[waited2long]

Tudu you are a truly loving mother! I just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you for standing by all of your kids!

[AmyAnne]

You're in my prayers. May I just say, you are an AWESOME MOMMY!

[Tudu]

I am going to discuss things with our agency this morning and see how to get services for her befeore and after. They are so good to us I completely trust their opinion on waiting to finalize. We didn't hear back from anyone yesterday on who to call for the assessment so I am on it this morning with a vengence. I have no problem holding things off a bit to work this out if they feel we have a better chance of getting help.

[chelspark1]

You are in my prayers Tudu. What a wonderful mother you are.
My daughter who is 13 was also SA. She wants to start babysitting and this is concern to me. I hate having to feel this way.

[Tudu]

Good news, the AT center called and agreed to change therapists, they agreed she is in over her head and the owner is taking over. We know other families that have worked with him and this is the best possible outcome. To add to that, the lady that came out is an expert in dealing with sexual abuse and she will be in charge of helping us keep the house safe and doing the assessment on our dd.

Our agency took alot of time this morning helping us work through what we should do about the finalization this week. After reading your advice I worried about her treatment options afterward. Our agency has committed to us and our AT they will remain involved until we all decide they can back off. That helped me but not my child. They also think that not finalizing will send the message that we are thinking about whether we really want her and if you do bad things you might not stay. We all agree we think we can keep the home safe with help from different professionals and we do not want to send that message. The last thing we were concerned about were the sevices that would bot be available to her if we did. They made the point that the county the kids are from is extremely poor and so further assistance is miminal at best. Once we finalize the resources come from the state level which is a much bigger pool to draw from. They are fully prepared to help us retain whatever services the AT thinks we will need, even if the state does not cover things, they will help. They have helped us so much along the way that I can not even begin to describe the financial and emotional support they have given that was above and beyond their responsibility. One of the main reasons I trust their opinion on this is the owner and the Asst Director both are adoptive parents of Special Needs kids, they have walked in my shoes and know how to help and what I need long before I know to ask.

[Lylac]

Tudu, Thats wonderful news!! I'm glad things are being worked out for ya'll.

[skirbo]

Tudu, you and yours are in my thoughts. Hugs to you all.

Sarah

[momraine]

Prayers going up here too. What a way to show her that you will love her no matter what. My son still questions that and I worry about how far he will go to test that out.

[Kansas Girl]

Here I go again with a post against the grain…..

This thread has been bothering me for the last couple of days. I have hesitated to post because I understand how difficult this is for you right now and you probably won’t want to hear what I have to say. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I cannot keep silent. I offer my opinion from the perspective of my own experience, and from the perspective of what we now know R went through after being sexually abused by his older sister while in a foster home.

Let me give you my concern, using R’s experience as an example. As far as we know now, his abuse “only” occurred in the birth home and in the first foster home. For all we know, even with door alarms, etc. it could have happened at our house also, as the placement in our home started out with both R and his sister A. Having said that, even if the sexual abuse did stop in that first foster home, when they came to live with us the emotional abuse (blackmail) and intimidation by A continued and was readily apparent, along with what we saw as crossing the line from sibling rivalry into physical abuse (A as the perpetrator). At this point in time, no one, not even the children's caseworker, knew about the sexual abuse, except for the foster parent that R did tell, and they didn't tell anyone - R finally told us about it just last year. Regardless of who knew what when, it was not healthy for R to continue to live in that environment, and as adoptive parents we felt that even if we were able to find the right help for A, we would have been parties to that abuse continuing while we waited to see if she was going to make any progress – we just couldn’t allow that level of dysfunction in our home. Being able to give one child a shot at a better life versus ending up with two very damaged children was important to us. The children’s caseworker agreed with us completely, and we disrupted on A. Even if there is no further sexual abuse, what will the younger siblings have to go through while the older sib heals, if she is even able to make any changes to herself? How much would any AT be able to keep up with that, especially with multiple sibs? From my own experience, having to live with my father (and an older brother who also abused me) even after the abuse stopped was incredibly grim for me….I know that in itself, above and beyond the outright abuse, extracted its toll from me.

Keeping siblings together is one of those noble efforts. Sometimes it shouldn’t be done. R has no desire whatsoever to have any contact with his sister – I can’t imagine him wanting any unless it’s when he’s much older (i.e. 40, 50, 60 yrs. old) and wants to confront her. I have no desire to put myself through confronting neither my parents or my brother as they still maintain that nothing ever happened to anyone in our family.

Again, my opinion based on (let's call it what it is) the real life hell of being sexually abused and of also seeing my younger sister abused. I know every situation is different and you have to do what is right for your family. I consider it one of God’s twisted jokes (and also a gift) that He would send us a child who had been sexually abused. It was a heck of a way to get healing in my own life. I suspected R’s situation before he told me – I got him to tell me what had happened to him by telling him that I had been abused also. Our AT did not like that – he said it was TMI for R, but overall I still say it has helped as R says that I can understand what he has gone through since I went through it myself, and that understanding does help him open up to me about his feelings and what happened to him. Separating him and his sister has been the best thing to happen to him in his life - getting away from A has been a huge part of his healing.

offered with my prayers for you –

Fran

[ajjhmf]

Fran has some very valid points.

D, J's older brother, ended up being removed from our home after 4 different psycho-sexual evaluations that stated he needed to be out of home to heal. And once he was, we were able to see the full extent of the power D had over J. Although I miss D and love him, I don't regret that he no longer lives with us. J would not be the same had he not.

Not all siblings can live together. Sometimes the trauma bond is just so unhealthy than neither of them can heal while they are together.

Tudu, I know your agency is promising you the moon, but everything changes once you sign those final papers. I would seriously consider holding off on finalizing until the eval is done. We found out that the abuse was far worse than we thought through the course of the evals. This is all really new to you and not everything may be known. Yes, it does send her a message opposit of what you are feeling right now, but what if everything comes back and that she really can't live at home with her siblings. I just advise you to wait until everything is back from the assessments, because unless you have it in writing that they will do x, y and z for her, then they might not.

[lovemy6]

We didn't learn the extent of the abuse by my son against his siblings until he was in RTC for six months. We also didn't find out the extent of his SA by his birth family until he was in treatment for a year. I'm sure you don't know a miniscule of what's happened to your kids at this point.

My family has been through he)) and back in the last years. We have worked hard through it and we have been RU, but our family is still under stress. Things are betting better, but only after almost two years of RTC and weekly therapy for all the family members.

[Tudu]

These are the exact things we have sruggled with over the last week. Can we, should we, etc. The court postponed the finalization today due to our background checks not being in yet. It was a huge relief. Now we can get things done and not feel horribly rushed to make a final decision.