Wow you are busy, but adopting your grandson will be worth it. I want to adopt my grandson aswell, we are from Ontario, Canada. I have looked for some information on the internet about adopting a grandchild in Canada and i haven't gonna much info. I wouldn't have any trouble with his father but his mother my daughter would never sign him over. So i think that i would have to prove abandonment or that shes a danger to him, which she is. She wanted to take him in a stolen car with her junkie boyfriend this summer. She is also bipolar, and since she moved she hasn't seen him since early Sept.

OMG, it is now almost 11 a.m and the adoption SW said she would be here @ 9 a.m. We have things to do...we want to start our week Thanksgiving vacation and here we are sitting and waiting. I called her and left messages...no calls, nothing. How rude! I looked at my email from her to verify the date and time and Yep, today @ 9 a.m.

Is this a trick to stress people out? I am bummed...

Well, did the SW ever show up? If so,how did it go? I got home to find my CW's card in my door again. I've been my GS's foster mom for going on 3 years now & the CW's have ALWAYS made appointments, but for some reason, here lately, my CW is just "stopping by" unannounced. She's never caught me at home, though. That just seems silly and a waste of her time.

Thank God, I've never had a SW or CW ask to look in my garage OR my basement. Both are a mess and it's not like my GS plays in either area. I get tired of feeling like I'm under a scope. I'll be so glad to adopt my GS and put an end to all of the invasions of my privacy. My CW is very nice and I really like her and she's a good CW. I just want my life back.

The SW called at noon from her office after hearing my messages. What happens was when she sent the email setting up our appointment she put Tuesday Nov 21st? I went ahead and put it in my work calendar as Nov 21st. I never really focused on the day she wrote which was Tuesday. She put the wrong date with the day of the week she set for our appointment.

We ended up seeing her the next day Tuesday. It took two days of our week and the stress took all my week. We also received a call from the baby's lawyer and I told her the adoption sw was there she asked me to ask sw if all the paperwork would be done by Dec 13 the court hearing for TPR and she said most of it. The lawyer said the Judge is going to be very ticked off and now this will be continued again!! I am so bummed out about this whole thing. I am so tired of Social Services in our busy life. This stuff just wears grandparents down...I can see how grandparents throw their hands up. I have to take off work for so many things for my gs and then, have to deal with all this stuff needed for the adoption before they take the parental rights away. I am not sure how it works in other states but in Calif. they have to have all the adoption home study done before they take parental rights away. I wish someone would have told me this I could have bugged the sw's sooner. On the home study I have to get all our family in our home medical reports from all of our Dr's, another live scan "finger prints" which I have to drive 1hr away to do and marriage & divorce paperwork and we had to fill out questionnaires on family and financial worth. We also have to be interviewed by SW. We had the home inspection done and my daughters interviewed. Several other Docs' she sent in a email to me after our visit has to be done, too. So, as you can see it is all put on us to complete along with my already over scheduled life. Plus, I have to keep working as many days as I can so we have money to survive because I don't get paid when I take off work. Now with the holidays it makes all of this sooo very overwhelming...

I have just learned that my son "baby's father" stoled my bike from our yard a few weeks ago. We know it was him due to the shoe prints left behind where he jumped our back fence. I just can't wrap my head around what is going on with him. I talked with a friend of his and he told me that my son has fallen so hard into drinking and who knows what else this last year. Now he is stealing from me?? I called where he was living right after he took off with my bike and left a message for him because I wanted him to know I knew. I didn't think he would show up at Thanksgiving but to my shock he did and I let him in...I told him that I knew and he played dumb...I learned that he has gone so deep into mental illness and addiction that it just put me into a deep depression for the rest of the week. We now want to buy camera's and fear that he has been on our property several times because of other clues we remember seeing. After we ate, I sent him out of our house not yelling but because I was so in shock he showed up at our house I just said we had things to do. I couldn't stand to look at him...He had no shame?? nothing...I need to talk to a professional regarding my son. I wish I could just move away so he didn't know where I lived but we can't. Just another thing I have to take care of, I just don't need this!!

Well, that was my Thanksgiving week...

