A Failure of Imagination

There's a beautiful print hanging in our pediatrician's office with this quotation

"In my dream, the angel shrugged and said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of the imagination, and she gently placed the world in the palm of my hand."

Failure of the Imagination keeps running through my head, two days after we delivered H. to his new foster family.

We've struggled for months to reach him, to gain a sense of how best to help him realize and then remember right from wrong. We have come finally to the painful realization that his behaviors pose a danger to the other young children in our home, and while we've managed to maintain their safety thus far, the risk is too great without the promise of answers and strategies in the near future.

We have cried and begged the system to get him the testing and services he deserves, only to be denied a neuropsych. evaluation by the state. The testing we've arranged on our own has shown severe deficits in short-term memory and understanding of spoken language. Which explains why he continues to act out as he does, feels genuinely sorry when corrected and then does it again.

We've asked for respite care, so we could sleep well and think through this and we've been denied.

We asked for help transporting H. to the many therapist and psychologist appointments one to two and a half hours away from our home and we've been denied.

We've begged for some help in finding a way to keep him our son, and we've been told "you're on your own."

just a failure of imagination


He also now has a diagnosis of ADHD and a possible seizure disorder to be explored. We've gained him a referral for special education testing, again fighting the system in the form of his own social worker who was, she told the special education team, "content to wait for the neuropsych. we're still working on getting."

I keep comforting myself that we did accomplish a lot of forward movement for him in 6 short months.

He has our hearts, but he needs a placement where he can be the only focus and his many needs can be met. And we need to live in house without video monitors and the constant fear that we'll miss something. We need some normalcy for the six other children in our care.

We've met these new parents and we were at peace--he will settle in quickly and adapt well I think. The mom brought him to his final soccer game today so he could get his trophy and see his team and us. Great!

Then she told me her plans to enroll in in the same private school where Foster Mother From Hell teaches and that passed him through kindergarten last year with flying colors! I told her all I know about this toxic woman and I began to wonder if she thinks I'm CRAZY!

I feel sick.