Gray Areas of Confidentiality

I could drive myself and my licensing worker crazy with questions about what's okay and not okay for confidentiality and identifying photos, but three and a half years into fostering, we just try to make a reasonable effort, which sometimes means being very cautious and sometimes going with some "good enoughs."  An example of what "good enough" looks like:

Friend at church takes family photo for a hallway that has photos of all the church members (it's a very small church).
Foster parents aren't really thinking about confidentiality because kids are squirmy, I'm not having a good day, and let's just get this done.
Friend says, "Oh no, he held that big cookie up in front of his face."
Foster parents pause and say, "Actually, that's perfect."

So, now we have the cookie picture hanging up in the church hallway.

Family photo revelation

I've argued with myself on professional family photos now and then. 

I'm not a person who needs family photos to send at Christmas every year.  But I do like to have them every few years.  When we became foster parents, that became more complicated.  We could include foster children, but some stayed briefly and wouldn't be included.  It would feel strange to have Crocodile in a family photo session but not Cricket, or Pterodactyl but not Beetle.  While we've done an amateur family photo with each foster child, to do a full session with each placement would have been impractical. 

But at the same time, we've been fostering over three years.  I wanted some family photos during that time.  One session happened because we were out of town visiting family and Pterodactyl was in respite, so a family member did a session for us.  But even that was three years ago now.  And it does feel uncomfortable and wrong to have family photos that don't include children that we view as part of our family, and that our kids view as part of our family.  I figured we would do a photo session once Crocodile moved, but I felt half-hearted about it.  It doesn't feel right to wait for a child to leave so you can cut him out of the photos.

Then it hit me today.  The handprints.  We have each child make a handprint on a small canvas square painted in a solid color.  The first three are in this post.  We would have a picture of us holding the handprints.  We could line up, holding the canvasses in our hands, like we still hold on to these children as a part of our family.

Because we do.  Today at Bible study a woman prayed a prayer about the pain of separation from those we love.  Cricket popped into my mind and I was instantly in tears.

I love the idea of this photo, and I love that I'm looking forward to it.  We miss out a lot on the excitement of looking forward in foster care because of all the uncertainty.  But this, this I think we can manage.

Picture

I took a picture of Crocodile to send to the caseworker just to document a bump on his head he got at daycare.

He looked up at me and grinned from ear to ear.  I looked back at it, and it is just perfect.  It captures his energy, his joy, his little heart full of love.  It is classic 3-year-old boy, and yet totally uniquely him at the same time.  I want to share it with the world.  I want to shout it from the rooftops.  I want to scream that this is my kid.

And I want to hide from the world when I think of goodbye.

It will probably be the cover of his book when he leaves.

Sometimes when the pictures are so good, they immediately hurt.

Lessons Learned: Videos

It felt strange, taking so many pictures of this newborn that was not mine.  Of course it was appropriate and important, as the pictures I took would be the ones of this stage of her life.  But at the same time, I felt like I should not be the one with this role.  And it honestly did not come naturally, as I was still bonding with her, and I couldn't look forward to sharing the pictures I took with my family and friends.  Instead, I handed prints off to parents who may or may not say thank you.  I did my best, and we gave her grandma a photo book and CD of the pictures, plus we kept a copy of the photo book.  Those photo books have been wonderful for my biological kids to remember and talk about foster children who have been in our home, and those who have received the books as children have moved have been grateful.


But what I did not realize is how much I would treasure the few video clips I had.


I love little videos of my biological kids when they were younger, reminding me of their antics and how they have changed.  I sometimes try to interrupt tantrums by taking a video of them, which doesn't always work but provides pretty funny videos for later viewing.  But for foster children, I have grasped to these videos like nothing else.  There is something about the sound and action that helps reassure me: this was all real.  You loved this child with all your heart as he lived in your home, living and breathing.  Your house had this little person in it, with all her personality.  You can see him in your home.  You can see her in your arms, looking around, looking at you.


The photos may be the most important for the child and others, but one lesson I've learned is that the videos are very precious to me, and to take lots of them.  Even just sitting and waiting for to pick up Dinosaur has been a good time for it.