Wow; sorry to hear about all of the stress you're enduring. I can certainly relate. My Thanksgiving pretty much sucked, too. My son (GS's father) was in the hospital with his 4th staph infection in 6 years. I had just gotten to my boyfriend's house and was ready to start fixing our plates when my daughter called and said there was water pouring out of my water heater all over my basement floor. We went back to my house (15 min. drive) and my boyfriend was able to stop the problem. Went back to his house to eat and then made a plate and took up to my son at the hospital. Stayed there for an hour and a half and listened to him moan and groan and gripe the whole time. Left there and went to pick up my daughter and her baby from her boyfriend's house so I could bring them with me to my parents' house and she wasn't there. She "thought" I said I'd be there at 6:45; not 5:45 - SO, I sat there for a wasted 30 minutes waiting for her to get back there. Then drove to my boyfriend's house 30 min from my daughter's boyfriend's house, picked him and my GS up, and drove another 30 minutes to my parents' house. Ate there, visited a bit - drove back by my house to drop my daughter and GS off and then drove back to his house where we stayed the night. Just a LONG exhausting and stress-filled day. GLAD IT's OVER. I can relate to the mental illness and drugging and stealing. I hate it, and I have not one, but BOTH of my kids doing it. Grrrrrrrrrrrr...................I'd really like to find an escape somehow, too. I'll be starting the adoption process soon, too. I've had DCFS hanging over my shoulder for almost THREE years now. I'm so ready to move on. As I've said before, they've been very helpful and I like and respect my caseworker; it's just one more thing to have to deal with.

Definitely worth checking into. I know in IL you can get an adoption subsidy until the child turns 18 that is equal in amount to the foster care payments, & there are special provisions for children with special needs that can be added into the subsidy, too.

It cracks me up that we have to go through all of this rigamarole to give our grandchildren a BETTER LIFE, when all the bios have to do is produce baby after baby. Nobody inspects THEIR homes, checks THEIR credentials, etc. etc. But suddenly, when a close relative steps in to fix the situation, they're under the closest scrutiny as if they're the ones doing something wrong.

Grrrrrrrrrr....

I received an email on Monday at work from SW, if I got all the things she listed in her email along with another home visit which was today...we may be able to take the parental rights away on the December 13th hearing. After reading her list I couldn't help but cry! I ended up taking off this whole week because two days of this week I have therapy for my grandson and Dr appointments. So, yesterday there I was rushing and running around getting others to get things done that I need by the Dec. 7th deadline per the SW. After today's 2nd meeting with SW we completed everything except the medical reports for my daughters, grandson and myself from our Dr's. My Dr's nurse said I have to have an appointment with Dr before they complete my form. My daughters Dr's nurse said the same thing. I dropped off the form for my GS's Dr and nurse thinks that he doesn't need an appt because we just had an appointment a few weeks ago. I'm waiting for them to call me when they are ready with the form. I do have other doc's that are done and sent in the mail from employer and references however; they should be at her office by the deadline.

Ladies, I feel like I have been jumping throw hoops ever since my grandson has been placed with me without any help from SW and Bio's. I wasn't rude to the SW today however; I did express how sad it is that those who care about these foster kids (meaning grandparents) don't get the support or the respect they deserve. She apologized however; she mentioned she only got our case a month ago. I'm sorry a month ago she could have given us the Dr forms and other forms needed to be done by others so we don't have to impose our short deadline on others!! When they do these things to me I get so stressed that I get this god wrenching stomach ache...I try my hardest not to suffer but I have to perform magic on a short time line. I just want to get on with our lives.... Without Bio's or the uncaring DCFS...

I feel for you, Liam, I really do. That is so rude that the SW withheld those forms until now. Get used to the bios not helping you--that's why you're in the position you're in. They tend to be absolutely useless with anything important.

You are a fantastic person for all the work you're doing to make this happen. Hang in there.

Liam, I'm glad to hear that the adoption is moving forward. So sorry about the struggles to get there. In our situation I felt like we were the ones who had done something wrong we were under such scrutiny. We also got no help and demand after demand put on us. It almost broke us. Hang in there, you are in the home stretch.

I can relate to your frustrations as well. It's been that way for me since the beginning, too. And it's not fair to us. As has been said, we're the ones having to jump through all these stringent hoops and we haven't done anything wrong!! These caseworkers really are overloaded and overburdened, though. With all of the States making budget cuts, more & more work gets piled onto them. I know my CW works well into the evenings AND on the weekends. And I doubt her pay is really that superb. They have so many cases and many of them are probably much more involved than ours are. Not discounting your complaints, because I do know they are very valid and I share many of them. It will be lovely to finalize everything and get on with our lives; won't it???