Gearing up for Court

Yesterday the little ones were supposed to have a visit and despite confirming, their mother didn’t show. Earlier in the day my case worker had sent me a heads up email regarding the kiddos having court next Wednesday morning. There was some discussion about whether or not we all had to be there and I asked to be excused because of Love Bug having a follow up appointment with his doctor. When we were at his appointment on Monday he was given an albuterol nebulizer machine because he’s had a chronic cough for a long time and finally had a coughing fit in front of the medical staff. So, we have to go back next week to see how he is doing. I think his wheezing got much worse after using the machine and his cough has not really improved. I called the on-call doctor last night because I was worried I might have to take him to the ER – his case worker was worried about him too. So, the on-call doctor had me do some home remedies (like sitting in a steamy bathroom with him) to help him and his wheezing seemed a little better this morning. But, due to all of this craziness with him I want to be sure to attend his follow-up appointment next week. At first I was told we all needed to be there but then they changed their minds and have excused the children. I’m supposed to be available by phone if there are questions during court. This isn’t a “normal” court hearing, the county is trying to suspend the visits and so they have to provide proof as to why visits are not in the best interest of the children. I know for a fact that it is very hard to get visits totally cancelled, so I think at best we will be looking at a trimmed down visitation schedule (right now it is twice every week for 2 hours each). I guess we will find out next Wednesday. Certainly missing yesterday’s visit is not going to help her case.

When I picked the children up at CHOR yesterday their adoption county case worker was there. I guess she was planning on supervising the visit. The CHOR case worker was also there and she asked if they could both come out to my house next Wednesday to see Primero and talk about finalization. Yes and I’m glad they are because I know we have a lot of questions about where things are at and how much longer we must wait, what more we (ok well, me) must do. I ran into my family worker last week while waiting outside of CHOR for the children’s visit to end. I asked her if she knew where things were at and she said she did not but she would ask for me and get an answer because we deserve that. She did mention that there are things that need to be done that have not yet been done, like up-dating my family profile (since it’s more than a year old now), perhaps up-dating my autobiography, renewing my clearances since they need to be less than a year old, having a physical within the last year, and then paperwork that needs to be done by CHOR for the county. I asked her what I could do to be pro-active and she mentioned the clearances and physical. I need to get the required paperwork to have those things done, since I know they are more than a year old. It would be really nice if I could time it right to not have to re-do it all over again when I adopt Love Bug and Chica Marie. I wonder if the county case worker will still quote the beginning of summer for finalization?