Becky's Story:

My husband and I are raising our grand daughter Haily. In March of 2004,  when she was almost 3 years old, her mother and father (my stepson)  separated. Her dad was barely ever there and was violent with her mother, although we did not learn of this until after the separation because he was arrested for domestic violence. We found out after the fact that he was  heavy into drug use and would even steal the bill money right out of his wife's wallet to buy drugs and then tell her that it was up to her to find  the money to pay the bills. Right after they separated, we were very  supportive of him, helping with court appearance and custody. Within a  week of them separating, her mother met a man in the park and immediately had him  move into her home.

In June 2004 there was a hearing for custody. Just two days prior to the  hearing, my grand daughter was at a visit with her dad at his mother's  home. While giving her a bath, it was noticed that her entire behind and hips had  many bruises on them. When her dad and other grandmother did nothing, I could not stand by and called our local CPS office, who did an  investigation  and the mother admitted beating her with a belt because she was  disrespectful. They made the mom go to parenting classes and became  involved. The outcome of the custody hearing was shared custody, a week  with mom, a week with dad.  The CPS office then opened a case and monitored my grand daughter at both  parents houses. Haily became very withdrawn, would cry when she had to go  back to her mother's home and would always ask if her mother's boyfriend  would be there. It broke our hearts to send her back every week, but  there  was a custody order and we had to return her.

 In November of 2004, my stepson decided that it was too overwhelming to  have custody of her and petitioned the court to give primary custody to her  mother. This knocked visits down to every other weekend.

 In January 2005, CPS was getting ready to close the the case as it had  been approximately 6 months and there were no other obvious abuses against my grand daughter. That was definitely a mistake. On January 31, 2005 her mother was working and the boyfriend was taking care of her. He held her hands under scolding  hot water, for what reason is unclear, and did not seek medical attention  for her. When her mother returned home later in the evening, she and her  boyfriend took my grand daughter to the emergency room. Instantly the doctors realized that the burns from the scolding hot water were not an accident. You could actually see a finger marks of where her hands had  been held. The staff at the hospital immediately called the police and CPS.

CPS  took custody of my grand daughter immediately and placed her in protective custody. She had to spend the night in the hospital and then for the next  two months had to go to the doctor every couple of days to have the  dressings  on her hands changed. When she was removed from her mother and boyfriend,  the boyfriend kept saying that he was not going to jail for this.

As soon as we found out that she was taken into custody of CPS, we called  them and they informed us that they could not tell us where she was  because she was in protective custody.  Her mom and dad were then allowed supervised visits within CPS and were given a family plan of some things they had to do. Mom had to submit to drug testing, take parenting classes, provide a home, and leave the  boyfriend. She did everything except leave the boyfriend. Her dad had to submit to drug testing, provide a home, take anger management classes, and  obtain a driver's license. He could not pass a drug test, has yet to get a driver's license, would only go to anger management classes a week  before any hearings, and never passed a drug test.  My granddaughter was then in a foster home for almost a year when CPS approached my husband and myself to take her into our home as kinship  foster parents. After we came to realize that neither parent would step up, we  agreed because the next step would have been to terminate each parent's  rights and then place her for adoption. We did not feel that it was fair  that because they did not step up that we would lose the right to see our grand daughter.

Since she did not previously live with us, my husband and I had to go through the whole foster parenting process, which we did. It took us about  4 months to do so and in the meantime our grand daughter would come and spend Sundays with us. On January 22, 2006 she came to live with us and has been here ever since.

Her mother continued to stay with the boyfriend and her dad continues to abuse drugs, has since had another child that his new girlfriend's aunt is  raising and they will have another within the next month. When my granddaughter came to live with us, she was so happy. She continued with counseling and became very trusting of my husband and me. She  then began to talk about the abuse that she endured. Not only were the  tops of hands burned by her mother's boyfriend, but he beat her with a belt almost every day, locked her in a closet, locked her in her bedroom, gave her hot showers and laughed at her, and sexually molested her. All of  this occurred before she was even 4 years old.

