Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Is it too late to say Happy Thanksgiving? It's still technically November, so that counts, right? Well, I'm going to say it anyway ...

Star Light, Star Bright

Magnetic Letters and Numbers on the Refrigerator

As the World Turns

As the birth parent drama continues. That's how it seems sometimes, like a soap opera. It used to feel as though I couldn't escape it, like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from, but now I've learned how to turn the TV off. Well, really turn my cell phone off, but you get what I'm saying.

A is for Acorn

This is why I love teaching the kids at home. After reading different alphabet and fall/winter themed books (while snuggling), we did a few extension activities. From this one activity we got to spend an hour outside on a nature walk. We identified different trees, fall flowers, and cloud types. Talked about the weather and seasons, and listened to leaves crunching under our feet. We talked about what animals eat acorns. We talked about the letter Aa and the different sounds it makes. And then we came inside to eat snack where we packed our cheeks like a squirrel gathering acorns for winter. Finally we did this craft. And now, my (delayed,etc) two year old can correctly identify the letter A!

Sparkles and Parvo

So many things are happening that I'm not getting to blog them in a timely fashion, or at all, and the dogs going to the Vet is one of them. Sparkles, which is TheDaughter's dog, kept acting odd and coming up missing. She wouldn't eat or drink and was cowering like she was abused. Finally one day we were able to catch her and take her to the Vet. They said she had Parvo and would probably not make it. I was trying to use words that wouldn't upset the kids (by the way, taking three children ages 7, 2, and 10 months plus a 4 month old large breed dog without a leash to the vet is HARD) but the veteranarian went and said "Parvo usually kills dogs. Sparkles will most likely die." Cue sobbing from the seven year old.

I was willing to do whatever just to give Sparkles a chance. Try to save her. So $50 to hook her up to the IV and give her medications and then $20 per day after that and the cost added up pretty fast. The very next day I had to take the other dogs to the Vet for shots and tests and Sparkles still looked pitiful though the Vet tech said she was responding to treatment. Then one day when I only had TheDaughter with me after school hours, we went by to check on Sparkles and they let us bring her home. Turns out she also had HeartWorms or maybe only had heart worms, either way she was eating again.

Sparkles is home now, eating okay but not like before, and she is still super skinny.

Meanwhile, the Vet said he couldn't spay Malachi until she got her canine teeth, so she'll probably end up pregnant after all. They said she wasn't currently pregnant but she looks it.

I'm Done

I've mentioned a few times about how bad the foster parent association stuff is going, but it completely blew up recently. The guy who is president, the only person to run for that position, doesn't speak English very well. He's not real clear about what he does for a living. Some say he is a translator. He's always at some church or school or business. He had never attended one of our meetings, much less read the ByLaws, met with United Way, filled out budget paperwork, or anything related to the association. I said from the beginning that I thought CPS was behind his deciding to run for office. Nobody listened to me. The outgoing president was sure this guy would rock the job.

But he didn't.

He delegated. A lot. Until I started saying NO. He rented a place without getting Board of Director's approval. Then he denied having rented it (denied to the membership and to CPS, but the landlord was left holding the lease and looking at ME going WTF?) He wanted to buy a house with the children's money. I said hell no. He was clueless in many ways. Still is. Perhaps because of his culture, he would not take direction from us females who served previous terms and had the experience. Instead he would go to CPS and tell them that we weren't helping him, weren't doing our jobs, weren't teaching him the ropes. They of course, ate this up, and took over our association.

We are, or were, a 501c3 non profit organization funded by united way with a board of directors and an auditor and a lawyer and by laws and a system of checks and balances that kept everything running smoothly.

First was his ruining our names. Then he teamed up with CPS and they rescheduled monthly meetings with all new people, even though all meetings for the year were scheduled (by me because it was my job - non paying i might add). He and CPS told the speakers they would get paid $200 each. We never paid because ours funds are for the kids, so we had volunteer speakers. I had to email the CPS director to get that to stop. He chastised me in the process. I was further labeled as a person not willing to work well with the system. Then CPS began emailing out newsletters on the associations behalf. I spoke up. CPS lowered the number of children that we (me and Darwin) are allowed to foster (even though we built another room onto our home). They also said that CPS had too much on their plate to try and take over our association (essentially made it seem like I was being paranoid).

So I took a hands off approach. I did nothing. I said nothing. I didn't even go to monthly meetings. Didn't reply to emails. Didn't return phone calls. Nothing. That means no administrative work. No work that belongs to another officer position. NOTHING. You'll understand why I'm pointing that out when you get to the next few paragraphs.

