Visitation #1
Things went well. I spent nearly the entire time holding Booger. That baby can down a bottle like nobodies business! Princess and Monkey are doing as good as can be expected, they’re in “day camp” during the day and they really love it.
The SW was sick (again) so there was some confusion, and the kids got there late, but we still got our 2 hours with them. While I was there I talked to two other SWs who work with our SW, and finally, FINALLY I was being listened to. And not just the “in one ear and out the other” stuff, they actually listened. One of them has only been a SW for 5 weeks, and he seemed to honestly care. And that meant a lot.
We’re doing pizza on Thursday for Monkey’s birthday. I’m making banana cupcakes. They’re excited. There were no tears, thank God. Not from the kids anyway, and I tried my best to not cry in front of them. I lost it for a few moments holding Booger, but I couldn’t help it. The minute my baby was in my arms it was big, toothless grins and latching on to my nose for some reason. Booger didn’t forget Mommy & Daddy. I am so, so glad. The Caregiver/FM is so sweet, we walked out with her, helped get the kids in her car, let us know it’s fine that we call occasionally, but not on Wed. nights, because that’s big fun family night (her kids, her BF’s kids, and ours all get together and play games, watch movies.. etc. 10 kids, and Princess & Monkey said it’s a whole lot of fun. My kids are honest, so I believe ‘em). So we’ll give them a call on Friday night to wish Monkey a proper happy birthday.
I also went in (slightly unrelated at first, but it is related, I swear) to my surgeon’s office today to get my staples out. I wasn’t able to talk to him, but I was able to talk to his nurse, C. She is such a doll. She gave me the biggest hug and told me if there’s anything I need, just ask. I told her my atty might be calling soon to get non-confidential records faxed over (notes post-surgery, diagnoses, etc). If I can get those, it might be a big break in getting the kids back. It was a medical issue, it’s been resolved, it’s impossible that it could happen again.. seeing as the part of me that was causing me such pain isn’t in me anymore!
I’m left feeling a lot lighter and a lot happier. This fight obviously isn’t over, but I’m glad to see my kids are OK.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Going above their heads
My husband has been diligently calling the SW to try to get visitation for the past 10 days. Eventually, he (and I) got sick of nothing but voicemail that was never returned, so he called her supervisor. 45 minutes later.. the SW calls.
We have 2 visits this week, one tomorrow and one Thursday. Both for 2 hours. I’m still upset I won’t be with my kids for Monkey’s 5th birthday, but it’s better than nothing. For now.
I’ve barely been able to get myself out of bed today, I was so distraught. I didn’t fall asleep until 5am, because every time I put my head down I’d end up sobbing. I just hope this is the beginning of good things. But I’m not holding my breath. I’m not an optimist as it is, and it’s really hard to be one now, but I’m trying. If I didn’t have such a marred past with DYFS and their tricks, I would probably be more hopeful. But alas, that’s not possible.
At least I get to see my kids, even if it’s only for 2 hours at a time.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Psych evals – a dirty trick
I know this sounds paranoid, but trust me on this: the mandatory psych evaluations they make you get when they take your kids are for their benefit, not yours. They don’t have a pool of psychologists/psychiatrists to pull from. Usually they have very specific people, not licensed to practice in the state you’re in, who they pull in to do these evaluations. They will make it as inconvenient as possible on the parents, last minute appointments, late night evals, and of course, you’re going to be stressed. You’re going to be sad, after all, they took your kids. And they will exploit that.
They will take the tiny, seemingly insignificant things you say and twist them into some kind of horrible psychosis. If you have ever, EVER felt depressed, that becomes “a history of depression”. If you have ever lost your temper, you’ve got “serious anger issues”.
If you or your lawyer can manage it, get someone local. Make it clear to CPS/DHS/DSS that you’re willing to get your eval done, but you want it to be done by an unrelated 3rd party, local doctor. They won’t like it, but they can’t refuse it. Make sure the judge is aware that you’re not refusing to do this, you just want to have a completely unbiased doctor. If they stand firm with the CPS eq. in your area (and they often will), find a doctor with your lawyer’s help and get a secondary eval done. Make sure it’s someone accredited to work in the state you’re in. Make sure the doctor is completely aware of the situation, including the fact that you’re under an abnormal amount of stress, and you’re missing your children, but you’re not clinically depressed, there is no underlying cause of this, it’s clear, it’s plain as day.
