ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!

It seems so long ago that I was blogging about my foster daughter A. and our hopes that her mom would be found unfit and her parental rights terminated thereby leaving A. available for adoption. A. came to live with us approximately 4 years ago and her mom's case is moving agonizingly slowly! It seems that everybody agrees she is an unfit mom, however she is not the horrible monster that beat her children or abused them savagely. She is a mom who made poor choices in boyfriends and friends in general and put her kids at constant risk which resulted in A. being raped by one of her mom's boyfriends. This man was a registered sex offender at the time and mom knew it. Yet she let him babysit her two little girls.

After waiting an unbelievable number of months before telling anyone what had happened to her daughter, the mom finally did tell the local child welfare agency and the kids were placed in foster care. Since that time, the mom has repeatedly shown that she continues to make poor choices in boy friends and friends. She consistenly finds it necessary to move from place to place as she can't seem to hold onto her money long enough to pay her rent or utilities. She Drives when she does not have a driver's license and the list goes on and on and on. Yet, it seems that the court system is having a hard time making the final decision to terminate her rights. The two oldest girls have verbally stated that they do not want to go back home with mom, that they wanted to stay with their individual foster families. The judge even made the statement at the last hearing that he "could not tell you (addressing the people in the court) when exactly to file, but I do not understand what the hold up is"!

What is the hold up? These kids have been on this roller coaster ride for long enough already. It is time to make a decision and move forward with it. The last I heard was that the termination papers were sitting on the paralegal's desk waiting to be filed. That was months ago and still there has been nothing more done. A. has gone though every emotion possible during these past 4 years. She just finally got to the point where she was saying she did not want to go home anymore because she realized that her mom was not going to change and she knew that her mom could not keep her safe. She told the GAL at court that she wanted to stay with us and be adopted by us. However, now it has been a couple of months since the last hearing and her mom has gotten to A.'s head again and now A. is back to where she is defending her mom and claiming that she wants to go home no matter what. This has been such a nightmare.

I am wondering if anybody else who may read this has had a similar experience. I would like to hear from you if your foster child's parent was found unfit and told that termination papers would be filed, but then month after month went by without anything more happening. I would like to know some of the possible reasons that those papers are being held and not filed. There has to be some explanation. No one will tell any of us foster parents who each have one of this woman's children what the hold up is. I say again - there just has to be some reason these papers are not being filed. Please somebody, enlighten me. The next fitness hearing is in October and quite frankly I do not want to go through the emotional ups and downs that always comes when hearing time gets close. A. is getting bitter about the whole thing and some days she takes it out on us and some days she takes it out on her mom. This needs to be DONE!

Thanks for being patient while I vented. I have been told that our case is not the usual way that things go in the foster system. Most of the time parents are found fit or unfit fairly quickly and papers are filed and the adoption comes pretty quickly after that. Lucky us, we seem to have gotten hold of a real doozy of a mom who is keeping this whole case in confusion.

Enough already! Let's give these poor little kids a break! Life is tough enough. Stop dragging this case on and on. Enough already!