"The Girls"

 "The Girls"

No matter where we go we seem to have this same conversation...

Random Person: Oh twins! They are so cute!

Girls: NO! We are not twins!

Person to me: Not Twins?

Me: They are 11 months apart.

Person: Wow! You were busy. (usually followed by some snide remark involving birth control)

Me: Actually they are adopted.

Them: Oh that is wonderful. (because apparently it wouldn't have been wonderful if they weren't)

 Person: But they look just like you!?

Me: Thank you! (remembering to just say "Yes Twins!" next time)

Ariya (pronounced Are-Ee-Ya) was born in October 2011. I often find myself going back in old journals and photos to see what we were doing while she was laying there all alone with no one to take care of her. 

Nadia was born in September 2012. When she was just a day old she had surgery to remove a mass in her stomach. Nadia asked me once if I stayed with her the whole time while the doctors cut her belly. It has haunted me since I first saw her scar that I wasn't there to comfort her.

In April 2013 the girls were removed from their biological parents due to severe neglect. Their great grandmother took initial placement of them but due to her age and health she was only able to keep them about a week. The girls were then placed in a foster home that was licensed through the same agency we were getting our license through as a sort of respite care. It was at this time that we were finishing up our last class for our license and were asked to stay after class and told about the girls.

May 10, 2013 Ari & Nadia came to live with us. For the first three days we were considered "substitute care" for the previous foster home as they rushed to get our license approved in record time. 

Those first days after receiving the girls were some of the most emotional days of my life. Tears of gratitude for the blessing of having these little souls in our lives and tears of sorrow for the fragile little babies who didn't even know how to respond to hugs and kisses. Ari was a year and a half old and wearing 3-6 month clothing. She had no expression and never cried even if she hurt herself. Ari had very little muscle tone and fell constantly when she tried to walk.  Ariya was being diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Nadia was eight months old. When we would feed her a bottle her eyes would roll back in her head and she would drink it as fast as she possibly could and almost always throw it all up right after. They were the sweetest, quietest, most inactive babies I had ever seen. The girls had been through extreme neglect and Ari's diagnoses of failure to thrive is what brought CPS into the home. The accounts I have heard and seen of their treatment and the state of the home is haunting. If animals had been treated like this the owners would be facing jail time, but because they were children and have very few rights they instead had visitation for hours every week with the people who had treated them like this. I understand the need to protect a parents rights to their children, however, in my time as a foster parent I have seen the need for laws protecting children from the mandated parenting time visits. Ari and Nadia have different biological father's but Ariya had never met her biological father as her mother was already in a relationship with Nadia's bio dad before Ari was born. Every week Ari had to do visits with all three parents and every week it took at least three days after each visit for her to stop hurting herself, having night terrors and regressing back to smearing and eating feces. It is assumed that Ari kept her and her sister alive by eating feces and the garbage that was piled up in the room they were left in. Each time we would get her to start feeling better it was time for another parenting time visit.  Ariya was diagnosed with PTSD which was triggered by just the sight of the parents. They still had visitation every week. Her caseworker fought hard to protect them and for a short time we were able to get visitation suspended (several months into the case) and eventually the judge reinstated the visits again so he could gather more information for the case. I had a VERY hard time with this decision until I realized that with the way the law is set up, it was the only way that they would ever get a solid termination as there was not any drug use or anything to be proven besides their laziness and inability to parent.

As foster parents it is easy to be upset with the decisions made by the judge or the things that lawyers say in court that you know they couldn't possibly agree with. In my time as a foster parent I have learned to trust that the judges, lawyers and caseworkers are doing the best they can to protect these children with the power they have while upholding all of the laws they have made an oath to uphold. This does not mean that we just sit back and let it happen. As foster parents we are the children's mouthpiece. We are their advocates. One of the things I tell people with children in these situations is to keep a record (a journal) of the child's behavior everyday. Record the days that they have visits and the days that they don't. These accounts can be quite helpful to the case and also to doctors and therapists who may be able to use them to better diagnose your child.

I have been working hard to compile ideas that may help ease some of the trauma children face in foster care and I hope to one day get more rights in place for these children.

Coming up soon (in a new post)  I will dive a bit deeper into Ari & Nadia's foster care story. If you have questions for me please send them my way in a comment below or message me on any of my social media pages. Though foster care is not always easy I can assure you that it is so incredibly worth it. If you are interested in foster care I encourage you to go to an orientation at an agency near you. They are free and you have no obligation. Let me know if you need help finding an agency.