I’m telling you this from my own experience. Where I had a psych eval done by a complete hack who was working illegally for DYFS in New Jersey, fudging results to help keep up the “bottom line” funding of the division. I made the mistake of mentioning that I had been on anti-depressants when I was a young teen (which meant, my family didn’t know how to deal with me rebelling against them, so they sent me to a doctor who was a glorified RX dispenser). Somehow that, coupled with the ridiculous hours we were evaluated at (between 10PM and 1AM), the stress of having my older children ripped from my arms, the strain of my pregnancy at the time.. I was listed as a danger to my children.
I have never harmed my children in their entire lives, nor would I. I have never physically neglected or abused them, nor have I mentally, emotionally.. in any other way. I was miserable because they took my kids, and this quack diagnosed me as a danger to them.
I won’t get into the previous case, but this is one thing everyone needs to know: once you’re in the system, even if it’s due to a false allegation, you will never completely be out of the system. And they will watch you for a slight misstep. One toe over the line and they’ll screw you again and again, even if you still haven’t done anything wrong. All it takes is a phone call from a vindictive neighbor, a former friend, a supposedly concerned person who has completely misconstrued a situation (not in my case, but I know people that has happened to)..
No matter what, don’t give up. Your kids need you, and you need them. Fight for them. Don’t give in, don’t give up and whatever it takes, get your kids back (legally, of course). You may feel like giving up, like the whole world is against you. Take a deep breath and remember you have an infinite amount of strength within you. It’s hard to believe that when you’re feeling your lowest, but I promise, you can do it. If I can, you can. I remind myself of that every single day. I am strong. And I have to stay strong for my kids. To get them back where they belong, back with myself and my husband. We’re not just their biological parents, we are their ONLY parents.
Good luck everyone, I hope we all get a happy ending.
Uncategorized | Comment (1)Visitation
We were assured last Friday (6/19) that we would have regular, frequent visits with our kids. No more than a week apart.
It’s now Saturday (6/27). I haven’t seen my kids since that Friday. My baby is FIVE MONTHS OLD TODAY and I couldn’t even look into Booger’s big eyes and say “I love you! I can’t believe you’re 5 months old! Look how big you’re getting!” or any of the other billions of things flooding my mind lately. I haven’t seen my Princess, my beautiful 7 year old, full of laughter and silliness, who is sensitive and sweet, but has a short temper and doesn’t react well to negative situations (like this). I haven’t seen my monkey, full of life and all the silliness that being 4 offers, Monkey is going to be 5 July 3rd. And who even knows if we can celebrate that occasion.
Our SW has been MIA. She claimed to have been sick all last weekend, and hey, OK that happens. My husband managed to actually catch her in her office and she seemed flippant, dismissave. All we’re trying to do is see our kids, dammit. I’m sorry that we’re inconveniencing you by expecting you to do your job. Our kids are more important to us than your health. We’ve never met, we’re not friends, and your personal, off-hours life isn’t our problem. Seeing our children IS our problem. And I get that you, like everyone else doing your exact job has a heavy case load. But it’s not fair to us, and especially not fair to our children to do this. Just scedule a visit. We’d do it ourselves if we were legally allowed. We were given the caregiver’s (I refuse to use the term “foster parent” any more than I have to) number. But We’re trying like hell to cooperate with the court.
It’s bad enough this entire case is based on lies and BS, but now our kids, innocent bistanders in all of this, get to suffer. And who will get the blame for that? Not DSS/CPS. Not the corrupt judge. US. Even though we are busting our butts trying to make things right, to get our children home where they BELONG. Where they’ve always belonged. It doesn’t matter, Mommy & Daddy are bad people, right? Because.. we didn’t abuse our kids. We didn’t neglect our kids. We don’t drink, we don’t do drugs, we don’t commit crimes, we don’t commit leud acts.. we haven’t done anything wrong. But we’re going to be seen as the bad guys. I just bet they’ll spin this to make it look like we can’t be bothered to see our children.
