It has been a very busy week. Even though it is easier with my little 21 month old girl gone, we still have plenty to do. We were in court for the sibling group of four, they gave the Mom another chance, I think. There is some question as to the motive for giving her another chance, as they may wait until May (when the Dad rights are to be terminated) and terminate both at the same time. We have had the kids for over a year now. I actually hope that the Mom will get things together. I do not want to adopt children that could have their own parents care for them, there are just too many who have no one that cares. I really can't talk about particulars in these cases, but usually it is the same thing, it is a long wait. After a year the kids begin to change, they start losing hope that they will ever go home. They start talking about being adopted and they want to make plans for next year. It is especially hard for us to make plans, since we don't know if they will be here or not.
Their visits have been moved from the office to their Dad's new apt, it has given the kids hope that they would be going home soon since their cousin, my little 21 mo. old, went home very quickly after home visits started. I don't think it will happen that way but we will have to wait and see.
We will start the adoption process for our 2 little boys at the end of March. We will then be required to negotiate for a subsidy. I have been having some issues with the soon to be 2 yrs. old, last Nov., I had 1st steps (a program that works with children up to 3 yr. old) come out to evaluate him. After they were finished, they asked, "what I needed help with, or what my concern was". They told me he qualified for help. So I said that I need help with speech, as he was not talking at all, at that time. He does now say a few words and he will be 2 this month. We still have a very hard time communicating with him. He also doesn't seem to understand us. We had his hearing tested, as his 1 yr. old brother has a hearing loss, but he passed the hearing test. His dr. even thought we might be dealing with autism, at one time, but I also think that is out now.
So they gave me a speech therapist to work with him. He is making improvement and now knows several words. Anyway, the speech therapist recommended I get a child psychologist to look at him. So I did, we had one come out last week. I was explaining to him some of things I was seeing and dealing with and saying I needed an evaluation. So he told me that I didn't need an evaluation because 1st steps had already done one. Their evaluation was done by an Occupational and Developmental Therapist.
So he proceeded to take out a copy of the papers from them and show me what had already been done. I couldn't believe it, it took another Dr. to show me and explain what the papers I already had, meant. So he showed me that our 2yr. old has already been evaluated and is in the lower 5% across the board, in all areas. He even called to find out why he wasn't receiving more services. Their response was, "we only do what the parents ask us to do". He also showed me where the little boys doctor had also signed the papers agreeing to the evaluation and had even assigned a special code number for medicaid. He said I had everything I needed to negotiate a subsidy for him. He is to come back out again this month before the little one's birthday and has asked for me to have the case worker present, he will explain everything to her then. He would prefer not to be called in to court to give his opinion. He will finish his report before then and make a plan to help the little one.
I really feel God saved me on this one. I was feeling like the case workers were thinking I was making things up when I would say that he seemed behind in so many areas. They just kept telling me that it was because our little girl was so smart and I was just comparing them to each other.
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