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Thank you, spicedmama. There is certainly no basis for prejudging a family situation when the foster family cannot know whether it has a full or accurate story. And it can't, period, no matter what the cw says, it is not her job or place to keep you fully informed and, moreover, she may not know herself.
In general, on this topic, I think it is important to remember that it does the children no good and does the children real harm to judge their origins or family situation "good" or "bad," etc., even when you do know or think you know. Better to simply look at realities--there or not there, functional or not functional, sober or not sober, healthy or not healthy--than to make judgments of or jump to cynical concusions about a person's or family's worthiness that blow back onto and into the self-esteem and self-image of the child you love.
Sometimes, and it can be unfair to the child as well as the family, social services deliberately does not place with family for many reasons--distance is a big one--that have nothing to do with the family's commitment to the child. Sometimes a child does attach so strongly to the foster family that he/she should stay there. That is still a loss for the child and may be "unfair" to the family--just as it may have been truly unfair to the child to not place him/her with family in the first place. But none of this is about fairness to the adults, or shouldn't be: it should be, at each moment in the case, what's best for that child at that moment and the responsible adults' best judgment on long-term.
I think everybody does their best. I think mistakes get made. I think no matter what happens, there is some kind of loss and some kind of gain out of situations that never "should" have happened in the first place. We can only hope that the second outweighs the first for the children.
mamaS's comment, I think, is a bit far-fetched although perhaps her experience, if that is her experience, is the anecdotal exception to the rule. Most families, unless they have other experience with the system (I was a volunteer parent mentor for ss, for example, long before fostering a relative), really don't think in terms of the issues the child would bring into their home, at least not at first, and usually, I think, not until after being counseled on it.
It's a stressful time. You clearly care a great deal about this baby. I hope things work out well for the baby and your family.
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