All I did was order pizza to be delivered for the meetings, confirm the speaker was going to show up for the meetings, and make sure someone was bring the drinks to the meetings. Technically that was all my job as Vice President entailed. That's it. That was my job and I did it. But I did nothing else.

And the people attending meetings dwindled to only 6 people at the last one.

Then he, the association president, sent out a mass email telling everyone "I have notice that and very clear a adverse aptitude from M4$" he went on to say "M4$ are doing only administrative work including doing what it is my responsibilities. It is nice to try to feel important talk to people but in this case, trying to push me out and interference with my responsibilities it's just plain RUDE and OFFENSIVE. I hope you reconsidered you behavior toward me. In all this years I have meet lots of people and I have the respect from everybody, I have been president of the man in two of my churches and not one ever did anything to made me pray for and ask the Lord to forgive them for they actions." He also said I wasn't following the ByLaws (whenever I tell him in a private email or conversation that he isn't doing something, such as not following the ByLaws, he turns it around and accuses me of it but in a mass email - this makes him look good and me look bad). He went on to talk about buying certificates for the children for Christmas. We buy them presents, not certificates, by the way, and he accused me of telling the Treasurer not to buy them just to go against what he said. The Treasurer had been out of state and she and I had not talked, about certificates or anything really, but all it takes is for him to accuse me in front of everyone for them to believe him.

So I got fed up and I wrote him back. I cursed. A lot. And it felt good. But I knew that he would send it to CPS and they would say it showed a lack of good judgment and poor character. And they did. Because according to CPS, cursing is grounds to no longer allow you to be a foster parent. I'm not kidding.

Meanwhile the group of foster/adoptive parents that I've always hung out with, been friends with, my mentors in the local fostering world, who were former officers of the association, who go out to eat together after board meetings every 4 months (not that we've had them since this idiot has been in charge, but used to we would go out to eat together) ... well, they were gossiping about me. They said that Darwin was divorcing me because I found a woman (a new twist on your typical deployment gossip). I was hurt that they would make up stuff about me and spread it around like that. I've had their back so many times, just because they were my friends. When each one of them had problems with CPS, false allegations, etc I was there supporting them. I looked up to them because they have fostered so long and so many children. Because they were able to survive this CPS shit for 10 years. But I didn't confront them on the rumors because there was a small chance it was this other woman who lies and gossips like her life depends on it. I thought maybe, it was her instead and someone had just been mistaken (both women have the same first name, different last name). I gave my friends the benefit of the doubt.

Oh happy day when the association president resigned. He didn't like the language in my email. That was Friday or Saturday? And by the end of Sunday the remaining officers had already got the budget squared away, took care of the details for the Christmas party, invitations, newsletters, board meeting, etc. Done, done, and done. We were to wrap everything up by the end of the week. It was very quick and efficient and working properly. Then Monday he took it back. He no longer wanted to resign.

But we had sent out the email notifying everyone of his resignation. And had started the process of moving on. We just needed the Board of Directors to accept his resignation. They weren't replying and I found that odd. My gut told me that something was up.

Then association president sent a mass email accusing me of wanting to oust him so that I could take the associations funds (remember when I told him no to buying the house with the kid's money? - another flip a roo by him). He said "I been to the bank. Mi signature stay until my term expires and also I have copy of statements. I suggest to you be careful in what you are doing we don't want lost the funds for the kids or we do? You see there is not need for M4$ to go to the bank." I have never been on the account. I don't have checks. I couldn't withdraw money from there if I wanted to. But this is just another one of his moves to ruin my reputation in the eyes of the other foster parents. It is humiliating. Many of them are new and have never even met me in person since I quit going to the meetings because he was accusing me of not doing my job but of trying to do his.

Hang in there, I'm almost through.

It was finally Monday late a night that the Board of Directors began replying to emails. My friends remember? The ones who allegedly spread lies about me having a fling with some random woman. And I had expected them to see through his bullshit and defend the association so that CPS couldn't take it over, but instead they sided with him and CPS. It was so surprising that I couldn't and still can't understand it. The one who everyone follows said "As one who is on the Board of Directors, I would like to know who on the board voted for this. I know that I didn't and won't accept his resignation. I think that it is very low to have to act so ugly to a person and refuse to participate in this behavior. I'm totally disgusted by this talk. I thought that we were adults and could act like adults. Again, I do not accept this resignation." so of course everyone who accepted it before, took it back.