I am battling depression over not having my children here. I am fighting tears constantly not being able to hug them, to kiss them, to laugh with them, to talk with them, to just hold them. I am their mother and that’s all I’ve been since the moment Princess was born, and that’s all I will continue to be. My husband has been putting on a strong front, but I know him, he’s crumbling inside. Those kids are his everything. He’s almost killed the batteries of his phone calling the SW trying like hell to get in touch with her. WE WANT OUR KIDS. If we have to wait until July 24th to get them back, we’ll do that. We’re not going to break the law here. But dammit, do not deny us our rights to see our children. Don’t deny me my frakkin right to hold my baby.
CPS: causing emotional trauma to innocent children and innocent parents since the 1970s.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Developments
My father-in-law filed his grievance against the DSS worker/investigator as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia. He filed because of lies that were told to all of us, the children, my husband and I, his wife and himself by the DSS worker. He filed because of the amount of money he is out (both from missing work as well as money spent for a hotel for almost 2 weeks as well as a rental car). He will be reimbursed for the near $5000 he and his wife are out. He wouldn’t have asked if the lies we were told weren’t lies, and the girls would have gone with them back to their home as promised.
But we found out another piece of information: the ERO was filed, not because our children were being abused or neglected, and not because that their remaining in their own home with their own parents would be harmful (it wouldn’t be, but that’s not the point) but because they viewed us as a “flight risk”. Because, you see, my husband, due to this fraudulent and negligent BS, has lost his job. And it’s not just any job, he’s in the US Navy. Because this is causing problems with his ability to work, they’re giving him an administrative discharge, effective July 15th. We made the mistake of telling the DSS worker this (which we now know was a massive mistake) before our court date. Obviously they were scared that the events would unfold like this: the grandparents would take the three children out of state to their home. We, about a month later, would follow to the same state, same city (which is our home town anyway). The grandparents would turn around and grant custody back to us, leaving the CWoV out of luck and leaving us out of their jurisdiction.
I can understand their fear. But here’s the thing, if it was needed, either my father-in-law (who is retired) or my mother-in-law would have been willing to stay in Virginia until this was concluded, taking custody here and not leaving the state until the court said they could. The judge herself asked my father-in-law if this was possible and he confirmed that it was. But she stood by her ruling. Her ruling on the ERO, which by the way, was filled with lies against us, and the “testimony” by the GAL that falsely stated my home was “unsanitary”, and seeing now, that that wasn’t the case all along, and the reason for the ERO wasn’t even explained to the judge.. there will be trouble.
The HEAD of DSS-HSS was the one who got in contact with my father-in-law, and spilled these beans. All hell will break loose, I think, since the lies are unraveling like a cheap sweater.
I have an appt. with my Attorney tomorrow. I am bringing any evidence I have personally, including, but not limited to photos of my home, medical records, educational records, etc. I am ready and willing to fight this. Please wish me luck, though I hope I won’t need it.
Uncategorized | Comment (1)Is this even legal?
The answer, my friends, is NO.
I’ve been picking through the Emergency Removal Order with a fine-toothed comb, and found that DSS did not follow the Code of Virginia codes that they specificially cited in the ERO.
I will be reporting this to my attorney, and my husband to his. Also discovered they circumvented a few laws to get our kids in foster care, instead of kinship care like they promised. They promised our children they would go with grandma and grampa, and then filed the ERO, turning all of us family members, as well as the DSS worker into liars.
This is stage one of the fight. I’m already prepping myself for a KO. I sure hope the DSS and judge can handle it.
I want to mention that I will not now, nor will I ever badmouth the foster parent my children were placed with, unless I have good reason to suspect that she has mistreated my children. I have met with her, and she does seem, outwardly at least to be a nice person. We’ll see when we get our first visitation. My children will tell me if something is up. They don’t fear honesty with us, just as we don’t with them.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Hello world!
Our children were taken from us yesterday by DSS/CPS of the Commonwealth of Virginia. We had a court date at 9am to (so we were told) grant custody of our 3 kids (Booger, Monkey and Princess will be what I call them here) to my in-laws, temporarily. We recently got reported to CPS for having a messy house. When the Investigator/Case worker came by to follow up on the call, they found no proof of this. But, included in this call was a report that I was breastfeeding while on the narcotic painkiller, Vicodin, which was true. But as per Hale and LLL, it is considered a moderately safe drug, especially with a child 4 months or older, which Booger is. Because of that, it was recommended to us (my husband and I) that we sign our older two, Monkey & Princess over to our in-laws, at least until the investigation was complete and the court listed it as “unfounded”.
