Today I Lost the Guilt and Found the Rage

I have felt terribly the last few days. I felt like I was kidnapping The Babe from his family, from people who want him, from people who love him.

After hours of meetings with many people involved in The Babe's case, those feelings are gone. Instead, I am furious.

As far as I'm concerned, the hearing can't come fast enough. I won't be going to the hearing. My attorney will be there, three social workers from my agency will be there, The Babe's attorney ad litem will be there, The Babe's case worker and two of her supervisors will be there. We'll get word right away -- my lawyer has three cell phones, one line goes to a phone that is courtroom-permitted because it doesn't have a camera.

My emotions tonight are ugly. I'm proxy-mummy enraged. There are MANY extended family members with the stability and ability to raise The Babe, but none of those people want to do it. As far as his relatives who desire to parent him, the least objectionable is a person who is currently jailed pending trial for a "third strike."

The Babe will never be (all sorts of horrible things deleted). I might be making this mommy stuff up as I go, and sometimes it feels like I really suck at it, but even at my most-clueless, this child will be safe. We will protect him. We will love him.

...............

I will regain my equanimity. I do want the best for The Babe's family, but now, and for the last three years, they haven't put him above themselves. I am so sorry this is happening to them, but I am more sorry for the things that they have done to (and not done for) The Babe. I wish this weren't happening, that things hadn't happened, but now I need to focus on what is, in my and the state's mind, the way to keep this child safe, and his family cannot do that. They've treated him worse than a junkyard dog, and they can't even see it. Mom thinks that, since The Babe was only removed from her (this last time) five weeks ago, she's still on vacation time before she begins to work the plan again in another seven or so months. She wants to be a mom for two months out of every eighteen, and she's about to be (most likely, that is) disabused of her perception that CPS is some sort of live-out nanny.

.................

I just got a little angry again while typing that. I've been holding it in so I don't worry the baby. On Monday I cried in front of him, and he thought it meant he was leaving ("No go! No leave me!"). I've got family coming tomorrow, which will give me a few hours on my own so I can work on really releasing or reforming these feelings.