[DianeScraps]

I had really gotten to a point where I thought we could just deal with things, that were fairly normal and just in the household stuff.

Oldest dd had requested that I try and find her birthfather so she could have a picture, and I knew I needed to contact the birthfamily so that any siblings can be checked for the hip dysplasia that DD just had to have surgery for. (the half sister that we have has already been checked, and blessidly does not have the same issue). Well I went to the easiest way for me to check on him. Court records. And he has a new charge, endanering the welfare of a child in his custody , and he plead guilty, and was back in jail. So now I know I really didn't want to deal with him directly, but I still need to contact whomever has custody of this child. So I call the DA, I get one of those "I can't tell you anything, but call CYS", so I call CYS (different county then we went through) , and I get in the endless voicemail loop, can't really blame them, I don't know the child's name, child's birthmom name, and birthdad has a TON of aliases, arrrrg! So I go back to our adoption worker, and request that she since has the birth siblings name, could she please contact the other county and hook us up with the right case worker. That took two more weeks, got word yesterday that she found the right social worker, but that she is on vacation until next week.

Sometime next week I will hopefully find out the status of my dd's half sibling(s?) I pray that the child is safe, and in a long term situation with family. But we have always promised our girls that if one of their siblings ended up in foster care, we would be a resource for adoption. We have no problem with adding a child(ren) to the family, we just hate idea of dealing with social workers again (the private agency we went through was a nightmare)

Then I try and get oldest DD a library card, they match up her old card from when she lived with birthfamily. And POW, can't issue a card, she owes $272 in overdue fines and replacement books and videos, from when she was 4 (2002), oh and what was taken out was not things a 4 yr old would want - like the Lord of Rings Movie. So I get tossed around between managers, I am not even asking for them to erase the debt (I feel they should be repaid for it) but would they please transfer it to the birthmothers - ACTIVE- library card, she signed for financial obligation for dd to get that card! They want me to call birthmother and have her return the books and videos, You've gotta be kidding right?!?!? She has been in and out of jail no less then 6 times since then, she has nothing. But I call the birthmom.

In birthmom's defense, she went, in person, directly to the library, explained that she no longer had custody of the child, and didn't have the books or videos. They are removing the overdue fees, and she is saying she will pay off the replacement costs, not holding my breath on that, but more then I expected.

BUT to add just one more thing, apparently the library took my dd to small claims court - a 4 yr old child! ! ! ! Now I've gotta make calls tomorrow to find out about this.

[lucyjoy]

Took s 4 year old to small claims court? Um, a four year old can't be bound by a contract. What a bunch of nuts! Sorry they are in your life like that!

[ProspectiveSingleMom]

I know of a case where a kid had bad credit from her mom registering the phone bill in her name when she was 4 and then not paying it, but I would think that since the library obviously knew your daughter was only 4 they would have to go after the parent who signed for the card. Besides that, what kind of library takes people to small claims court over fines anyway!?!

[DianeScraps]

Update

We did finally get contact from the county CYS worker.

My DDs sibling has had parental rights terminated and is already in a preadoptive home. The county was not aware that the birthfather had already had rights terminated in another county.

The child is being placed with 4 additional siblings (same birthmom, different birthdads). And the child doesn't even know who her real birthfather is . . . or that she has another sister.

The child will be getting Xrays to make sure she doesn't have the hip dysplaisa that my DD has. And we are going to send a letter for the child to recieve when it is appropriate for her to be told the truth about her birthfamily and sibling.

My DD was upset that her sister doesn't know about her, but pleased that she was at least already in a pre-adoptive home.


Oh, and we found out yesterday that domestic relations is still handling back child support for BOTH kids, so if they can match up that he has two kids, why can't CYS ??

Though honestly, I admit, we could not have taken 5 more kids, and it would have been very painfull to actually have to say that to the county.