welled up with tears. Those pages jolted us both back to a very dark time in our foster parent journey. We were at the brink of a disruption. These pages were the documented proof we needed to prove to DSS that this child placed in our home needed to be moved. We had been in the depths of hell for months with absolutely no end in sight. We had no support, no one who understood. We felt ill equipped, and thought we had no other choice. We begged for a sit down meeting with all social workers and supervisors involved in our (foster) daughters case. We were prepared to go into this meeting to let them know that by the next court date, she needed to be moved. We documented on this legal pad all of the behaviors she had exhibited over the course of the last few months. The pages were broken into categories such as “manipulation, tantrums, aggressive, argumentative, jealousy,  and defiant,”  each category having sub categories and descriptions of these said behaviors. We were at our wits end. We had two younger children in our home that we were in the process of adopting. Our (foster) daughter required constant supervision, multiple therapy sessions a week, over an hour away from home, we dreaded the time between after school and bedtime each and every day. We were in over our heads and felt like we were fighting day in and day out just to barely keep our nose above water. I don’t think the trenches go much deeper than where we were. That meeting we requested came and changed the entire trajectory of our our lives and our daughters life. We begrudgingly left that meeting, with promises for support and help. I can honestly say I remember thinking it was too little too late, and I was pretty sure the outcome was going to be the same but there was a small part of me that wanted to make sure we had done everything in our power to not disrupt. We agreed to stick it out until some help and additional therapy was in place. It was one of the most difficult times in our lives, but guess what, it was one of the most difficult times in our daughters life as well. Social workers get a bad rap but if it hadn’t been for our social worker, her support and fulfilled promises who knows where our daughter would have ended up? She did exactly what she promised she was going to do. She was my sounding board, she got intensive in home therapy set up, she got after school care approved. She gave me the space to vent without judgement, without fear of her thinking I was a bad parent. We will forever be grateful to her and her support. We can not imagine our lives without our amazing daughter. We almost gave up on this incredible child because we didn’t know what we were doing. I say all of this because we made lots of mistakes. We still make mistakes. We are far from perfect, but we do our best. These kids don’t need perfect. They need love. They need structure. They need therapy and support. We are not “angels”, there’s no special place in heaven for us. We are just two people who made a commitment and stuck it out. We were the lucky ones who got the support and help we needed. If you are a foster or adoptive parent and you are in the trenches, please reach out. Knowing that you are not alone is crucial for success. If you are a foster parent and you have disrupted a placement, I see you. It is not your fault, sometimes a disruption is necessary. You are no less of a parent, you have not failed that child. We are all human and there is no handbook for any of this. It’s messy and complicated. You are enough.