It was later in the day on Sunday June 26, 2011 when Amy received a call on her cellphone from an unknown number. Usually her mother Ann would call from an unknown number. Now Amy and her mother had not been particularly close in the past few years. When Hazel was 3 months old, Ann had Amy and Hazel legally evicted from her apartment. I was not with Amy at this time, yet it was very disheartening to have my daughter and her mother thrown out on the street with nowhere to go. Thankfully my mother, Clara Was better off than I was at the time, and was able to help Amy secure an apartment. From this time on, Amy had not spoken to her mother regularly, and rightfully so.
Hazel is such a brilliant , kind, caring, super little girl. She is the light of our life. I don't know what our lives would be without her. Her grandmother, Ann has missed out on all of this.
Amy's older sister, Lee, has three wonderful children....except for the fact that she doesnt have them. All three of Lee's children were by the same father. They were put into the system at a very early age. Lynn just turned 10 in November. Rose is 9, and Brian is 5. They have the most wonderful
Amy's younger sister, Tiffany, also has three children, but all by different fathers. Kayla, the oldest, is 5 now. Hannah, the middle child, is 2.5 (3 in September). And Daniel, the youngest will be 1 in July. Tiffany also does not have custody of ANY of her three children. Hannah was adopted by a wonderful family in New Jersey. Daniel is with Lee's three children, however permanently adopted. I will get to Kayla in a few minutes.
Amy's family has a history of addiction. Her mother, Ann is an alcoholic, and is addicted to klonopins. In all fairness, Ann was not a bad mother to Amy and her other sisters while growing up, always making sure they had everything they needed. Lee had and continues to have a serious drug problem. She has been in and out of rehabilitation for her addictions to drugs and alcohol. Brian, who was Lee's boyfriend, and father of her three children, has been an alcoholic, and prescription drug abuser. Tiffany was addicted to IV drugs, pills and the whole lot. Long story short, they put themselves in front of their children, which is DEAD WRONG. Tiffany is currently undergoing inpatient rehabilitation for her addictions.
As stated, Lee's three children, since placed with their family have been VERY well taken care of. However, the same wasn't true for Kayla. Because Tiffany was more preoccupied with getting high and having sex, she was not home (at Ann's house) to care for Kayla. Ann then took Tiffany to court for custody of Kayla. The court came to the decision that shared custody of Kayla would be a good idea, and it was for a short while. As Tiffany came and went sleeping here and staying there overnight, her connection to Kayla began to falter. Before Tiffany would leave for however long she would leave, Kayla would beg her "Please don't leave, mommy, please don't leave!!". She left anyway.
As Amy and I would see Kayla at holidays, she would look extremely unkempt. She would be filthy with her hair all over the place. Amy and I knew Kayla would sooner or later be placed into the system.
That's when the call came. While washing cars out in front of my mothers house, Amy got a call. As previously stated, it was from an unknown number, which Amy declined. For some reason, she called back. A Philadelphia police officer answered the phone and informed Amy that her niece Kayla has gone missing. Amy and I jumped into the car as quickly as we could and rushed to Ann's house. Sure enough Ann was drunk off of her ass, enough to not be able to do the most basic functions (walk, talk, make sense of anything going on). I knew alot of the police officers on the scene from working very closely with police in my line of work. Needless to say I was APPALLED. A few of the officers refused to go inside due to how bad it reeked of cigarettes inside. Thankfully a neighbor up the street saw what had happened, and alerted the police to it. Ann had a friend over earlier in the day, drinking with her, when Ann said to her "I am too drunk to take care of Kayla, can you please take her to your house to care for her". Now I do commend her for doing something good for Kayla, but if you don't remember doing it, the point is moot.
The police went and retrieved Kayla from this friends house, and brought her back to Ann's house. Amy and I both knew she wasn't going to be able to stay there, so we made plans to take her home that night. we took her to my mother's house for the rest of the evening and made the best of the day. We were told DHS (Department of Human Services) was going to need to come out and do a home study. We were living in a 2 bedroom apartment at the time. As stated Anthony was 8 months old, and sleeping in Amy and my room. We knew we would be OK with the home study, because we aren't scumbag dirtballs, and actually take care of our home.
DHS came out and OK'd our home for Kayla. Hazel had a full sized bed and shared it with Kayla for the first few nights. DHS told us that this would be OK, until a stipend was approved through the state for us to purchase bunk beds. We then had to get with an agency, who would be providing what DHS does not after intake. With the agency, came parenting classes (TOTALLY worthless in my opinion). While waiting for the bunk beds to be approved, we were told that the girls "ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT" sleep in the same bed together. As stated before, thank God I have AWESOME family.
We have had to go to court every three months to make sure everyone is on the same page with the placement of Kayla. The whole legal process for this has been unnecessarily cumbersome, and at times unnecessary in and of itself.
Welcome to our world of Foster Parenting. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. I would love to help anyone out going through something. I will be posing more and more as time goes on and as behavior patterns change. For now I just wanted to get an introduction done and out of the way. FYI I did change some names.