And then CPS sent out an inviation to the association Christmas party and called it theirs. Their party will be on such and such date at such and such time. CPS would like to invite you to our association Christmas party. We are buying food (not in the budget, seriously the funds are not there) with association funds. Etc

I know this all has to be confusing to the membership. To get an email from the association email account saying one thing and then get another from CPS saying another. Many of them don't even know who the association president is, they think it is me because I've been so heavily involved for so many years. He's new. Many used to think well of me but now probably doubt my abilities after hearing so much crap. It's mortifying to me. This was what I did to keep my resume active. This was my thing.

When the association president was going to rent that other place, and had the landlord make repairs and bring the lease, one of the new foster parents was behind this. She was setting it up and controlling everything. She and her family are big in the community, her sister is the school PTO president and very well respected. When we didn't follow through with renting that place (it wasn't cost effective - our place is free rent so didn't make sense to move) she got mad and then her sister got mad and I am no longer treated the same in the school. I don't know if I wrote about it, but I was not allowed to enter my daughter's classroom to volunteer. I was told I could go elsewhere, but everywhere I went people were treating me differently than they have for the past 2 years when I was there every week volunteering. So I can no longer volunteer in the school. Because of this shit. Because of this asshole who has ruined my reputation in my own hometown.

I should have quit a long time ago. When my gut told me to get out, I should have gotten out. When I told on CPS to the state commissioner and they got in trouble, and then called me at home to chew my ass, I should have known there would be a target on my back. We've been fostering for almost four years and already I'm done.

Done.


CPS won.

National Adoption Month

When we first became foster parents, I didn't know anything about the adoption incentives that many states have for CPS. I even argued against it, saying that there was no way that case workers were getting paid to finalize adoptions. That directly conflicts with the number one goal that is preached in GPS and MAPP classes which is reunification.

And then I realized that our local adoption workers were struggling to meet a certain quota by a certain date, this is why BabyBoy's TPR was not filed even though TPR was done the year before, because they had already met quota one year and was using his case for the next year in order to not only meet quota but exceed it. And when said adoption worker canceled a homevist one day so that she could attend a celebratory lunch with other CPS employees, GALs, and Judges for getting such a large amount of money for adoptions that year, it was a huge wake up call.

Here is the proof:

HHS awards $39 million to states for increasing adoptions

The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services today awarded $39 million to 38 states and Puerto Rico for increasing the number of children adopted from foster care. States use the funds from this adoption incentive award to improve their child welfare programs.

“All children deserve loving, safe and permanent homes,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “It is gratifying that most states continue to excel in promoting the adoption of children from foster care. I sincerely thank every adoptive family that has welcomed a child into their home.”

States receive $4,000 for every child adopted beyond their best year’s total, plus a payment of $8,000 for every child age 9 and older and $4,000 for every special needs child adopted above the respective baselines. The year 2007 is the baseline.

This year’s incentive award recipients completed more adoptions in 2009 than in the 2007 baseline year.

“America’s communities benefit when children grow up in stable families,” said David A. Hansell, HHS acting assistant secretary for children and families. “We’re very pleased that the adoption incentives program is helping states improve their programs and place more children into homes that are theirs forever.”

States and territories receiving today’s funding are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.

A list of each state’s adoption incentive award amount can be found at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/news/press/2010/fy10_adoption_incentive_awards.htm.

The states are supposed to use the money to improve their programs. Is your child welfare system improving? Mine isn't, and it's one of the higher payouts on that list.

Check out these numbers

Is there any accountability to where these funds are spent? I mean, a million dollars is a lot of money. The adoption subsides are already being cut back. When a child doesn't get a subsidy, the foster parent pays for the adoption out of pocket. Then on top of that, the state gets 4k per kid.

Perhaps these funds are paying for those who do qualify for monthly adoption subsidies?

We adopt these kids with issues but get little to no help. Meanwhile where's the 39 million going? Why not spend more of it on educating and training birth families, giving more supports for reunification? And I know there are families, like BabyBoy and BabyGirl's birthparents, who this kind of help would be wasted on, but what about the others? What about the ones, like Jenny's mother, who just needed a little boost, encouragement, education, and intensive help that could have been provided while Jenny stayed in the home?

I'm speaking only of here locally, in this state, and not of any other place or agency, but most of our adoptions are of younger kids. Age 6 and under. And while I think it's good attachment-wise for young kids to not have to bounce back and forth from home to foster care, and adoption at a young age resolves that, but it seems a tad unethical to not at least try to reunify (this in regards to first time offenders, not repeatedly having drug addicted children, etc in those cases I fully support No Reasonable Efforts).