Baby feet, baby tummy

No, that is definitely not my photography.  A friend did a newborn session for Beetle for me at a discount.  They're gorgeous pictures, and make me regret not doing this for Pterodactyl or even my bio boys.  I was always too overwhelmed with the newborn stage to schedule anything like this, and balked at the cost, but at least I've learned my lesson.  Beetle's mom is really excited to see them.  I'm feeling especially happy about them.  With a newborns in foster care, everyone tends to pity them, and it seems like their identities are a bit lost among their stories (or presumed stories).  I feel like the photos really captured this funny little guy and gave me a chance to celebrate who he is now, even if we don't really get to know him as anyone but a newborn.

Beetle's sister moved to a foster family she lived with before.  I'd been told that they weren't going to work out as a placement, but one way or another they changed their minds, and they'll be taking Beetle soon as well.  No word on the timeline yet, so we may just have a few days, or a few weeks.  I can understand either way: do they move him now before he gets older and more attached to us, or do they wait so that he has some consistency in care during withdrawal?  I'm sure it's up to the foster family as well; I haven't met them yet.  I have no idea if they were planning on this many kids, and I feel a bit sheepish that we said no to taking his sister, even though I think it was the right decision.  We almost had Beetle's sister with us for this weekend for respite because things were still a bit up in the air Friday yet they didn't want her to stay with Grandma longer, but it worked out for her to go to the foster family right away.  It was an afternoon rush of phone class and plans to move beds all around our house that ended with some relief that she wasn't coming after all.  Now I'm extra relieved, because Beetle went from fussy to fussy squared.

Thank you to those that commented on reflux.  I brought it up at his doctor's appointment last week, but didn't have many incidents of arching to report and we thought we'd just keep an eye on it.  Well, he has been quite fussy the past few days, doing more arching, , more screaming at night, more inconsistent feedings.  Sometimes I'm still not sure it's reflux because he sometimes just seems gassy, but it's something digestive.  His birth mom was also concerned about it and wants him on the formula his sister was on.  We'll be back at the doctor on Thursday, so hopefully we'll be able to ease the discomfort some then.  B mentioned he read the comments, so now I know he's reading the blog.  Guest post!  Guest post!

Goodbye traditions: plans and reality

Merry Christmas!  A week ago we said our goodbyes to Pterodactyl, then left the next morning for Canada.  We spent Christmas with B's family, busy with the boys' little cousins, a little playing in the snow, a lot of church.  Pterodactyl never came with us on a trip there, so it felt mostly normal to be there with just the two boys.  I did miss her, and felt an emptiness at the way it sometimes felt like she had never been a part of our family.  We came home to a message that all was well with her placement with her grandma, and she will stay there as an official move.  So, I'm relieved that she won't have the back-and-forth I'd feared, but it's still a little unreal.  I kept thinking today that I should be taking her to her Friday morning visit.  Last night I found myself almost asking B if he had brought up the bottles for nighttime feedings.  It was a seven-month-old habit.

I thought I'd write up some ways we were intentional about our first goodbye, the plans and the reality.


Visual Reminders
I wanted to have visual reminders that Pterodactyl was a part of our family and borrowed two ideas that I liked.  A good friend of mine that's a foster parent made small canvas squares painted bright colors with a handprint done in white.  I had all the supplies ready back in November when I thought she was moving, and there they sat for two months.  So, last Friday I rushed to get it all ready, and Dinosaur wanted to be involved in the painting and choosing of colors.  Maybe I should have asked my friend what paint she used, as ours turned out a little more rough and sloppy.  I still like them, though now I'm thinking of redecorating the nursery so that a random selection of colors blends in a little better.  Left is Dinosaur, middle is Rhinoceros, and right is Pterodactyl.

Our other visual reminder idea comes from Karen at Nuggets from the Nut House: buying two Christmas ornaments, one to go with the child and one to decorate the tree for years to come to remember each foster child placed with us.  Hallmark happened to have the perfect ornament this year for Pterodactyl and her lovely chocolate skin.  I found it sometime in November and planned to get around to going to a store and picking it up, only to find that one should not wait for Hallmark ornaments.  Suddenly they were out of stock online, and as I called around, five local stores were sold out.  I found one with two remaining ornaments and made sure the clerk put them aside for me to pick up ASAP.  What I didn't expect with this tradition is how it would help my bio kids process the goodbye.  I showed Dinosaur how we wrapped up one ornament to go with Pterodactyl and open with her grandma.  Then I told him when Pterodactyl is older and asks about the ornament, her grandma could tell her about us and how we loved her and took care of her.  I can't promise that this will actually happen, but Dinosaur soaked it up and seemed very comforted by the possibility.

