"Come Get Him....OR....

He will be admitted to the psych unit.

This was the email and then phone call we received from the treatment foster family.

After 2 months he had wore the reins out. The family who once talked to us about adopting him...now was saying he needed to go.

Our health insurance would not cover him out of state. There was no way he could be placed in the hospital. The SN Subsidy and SSDI had not been approved yet.

So James took off to go get him.

Things were no different. We had a 6 yr old who hated us and did everything possible to try and hurt us and his sister.

My MIL and FIL offered to let him come live with them. My inlaws moved from NY to UT. My FIL came via WI and picked C up and off they went. We agreed upon a set amount of $ a month. And from there we paid them to care for him. We couldn't do it. It was devastating. I had no clue what to do.

We decided to move to Las Vegas (from WI) since C was in UT. I have NEVER wanted to live in Utah...nor will I. I had a friend whose daughter came around the same time my FIL picked C up and she was our babysitter/nanny. They lived in San Jose, CA and were moving to LV also. SO that sounded like a good thing for us.

On Sept. 9, 2001 I flew to CA and spent the next month with my friend Misty. C was in UT. We went to LV and I looked for jobs and apartments.

The end of Oct '01 we packed up and moved to LV. Full of fear, faith and on a prayer.

We had a place to live. Our jobs were no longer there when we got there. On our way there we went threw Utah and saw C and James' parents.

They told us everything was wonderful. He was doing well in school. They had only "one" incident and everything else was great.

Respite...Much Needed...Respite

We were desperate.
We were at the end of our rope.
We needed RESPITE...LONG TERM RESPITE and fast!!

Our attachment therapist had a very good friend in another state who specialized in doing theraputic treatment respite. They also had adopted several children who had their adoptions disrupted.

After several days of new bruises mysteriously appearing on Abi, after several days of attempts to hurt her things became very desperate. We received a call from our therapist to tell us that her friend had an opening and could take C. We needed to take him NOW!!! We didnt' have the $$. We didn't even know how we would get the money. I called the adoption agency/church social services. I spoke to the director. Told him what was going on. They were somewhat aware because we had applied for special needs adoption subsidy (that is another post)...and so they were aware things were bad.

At approx. noon on a Wednesday I received a call from CB...we needed to bring C to them immediately. They had other children on a list. They were going to take him over the otehrs because they knew our situation was bad. They knew that if he wasn't out of our home immediately that something would happen to A. She knw that our Psychiatrist wasn't supportive. She was the ONLY pdoc we could go to and thought that "I" was the problem. Our therapist had done all she could. And this was our last ditch effort.

The director of LDS/SS called our Stake President. He told met hat he wasn't going to tell him th he needed me to. I told him that there was no way that I could 'tell another person'. I was at a point where I couldn't talk about it anymore. So he explained the situation. Pres. B called me immediately and told me that he would meet me after my bus route that afternoon. And we would be able to get the funding needed for the treatment home.

We called CB, took a leave of absense from our jobs, called my family, packed the car....and left that night. We didn't tell C where we were going. We drove through the night. And arrived the next day right before lunch time.

This was the first time we had left our little boy. It was devastating....really devastating....and when I thought this was the "hardest thing" I would have to do as a parent.

BOY WAS I WRONG!!!!