GUEST POST: Fostering Frustrations

To commemorate the 100th post on this blog I am doing something different, I am handing responsibility for the post over to my first ever guest blogger. A foster carer giving some insight into their family life…

It’s a funny life my family lead. There are lots of ups and downs, Children arrive at short notice and we try to start the healing process. During this time we live with the emotional rollercoaster of not knowing how long they will stay.

Our life is taken over by our new family members and we quickly slip into a normality filled with meetings and contacts and appointments, small victories and treasured memories.

The courts make their decisions and then the children move home, go to a family member at fairly short notice or we move them on to their forever family. We have done this on numerous occasions and find it fulfilling, tinged with sadness at the emptiness our home fills, but the joy that we have been an important part of this. Sometimes though, the placement order is granted and the child/children are stuck in no mans land – no prospective adopters and an uncertain future for months.

This is where we find ourselves now. Our children are ready for a move to their forever family. We have helped with the healing process as much as we can at this moment in time, the court order has been granted a few months ago, and they are ready for their happy ever after. We know this will involve some inevitable regression and then they will continue to blossom and be settled.

Today I find myself saddened and frustrated and a bit angry that my little ones do not have the option at this moment in time. According to a meeting today, they are not “what people are looking for” and so a long time could elapse before other big decisions may have to be made.

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© Lexaarts | Dreamstime.com – Frustration Photo

So here we sit in limbo:

  • unable to plan much
  • unable to have that long awaited adult weekend away – as I would not put them in respite
  • unable to move and settle the children to where they should be
  • the longer they are here the more used to us they are getting and the harder it will be to move them

So I sit here now with the realisation that having gone through all the process, we are still no nearer their happy ever after……

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