Pictures
I planned to have a photobook of Pterodactyl to give to her grandma (and print an extra for us to keep), and a family picture of us including Pterodactyl taken close to when she moved.  Well, the book is mostly up-to-date, but since we only had a day's notice she was going to her grandma and then went out of town, I still need to finish it and print it.  We did manage a family picture by the Christmas tree, but we had to use the camera on a timer and ended up with one with the flash that makes us look a bit washed out and scary, and one without the flash in which I'm blurry.  Oh well, they'll do.


Goodbye Celebration
We hoped to invite friends and my brother and sister-in-law (the only family that lives nearby) over to have a little goodbye open house with dessert and a chance to see Pterodactyl before she moved.  Yeah, this didn't happen due to short notice.  I've had to just send e-mail updates with pictures and that will have to be enough.  Most did know that anytime they saw her in the past two months could be the last, so I don't think anyone was blindsided by it.  I think a party would have been good for Dinosaur and Rhinoceros to understand what was happening, though.

Taking a Day Off
We had hoped that we would be able to take a day off when a foster child moved, so that we could all be there for the goodbye and just to make sure we had enough family time.  By coincidence, B had taken the day off because he had some paid days off to use up before the new year, I didn't work that day, and Dinosaur's school was closed because of an ice storm.  So, that made it easy!  We were all there to say goodbye, though I had the boys just say goodbye from the minivan.  Everyone got to give a kiss, and we drove home.  Then the power went out at our house shortly before bedtime, and instead of drowning my mixed emotions in internet and TV, I finished wrapping gifts by lantern light and read with candles and silence.  I didn't know I needed that silence, but it was peaceful.  And I liked imagining that the house was acknowledging something had changed and decided to shut things off for awhile.

Glimpses of Pterodactyl

I'll be honest, I'm not going to post many photos because I'm not that organized and I don't have a smart phone or DSLR.  I assume people who post six photos per day on their blogs have such things.  But since a lot of my posts have been wrestling with challenges of foster parenting, I thought I'd add some lighthearted non-identifiable glimpses of Pterodactyl.

 

Pterodactyl says, "Hedgehogs are the new owls."

Recording a foster child's life

Pterodactyl is still here, and I haven't heard anything new about her moving to her grandma.  The caseworker said it could be very soon, it could be weeks still.

So, I've started preparing for her move.  I'm replenishing many of her supplies like bottles and pacifiers to make sure she has plenty of the right kind, but mostly I've been working on her life book/baby book.  It's a bit of a combination, as life books often involve the child in sharing their thoughts and feelings about their foster/adoption story.  For children adopted as babies or very young, it provides a story of their transition from birth family or orphanage to adoptive family.  It might involve information on the birth family.  In our case, Pterodactyl will be with her birth family, her maternal grandma.  She will be the resource for family information, not my limited knowledge.  I considered just making it a book with photos and generic captions, but I wanted Pterodactyl to have a bit more than that.  She is the only one of her siblings that went into non-relative foster care.  What if later in life she's confused about that and has fears that one of those notorious in-it-for-the-money foster families took care of her?  What if she just feels like those months were lost while her grandma can tell stories about her brothers?

So, I'm telling a little about what she was like as a newborn and an infant.  I'm using two pages to show our family, cautious not to overwhelm her or her grandma with the presence of our family, but including us for who we are.  A note about how Dinosaur told the social worker every week at visits without fail, "She is such a cute baby."  A note telling the name the Rhinoceros called her, unable to pronounce her real name.  I'll include a letter from me that I haven't written yet.  I hope to end it with pictures from a good-bye party.  I hope we have enough warning for a good-bye party.

I hope whatever the grandma has been through (and I honestly don't know a lot of it) doesn't make her want to hide Pterodactyl's beginnings.  I hope Pterodactyl sees this book when she's older and somehow knows she had a loving home.

I hope we make it through this.