Remember how I said some things get fuzzy with Rebecca’s story? This is another one of those times. I could go into tiny details about life with her but there is no need. We just lived our lives like anyone else with a child and she started growing up. We graduated from college with an Elmo cake at our party because someone was also turning two and that was far my important. Two years of her in our lives and at this point she didn’t know who her real bio parents were because they had spent all this time in jail. A week after graduation we moved from our dingy apartment to a brand new home. To top it off my ex got the job that would change our lives and ultimately save us financially but would kill our marriage. (My stomach lurches just writing that.)
At some point her bio mom got out of jail and decided it was time to try parenting again. This thought apparently never occurred to my Ex and I or we were ignoring the inevitable. One of the two. This is where we should have put our foot down. Instead we gave her bio Mom the benefit of the doubt and tried to do what was fair. Never did anything fair happen to us in return, let me tell you. Her bio Mom only wanted to parent when it was once again convenient for her and then Rebecca was still with us the rest of the time. Her bio Mom was still getting high and out partying with random guys. The problem started when bio Mom wanted to make rules and here poor Rebecca just had no idea who she really was. Bio Mom would smother her and treat her like an infant because she just truly didn’t know what to do with her. The child she had birthed was just a stranger to her and vice versa. It also didn’t help that she was wacked out on her meds and stoned so what kid wants to be around that? I can tell you one thing, kids aren’t stupid, they know when things aren’t right.
It got to the point where family members that never wanted to have an opinion started to have one. Started piping their white trash mouths up because we started making noise. We started to really freak out every time Rebecca was with her bio Mom. Leaving Rebecca at a casino day care to go get drunk and gamble, taking her around strange men in strange homes, not keeping a schedule with her and ultimately not keeping her safe. The stories were piling up and my Ex and I were freaking out. Then began her bio Mom began being shipped in and out of a psych wards and rehab. Are you still with me in this tangled web?
This is the point where I wish I had my blog at that time. I can’t recall all the horrific stories because I think I just choose not too. They are tucked away in a large box with legal information in the closet. Someone once read my old blog from front to back and said it was best when it was written at the time I was going through something not looking back on it. That is how I feel writing Rebecca’s story now. I don’t know how to dig down to get to the depth of sheer despair at each phase my Ex and I went through with her. I don’t know how to convey the terror and fear. It was living in a horrible movie and not being able to get up and walk away. And not one single person understood.
One night does still stick me with me though. It was like I knew something bad was happening even on the way there that night.
Bio Mom was staying at my Grandparents home in the basement and we went to drop Rebeeca off one night. She was almost 3 by this point and all hell broke loose. Rebecca would often cry when we dropped her off but this was a full on panic attack, screaming and kicking her bio Mom, yelling how she didn’t want to stay with her and she wanted to go home with “Mom & Dad.” All this little one knew was life was fine until this crazy person came along that we dropped her off with every now and then and it was a scary place. I don’t know how I held it together as three adults attempted to hold her back while we had to walk out the door and I lost it in the front yard. My Ex had to pick me up and put me in the truck with tears running down his own face.
I couldn’t do this anymore. Neither of us could. Technically the three of us couldn’t. This was a fucking mess. A big fucking mess and no one would look at the obvious. While we had been in contact with CPS about what we could do it was the same song and dance. They kept giving her another chance and there wasn’t enough proof of anything. They needed to walk in to the child close to death to do something more. They flat-out told me they just didn’t have the resources.
Three years of raising that baby and it was time to do something about it. We had no rights and we didn’t want her to be the next baby to drown in the bathtub or tossed in a river by the mentally ill parent strung out on God knows what.
It was fight or flight time and we were fighting because she was all we had to give her a chance at life.
Through My Mistakes 
So sad to feel like nobody would help, nobody cared, that her bio mom was SO messed up that she so willingly let go of her child.
CPS is incredibly screwed up. It’s an ineffective agency that can certainly be used as a form of harassment and intimidation by some people. A great concept, but totally dysfunctional. So sorry you went through that but so inspiring that you chose to fight on her behalf.
It is truly scary how screwed up they are. And the main people being hurt by it are the very kids that it is suppose to protect. So sad!