I Wouldn’t Trade It For The World
My mother-in-law is a monster. My husband is currently acting like a jerk, but…we’re dealing. I’ll be darned if I let that woman take anything more from my kids. At the beginning of this year, I was contacted regarding my younger sister’s four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son after she passed. She had issues, and the kids came with their own issues.
My husband and I had four kids of our own. At the time, I was pregnant with our fifth—we had a 10-year-old boy, four-year-old triplet girls, and this new baby boy. It was manageable for us to take them in, so we did. So far, my niece gets along AMAZING with the triplets. My nephew is catching up to where he needs to be, and my niece started school in February with the girls, where she is excelling (ahead of her class in math, and reading).
Niece had also been mistreated at some point when living with her mother. Keeping it vague, she has to travel back to her state to go through medical examinations (made processing evidence easier) and they have since caught the guy, he will be going on trial this year. We still haven’t officially adopted my niece and nephew. We’re currently still only fostering them.
However, we are making progress towards official adoption. Part of this process is making sure there aren’t any other relatives that would be a more suitable fit for them. Their case worker says that we do seem like the absolute best fit for these kids, and not to worry. Before we were contacted regarding them, they contacted my sister’s husband’s family.
No one would take in the kids. My older sister didn’t want to spend the money or time on them, believing they’d grow up to be just like our younger sister, and she said as much to their caseworker. A few weeks ago, that sister contacted me. She was wondering how the kids were doing, if they were adjusting, just generally asking questions about them.
She and I have been no contact for the better part of the last 10 years, as I’ve been with all my family, but I decided for the sake of the kids I’d go from no contact to low contact. It casually comes up that I’m receiving benefits for the kids (a whopping $334 for two kids, a month) which gets split in two and goes into two separate accounts set up for my niece and nephew.
This can be college funds, a down payment on a house, whatever they want to use it on in the future. It’s there for them. My niece is also receiving therapy for free, and my nephew’s physiotherapy is at a discounted rate due to the fact that he’s behind because of neglect. Yesterday, I made a brutal discovery. I find out from the kids’ caseworker that my older sister has petitioned to adopt the kids. She’s claiming that she’s gotten her finances in order to care for them. She’s saying that because I have five of my own kids, and she only has one daughter who’s nearly 16, that it would also be beneficial to me for her to take the kids.
I’m heartbroken, and officially going back to no contact. Now, the adoption won’t be as open and shut as it could have been because we’re going to have to prove that we are a better option for the kids than she is, and that the fact we have five kids isn’t detrimental to them. Thankfully, their caseworker is completely on our side, and agrees that we are the BEST fit for these kids.
She told us that it would be really unlikely for a judge to give my older sister full custody, but did warn that he may award mandatory visitation for a short period of time to see where the kids do best. I know she’d just use them for the money, and not actually care about them, as that’s pretty much what she did with her own daughter for the last 14 years, ever since her ex-husband has had to pay child support.
I’m just so frustrated. And I don’t want to lose these kids. Yes, seven kids under one roof is nerve-wracking on the best days, but when they’re all getting ready for bed, and they’re sleepy and cuddled up against me, listening to me read them a story or watching a movie with them, or just the way their faces light up when my husband or I pick them up from school, or daycare…I wouldn’t trade it for the world.