We have fought hard to see that justice would prevail even though we did not  have the help of either of her parents. I have testified in court and she  has spoken to the judge in chambers. When the case was getting ready to go  to trial, he took a plea bargain and now is in state prison. During the  sentencing phase of this, the only one that stood up to say anything in  the  defense of my granddaughter was my husband and I.

Her mother continued to stay with him even after he went to prison, but after about a month she had a new man twice her age living with her. We expect that we will be raising our granddaughter for the duration. She  is a great kid and has suffered more abuse than any person should have to in  a lifetime. She currently has supervised visits with her mother 3 hours a  month and her father has chosen not to request visitation from the courts.  He is very angry and unfortunately we do not speak hardly at all. I have  put some restrictions on him, one to be drug free and to be consistent  with  his daughter. He cannot even be consistent with phone calls and he says the  reason is because he is angry at us.

I never thought that at the age of 52 and 45 that my husband and I would  be raising another child. We do this for no other reason than to give our  granddaughter a loving and stable home where she can thrive and know that she is loved.

Update on my story.

Well there is now another baby in the mix of all of this. I spoke to my stepson about a month ago and he is now saying that I am keeping his daughter, my grand daughter Haily, away from him. He currently has 4 warrants for his arrest for nonpayment of child support and continues to use drugs, but I am the bad guy in this situation. Go figure. He and his girlfriend had another baby last month and the only way that I found out about it was that someone told me. My stepson has yet to mention this to me. I had to inform my grand daughter of this and her reaction was, "Now I have another brother I have to take care of." She is going to be 7 next week and I just find this so sad, it's as if she knows that the baby will not be taken care of...On a positive note, she will 7 next week and is the most happy, beautiful and loving little girl that you could ever meet.

David & Jeanette

We too have found ourselves raising three grandchildren, ages six, two, and one. What an experience this has been. This began 6 1/2 years ago. Our daughter to our shame has been on crack cocaine since the oldest was around 6 months old. The father is also on drugs. They are not married and our daughter was living with us when she became pregnant. She left when the oldest was 5 months old. We did not know about the drugs then. When we found out we refused to let them take him for visits. They called the police and DSS got involved. At that time DSS gave us a paper saying we had temporary custody. I found out later it was not worth the paper it was written on.

After a few years our daughter became pregnant again. The father is unknown. DSS allowed her to take the baby and go to a rehab. She abandoned the baby at 3 1/2 months. We were given guardianship by a judge for this child. They could not give me guardianship of the oldest because it was in a different county. 

One year later she had another child and DSS did not step in. She "seemed" to be doing better so we kept a close eye on her. Unfortunately she abandoned this child at 6 months. DSS stepped in and took custody of the oldest and the youngest. They still live in my home, but we have been to court many times in the last few months. DSS wants to work with the parents to reunify the family. One thing wrong with this is the oldest child’s dad had not been in the picture until DSS contacted him, and he showed up wanting visitation. He has a criminal record a mile long and is on intensive probation. The judge gave him one hour a week supervised visits in my home. After 3 weeks the judge gave him unsupervised visits once a week. My husband and I had no say in the matter. 

My daughter and the dads were given court appointed lawyers. We were not given the time of day. The same day the judge did this I hired a lawyer to the tune of 1,500.00 to start with. Thank God they take plastic. We are praying God will grant us the grace to handle whatever the outcome. After all God is big enough.