We signed the paperwork and filed it with a clerk, with no questions asked. We were assured by the Investigator that this would be immediate, and that our children could leave the state the following weekend with their grandparents. She went so far as to make a promise to my children that they were going. I had no reason to not trust her at the time, she swore up and down that she’d been honest with us all along, so we signed it. It cost us $25, but we did it. There is no expense too great to us than to keep our children out of the system. They’d been in the system before, and they were both traumatized by mistreatment by their foster parents. I had promised it would never happen again, and I had gone out of my way to ensure that.
Now fast forward to Wednesday, June 17th. Around 5:15PM the GAL came by and did a very, very quick walkthrough in our home. She was in and out in less than 2 minutes. No hello, no goodbye, just came in, took a quick look around, and left. Our home is spotless, so this didn’t really bother me in the least. At almost 8PM, the investigator came by, and told us that we should give custody of Booger over to the grandparents too, or else they would put the kids in fostercare. Her wording made it sound like I had to sign my baby over to the STATE not to the grandparents, so I refused. She said that the kids being taken would be a worst case scenario, so I wasn’t too worried, though my hackles were now up. So my in-laws and my husband drove down to the courthouse and signed a petition to obtain custody, but I did not, meaning, I was not granting custody.
Friday morning, we had court. We learned that the Investigator lied to our faces, and not only that, filed an ERO at the same time that my husband and his parents were filing the petition. The petition that SHE RECOMMENDED. She had been in our home less than 48 hours previously, and had seen our home was clean. She knew, even though I was suffering from extreme pain from a surgery I had on June 10th, I wasn’t taking my Vicodin anymore, just because I didn’t want it held against me. I was taking Tylenol, a non-narcotic, deemed completely safe by the AAP. She lied directly to the judge about the state of cleanliness of our home, without any proof and without any evidence to back up her claim. The GAL, who I mentioned earlier also said that our home was a mess, and stated that it was “unsanitary”. She lied. She was barely in my home as it was, but she saw how clean my house is. Together they, along with the CPS supervisor filed the EPO. The judge took their word for it, and enforced the EPO. We didn’t even get our attorneys until mid-hearing. My husband didn’t get his until the judge had already decided on her ruling. We never got the chance to discuss anything, to oppose anything, to prove our innocence, or to show that our children are better off out of the system. Which isn’t fair at all. I don’t even know if that’s legal.
My children, including my exclusively breastfed baby, are all living with strangers. They literally ripped them from us at the courthouse. A large, angry woman grabbed my older kids by the arms and pulled them, hard and violently out the front doors without even letting us hug or kiss them goodbye. My eldest didn’t even know what was going on. My youngest did, because Monkey was hanging onto daddy when we were told that they were being taken. They stole my baby directly from my arms, ripped Booger right away from me. Later that day we went to a “family meeting” at the DSS HQ, where they sprung the kids back on us for a short visit, where I had to dry many tears, both of my children and my own. They brought in my baby, sleeping like the dead.
I REPEAT SLEEPING LIKE THE DEAD. I know my baby. Booger is a VERY light sleeper, and will wake even being moved from my arms to the crib. I moved Booger around, moving from cradle hold to head on shoulder. Booger woke a few seconds, almost cried, and then passed back out. THIS WAS NOT NORMAL. NOT AT ALL. I truly believe that someone in DSS/Fostercare drugged my baby. My 4 month old. Which there is no excuse for.
At this time, we don’t know how long it will be until we get our children back. We’re fighting like hell though. We are gathering evidence in our defense, including medical records, photos, and testimony of friends and family that will show that all the CPS “findings” were falsified. And we are filing grievances against the GAL and the Investigator who perpitrated these lies against us. I don’t even know WHY they lied. Why they stole my children. But unless we find out, and are granted custody of our children again, it won’t matter why. It won’t even matter THAT they lied. We will file a suit against all the DSS workers who were on the case (4 at my count), the judge, the GAL and person responsible for my baby being drugged.
I will update this blog with more information when I have it. If you’ve come across this as a fellow parent who is being screwed by DSS/CPS/DYFS, you are in my prayers, please keep us in yours. We will fight until the ends of the Earth for justice, for our children, for my husband’s parents, and for ourselves. And for all other parents who have been mistreated, lied to, misrepresented to and lost their children to a corrupt system.
Uncategorized | Comment (1)