We got ‘Permanent Guardianship’ for one of the girls living with us. It took right at a year and what a very stressful time.
Let me explain:
March 2012: The mother of the little girl called and asked would there be anyway we could take her daughter in for a few months till she got back on her feet … wow that’s a lot to ask. With a few family meetings we agreed to, since it was only for a few months. So in April of 2012 the case manager showed up with the little girl. We had got her a room ready with toys, cloths, and a girly bedroom set. We got her to 20 doctors appointments it seemed, but I’m sure it wasn’t that many. She enrolled in kindergarten, but was way behind because she had missed SO much.
We later found out her father was in prison, and her mother was pregnant. At a meeting the question came up, can we take the baby when it’s born? Oh jeez… my youngest is 14, I thought I was on the home stretch, but since it was only for a couple of months my wife and I agreed. So in the later part of June 2013 the baby was born. She had to stay in NICU (ICU for babies) for 30 due to drug withdraws. My wife and I (more my wife) was there every day, 3 – 5 times per day holding and feeding the baby, we only live about 1 1/2 miles away from the hospital. After the 30 days she came to live with us, her mother saw her once in 30 days.
We’ll the “Mom” didn’t do anything… always a bunch of excuses. (of course it’s NOT her fault). The father of the baby signed over his parental right, realizing he was in no position to take the baby. The oldest girls father got out of prison and tried to get custody but child services said, NO. That’s when we got the permanent guardianship of the older girl, and for the baby they moved to adoption. Somehow during this process we became the enemies or bad guys in the eyes of the parents? I think they believe we had some type of say in what happened? We were asked would we take care of the kids, we said YES. From that point child services really did everything else. I feel bad for the parents because I couldn’t imagine one of my kids to be taken from me, but in the same breath I know I would have done everything I could possible do to get them back.
April 2013: The older girl has been with us for over 1 year now, and looks like she’ll be with us A LOT longer. They (family services) have moved for adoption, to us, for the baby. I have no anger really toward any of the parents and I hope they know in their hearts that we love and will take care of the children. They are so sweet you can’t help but love them, they are great girls. I’m doing what the parents asked me to do and more but I feel that they are angry with us because we have their children and they don’t.
The girls have become part of our family, we love them as if their our own. We’ll always love and take care of them the best we can. In some way I think they did more for us than we’ve done for them. We know have 4 children and we love them all. May God Bless them their entire lives! So I have a 17.5 year old, 14.5 year old, 7 year old, and a 10 month old. God send us what we need…