Again, this is only location specific, but our adoption workers got a bonus for working so hard and such long hours (overtime was permitted so they were already compensated) and of course everyone up the food chain also got one for their work in facilitating the adoptions (and good for them for getting a bonus in a job that can really suck - but it was not given to intake workers and regular case workers who do the hardest work). Meanwhile, our (meaning foster parents) mileage rate was cut drastically and we no longer get reimbursed for taking foster kids to the doctor, dentist, therapist, etc because those are considered "normal parenting duties". And our board payment rate is one of the lowest in the US (but this state got one of the highest payouts for the adoption bonus).

On several occasions, children in my care were denied things they needed (remember Jenny couldn't go to summer school because it cost too much - even though she was more than 3 years behind) and the birth parents were not told about available services because CPS was trying to save a buck. Where is the money going?

By the way, November is National Adoption Month.

Happy Veteran's Day

Then in 2001


Now in 2010


Afghanistan, still shitty after all this time

Gays, Lesbians, Transsexuals

Golden Lion Tamarins @ Zoo in DC

I guess it's been about 4 years since we were in DC last. I took this picture because the sign struck me as funny. Mainly because when I read it, I read it as Gays, Lesbians, and Transsexuals. I'm used to people not finding the same things funny as I do, it's okay, you don't have to laugh at my jokes.

Last appointment with Dr Jerk, the cardiologist

I had to see Dr jerk one last time in order to get the results of the last few test he ordered for me. This appointment took place last week. I do have an appointment lined up with a new cardiologist in a bigger city. I'll update when that happens.

Dr jerk was slightly less of a jerk, but retained the behavior that makes me not have confidence in his abilities. For starters, at my previous appointment (two months ago), he said that I needed an MRI but that he wanted me to get it in a bigger city so other doctors could look at it. I agreed with this wholeheartedly. I need an MRI, not just of my heart but of my adrenal gland and pituitary gland. We were waiting on my appointment with the endocrinologist in December where supposedly they were going to order an MRI simultaneously. But at this last appointment with Dr Jerk, he chastised me for not already having a catheterization procedure. He said I need one ASAP. Even though all my other test indicate that I don't have a blockage. When I asked about the MRI, he said I don't need one, ever.

How hard would it have been for him to make notes in my file so that he could keep his shit straight? Or is it that the MRI wouldn't have put money in his pocket but the Cath Lab does.

Also, at the previous appointment he had told me to come in for a lipid panel and renal function test. I never got these done. He wanted them done at his office, not at the hospital where I had them done before. The cardiologist's office only does the blood draws on certain days for two hours in the morning and either I would forget, would be starving and therefore go ahead and eat breakfast, or would be running late in the morning to take TheDaughter to school and still be in my PJs with the other kids in tow. I figured I would just go in the day after my latest appointment and have the test done. But, Dr Jerk or Dr Idiot or whatever you want to call him, said that I didn't need those test because I just had them done in August and that was recent enough. Now, before when he saw those results, he said they weren't recent enough. WTF?

Instead he ordered me to have another potassium test while I was there in his office. My last one of those was just in September. And I stopped taking the potassium pills because my results were elevated and Dr jerk said to stop taking the pills.

He went over the results from my venous doppler (remember when I had a clot in my right leg in a small vein, not a large one, so it hurt like the dickens but wasn't dangerous). The results: "Venous refill showed 41.4 on the right and 19.6 on the left. The venous doppler showed no evidence for deep vein thrombosis bilateral lower extremities." Dr Jerk said that my left leg wasn't returning the blood like it was supposed to and then he pulled up my pants leg and mashed around on my leg, declaring that I was swollen. I told him I thought the swelling was from lack of a period (cycle day 57) which of course led him to ask 250million questions about my menstrual cycle and fertility and number of biological children, results of karyotype from miscarriage, and why we adopted the two kids that we have. And I still don't know what number of refill is considered normal. Or if I should be concerned that my left leg is the one he says has problems when it's not the one that was hurting.

And then he lectured me because I have gained even more weight. I can't tell you how frustrating this is for me, to even be gaining this much weight. I'm used to being skinny. The only time in my life that I've ever weighed this much was when I was 9 months pregnant with TheDaughter. I weigh 146 pounds. That's HUGE to me, for me, because I'm only 5' 3.5" so I should weigh 120 or less, preferably less. I've always weighed less. And since going on Metformin I've actually gone from 140 to 146. I need to work on eating more like a diabetic, I admit (down to one can of soda per day, need to eliminate it completely).