Diane

I am 42 years old and have been a widow since March 12, 2001 the day my husband committed suicide and left me to raise our two girls (who are now 13 and14), a daughter from a previous relationship (22), and son from his previous marriage, also 22. After 4 years of putting my life back together with my younger daughters, my oldest daughter and his son moved out of the house. I now have kinship (custody) of my 8 month old granddaughter. I have had her since she was a day old. My daughter had tested positive for drugs when giving birth and the baby has been placed with me ever since. My daughter is still with the father of the baby and I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel of her turning her life around and caring for her child. I feel very conflicted presently as this life altering change has left me with a new life, not the one I had had and was very happy with. I enjoyed going to my girls sports activities, shopping with them, sleeping in on the weekends till noon, going out to lunch or dinner at a moments notice, going to college (I was in the process of getting a degree), and now I am back to changing diapers, being up at 6 a.m. everyday and the stress and strain of raising a baby. I love my granddaughter and would never have made a different decision other than taking her and raising her, but I mourn for the life I had built with my girls after the devastating loss we suffered 4 years ago. I have tried and tried to get my daughter on the right path and now I am resigned to the fact that she never will. I resent her for getting pregnant, having a child, and pushing her onto me to raise when I already am still raising two daughters. I also feel she has intruded on their lives as well, as I am not as involved as I would like to be in their lives because of caring for my 8 month old granddaughter. It's very overwhelming at times and I feel that the stress and strain are now taking a toll on my other daughters. With prayer and God's help I hope I can do the best I can for all my girls. I am thankful for the chance to tell my story as it does help to hear others, as well as be Nana to beautiful Serena Nicole

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Shylia

I  live near Placerville, California and am a grandmother of 2 beautiful girls ages 1 and 2. They have both been with me pretty much since birth. They are my 22-year-old son's children and they are beautiful. My son had the oldest one until she was 7 months old until Mom bit her, then CPS came and took her. In the 7 months she was with them, I had her 99 percent of the time, and when she wasn’t with me I worried constantly...for so many different reasons, abuse, neglect, starvation. Her mother would not feed her; she ignored her and never bonded with her. My son tried, but he is very immature and just not into parenting. The baby came to me and then went to Foster Care. I had to have my fingerprints taken, a background check done, and my house checked out before I could keep her. I was furious with the system. Finally after two months, she was back home with me. Yeah!! Boy what a nightmare it has been, court date after court date.

Then the news came, another baby. I about went crazy not knowing what to do. I was so tired because Kirsten kept me up at night. That had been her schedule, awake at night and asleep during the day, because that is what Mom and Dad did. It took me a month and a half just to get her in a crib and to sleep at night.

When the next baby was born, a girl, Mom would not let me go up to the hospital and see her. CPS took her from the hospital and put her in foster care as well, until I was checked out all over again. I was beside myself until she too was placed with me. I had to work 50 hours a week just to make ends meet. The money that I had in savings was gone, and I finally got up the nerve and signed up for WIC and cash aid for the children.

My daughter who is 24 helps me when she can, but she is very busy. I also have a roommate who is my best friend and is very supportive when she is here. I am now in the process of adopting the girls, and I am grateful to have been able to start a small business at home. Not anything big, but it helps me with staying home with the girls.

August 2006 update by Shylia: The girls are doing well and they have now been adopted. There has been one more addition to our family his name is Kameron he is the girl’s brother he is with us and he is now one year old. We our currently in the process of adopting him also, he is the cutest and the happiest baby. I love him dearly everyone is in good health and Kirsten will be 4 in a couple of month. Keyara is now 2 and a half and they are just keeping me really busy. I’m tired and stressed but I wouldn’t take any of this back ever.

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Mura

Two years ago my daughter gave birth to my first grandchild. I was very excited to become a grandparent, as was my husband, who didn't have children of his own. We had seen my daughter struggle with drugs for most of her life (she was 32, at the time), and just before she became pregnant, she was prescribed anti-psychotic medication for a bi-polar disorder. So she had been taking that medication throughout her pregnancy. No one really knows how or if it affects unborn children. But the baby was beautiful and seemed perfect in every way. Toward the end of my daughter's pregnancy she began to abuse her medication and I had to take her to the ER several times. It wasn't long after our granddaughter was born that it became apparent that she couldn't care for her. So we took custody and filed for guardianship. At the same time my daughter was also incapable of caring for herself and I had to have her committed to several different psychiatric facilities for over a year.

We took custody of the baby when she was four months old. She had difficulty digesting any formula, couldn't sleep nights and was very uncomfortable and so were we. I was feeling quite drained even before the baby came to us full time. Just before Christmas I learned I had cancer. Although it was not an aggressive type the doctor said that it seemed to be growing rapidly. I began chemo almost immediately. Which meant that my husband had to stay at home to care for me and the baby.

