Never-ending Court

I am so thankful we didn’t have to be in court on Wednesday. Court was supposed to be held at 10 am. I text my case worker around 12:15 to see if the children had a visit. She said they had just been excused and asked to come back at 1 since they still hadn’t been before the judge. The county case worker sent me an email at 3:30 telling me there would not be a visit. The CHOR case worker and the county case worker were supposed to come over Wednesday evening to talk to Primero about finalization. I text the CHOR case worker at 5:30 to see if she was still coming. Primero called her and she responded at 5:45 stating she had just gotten out of court. She spent the ENTIRE day sitting around waiting for the court hearing. I would have been livid.

When I spoke with the case worker she told me that things did not go as planned. Not only did they have to wait around the entire day, but the kids bio mom did not show up to court. When one of the case workers called her they found out she went to CHOR thinking the kids had a visit. She did go to the court house as asked but declined to participate since she didn’t think she was dressed appropriately. So, they proceeded with the hearing without her. Apparently the mom’s lawyer was gruff with Chica Marie’s therapist when she was testifying and so she became flustered and didn’t give the best responses, thus muddying the waters in terms of understanding how the child reacts to visits. Because of this and because the mom didn’t show up at the hearing, the judge refused to suspend the visits. He did cut them down from twice weekly for two hours to once every two weeks for two hours. Everyone agreed this issue was not really resolved and so another hearing was set for June 19^th and the CHOR case worker thinks the county will ask me to testify. I’ve never had to do that before and while I’m not looking forward to it, I’m not particularly intimidated by it either. I have had to do a lot of public speaking, even as a teenager, so that doesn’t scare me. And, after surviving some highly embarrassing moments trying to flub my way through things in Spanish, it’s hard to get me rattled when speaking to a group. Honestly, the reason I would not want to do it is because I hate saying these things in front of the child’s mother. I do want to prepare and think about the things I would want to say so it is fresh in my mind. I certainly hope the mom’s lawyer does not get aggressive with me, but if he does I can remain calm and respond clearly. I think it would be in poor taste for him to try to speak rudely to a foster parent, but nothing would surprise me when it comes to foster care.