So after that, he was about to leave the room when I asked him to please address my concerns over almost passing out when I sneeze. This has happened several times while driving and it is scary. It scares the kids when it happens at home too. He told me that if I document that, that he will be obligated to notify the DMV and I'll have my license revoked. Nice, huh. I just wanted to know WHY IT IS HAPPENING. He said it's probably just a temporary dip in my blood pressure and that I should sit down when it happens (umm, already sitting when driving, hello).

I went from being diagnosed with hypertension and bradychardia (heart rate was consistently 40bpm) to now having normal to low BP and tachycardia (my heart rate is around 90bpm now). Why does that not concern Dr Jerk, a cardiologist?

My other test results were of my stress test and echocardiogram. He had already told me that my stress test looked good, but I hadn't seen the results with my own eyes. This time he showed me the images and my heart looked weird on the resting images. It had jagged edges all around, like lace. But on the post exercise portion, my heart looked normal and full and pink and all hunky dory. So I asked about the resting images and he confirmed that they are abnormal, but he said not to worry about that. When I questioned further, he said that most doctors don't even take resting images anymore because they don't really count, it's just the after images that matter. If those are abnormal, that's when you have problems.

What kind of comfort am I supposed to take from that? My heart looks abnormal while I'm sitting around. I might croak. But, if I'm up and running, my heart will be fine? Not that I can run. I can't breathe well enough to take the trash out, much less run track.

My vision is also steadily declining and I'm still having flooding of adrenaline for seemingly no reason. I hate having to wait months for an appointment with doctors who can help with this shit. I just want to know WHY is it happening? What is it? If it's a tumor, lets get it out already. If it's cancer, lets start chemo. Just get the show on the road. At this rate of waiting, I'll be dead before they can figure out whats wrong. Maybe that's it. They're waiting on the autopsy.

My headstone will read "I told you I was sick" or "Died waiting on doctor's appointment".

Fall Trees

Things I would have tweeted if only I had a Twitter account, Part 2

And so after I bitched about him coming home on the InsertDateHere, turns out he was really coming home on the InsertDateHere like he initially said, but was planning on getting a rental car and surprising us. Guess I ruined the surprise.

But you know what? If the dogs were barking and the doorknob turned and someone started to come into the house a full day before Darwin said he would be here? I would have shot first and asked questions later. So, really, this way was better. I ruined his surprise, but I saved his life. LOL

Part 1 is here.

Shortest ER trip ever!

When TheDaughter was just a few years old, she slipped in the bathtub falling backwards and hitting her head. Shortly thereafter she began to puke, so thinking she had a concussion, we called her pediatrician who instructed us to go to the hospital in his city, not ours. We thought that meant he was going to meet us at the hospital, otherwise we would have gone to one closer to us. So an hours drive there and no pediatrician to be found. But the ER staff did question us, over and over and over. They asked us together, they separated us and asked us what happened, and they asked TheDaughter for her version of the story. Then they did an MRI. And we waited and waited and waited. We were out of everything as we hadn't packed a diaper bag expecting to stay so long. Darwin had to hold TheDaughter down for the MRI. It was such a horrible experience for all involved. They weren't child friendly, didn't have child sized equipment, and seemed to suspect us of foul play. I should say here that we were both full time college students and were on state insurance AKA poor at the time. Once we began puking, the doctor finally let us go home. That's when we all realized TheDaughter had a virus, not a concussion. All that from a slippery bathtub. Too much Mr Bubbles.

But tonight when BabyBoy was fighting me during washing his hair, and he started to fall backwards, I reached to catch him. I grabbed his arm closest to me and that did stop him from falling backwards. Unfortunately it made him fall forwards instead. And he hit his eye on the side of the tub. Immediately TONS of blood started GUSHING out of his eye. It was so bad I couldn't see where it was coming from. Think horror movie with spurts and no eyeball left in the socket kind of bad. So I grabbed him out of the bathtub, shampoo still in his hair, and wrapped him in a towel while applying pressure to his eye with a washcloth. The bleeding stopped and I could tell then that it was a cut on his eye lid like a boxer gets during matches. BabyGirl was already in bed asleep and TheDaughter still needed a bath before getting in bed, so I called trying to get someone to come to my house and stay with the kids while I took BabyBoy to the ER. My sister came, which was not ideal, and then off BabyBoy and I went to the ER.

Not once did someone ask me to repeat what happened. I told the first person who asked, handed her our insurance card, gave other information like Darwin's place of employment, and voila we're being whisked back and glued back together. We signed in to the ER at 8:46 and by 9:55 we were back home. The shortest ER trip ever!

Updated Playlist

Not participating in NaBloPoMo this year. Just don't have it in me. Listening to music instead.