It is times like these that tell you who your friends are. We have our our own business and I was shocked at how many people offered their help and prayers for me. My cousins came from Minnesota to stay with me and my friend from high school flew out from Florida to stay for two weeks. They were a God send.

It is a year later and Cierra has turned two. I am cancer free and participating in a clinical trial which will hopefully keep me that way. But we have another addition to our growing family. My daughter had a boy last month and tested positive for drugs at the hospital, so they took the baby away. He is also having digestive problems. My husband is having a difficult time accepting another baby and worried that I might get sick again. The lack of sleep is the biggest obstacle, but the baby slept 4 hours straight last night so maybe this will be a trend.

All we can do is pray for my daughter's recovery. I know that I need to take some time for myself, but when there's a choice I usually opt to take a nap. My husband's sister has adopted her two granddaughters and has been raising them practically from birth so I knew my situation wasn't totally unique, but I didn't realize how widespread it was. I hope the next generation does a better job of taking care of their responsibilities.

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Kristin

When I married my husband 17 years ago, we thought the biggest challenge we might ever face would be his ex-wife possibly dumping his 3 teenagers on us (the children had been adopted by a stepfather and been told all sorts of false stories about my husband).  Once those teens reached adulthood age, they did contact us occasionally but we were content with raising the daughter we had together and everything was running rather smoothly.  Little did we know!

Lonnie's second son and his wife had come to live with us in the fall of 1999, stating that they wanted to establish a strong relationship with our family and get a new start.  Along with them came their two children together, ages 18 months and 6 months, and the wife's daughter, age 3.  We suspected that something was going on, but could never quite get enough proof to be sure.  About 3 months after they had moved into their own place, they took off and moved back to Oklahoma without even telling us they were doing so.  About a month later, she sought help in leaving him from a domestic violence center. Caseworkers determined that the children had been abused both physically and emotionally as well as neglected by both parents and they were placed in foster care. Although we were contacted during the investigation, we were told that contact would not be allowed as the children were so young and we lived so far away that in-person visits were not feasible.

The parents of the children divorced and every once in a while we would hear from one or the other, but after a year the contact ceased.  Then in November 2002 our phone rang on a Sunday evening--it was my stepson's ex-wife and she dropped a bombshell.  My stepson had relinquished his rights the previous spring and she was facing a hearing to terminate her parental rights.  She told me that if she were able to choose where the children would go, she would choose us.  She also told us that there were no remaining biological relatives that might possibly be able to get them. 

After talking to the caseworker in Oklahoma and much discussion with our teenage daughter, we decided to see if we could get the children placed with us.  After going through the home study process to become approved as foster parents and adoptive parents, we journeyed to Oklahoma in May 2003 to pick up the children.  Earlier this year, Oklahoma approved us to adopt the children and now we are waiting to get approval on subsidies, Medicaid continuation, and legal expense reimbursement. 

As of this month, the children have been in the foster care system for 4 years.  Their ages are currently almost 8, 6 and 5.  The two older children are both girls and fairly easy to handle, although they still show signs of the abuse they have suffered.  The youngest, a boy, has 15 developmental delays and is in the 99th percentile of his age group for ADHD - we have recently placed him on medication and are working to determine the appropriate dosage. 

We just returned from a family trip to Oklahoma, and while we were there, the children saw many of their relatives including my stepson.  So far there do not appear to be any negative reactions to the visit other than the fact that their mother did not arrange a time to see them and the girls were very disappointed (the boy does not even recognize his mother in photos). 

We still have many potential obstacles down the road - bipolar disorder runs in the mother's family and that is why she does not have the children.  In addition, the oldest girl was placed with her biological father for a period of time, until she alleged that he was sexually abusing her.  The oldest also has learning disabilities and receives some special education services at school.  I have learned more about IEPs [Individual Education Plans] and special education in the past year than I ever thought possible (the 5 year old goes to Special Ed preschool).  Our lives have grown very hectic, but I would not change it for the world as we want these children to know that their family members still love them, even if their parents did not bother to take care of them. 

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