Deciding to Get Respite Care
It has been a while since Michael and I have spent quality time (and a quantity of time) together - alone.As foster parents, we can take 1 day of "respite care" a month for Cookie - that is, have another foster parent/family take her for a day/night for us so we can get some rest.
This is a lovely thought, and probably even more lovely if you are a foster parent to older children, or multiple children.
But this is not a lovely thought to a foster parent of a 6-month old they have every intention of adopting.
It scares the bejesus outta me. A stranger... taking care of my baby...overnight.
If it were a friend, or someone we had a good relationship with, it might be different. But I am scared. This is why we have not used respite care to date.
But we have finally managed to decide to:
1) go out of state
2) go to a concert
3) get a hotel room for 2 nights (bom chicka bom bom)
4) and oh yeah, leave Cookie
THIS WEEKEND
We've managed to make it a little less painful. The woman who is going to do this respite care for us is one of Cookie's former day care workers - she just moved to a different location. She knew Cookie from the time she came in to care almost 4 months ago. She is also the foster mom to a 3-yr. old little boy she is trying to adopt. She seems like a nice woman - but for all intents and purposes we know nothing about her.I pray Cookie sleeps, eats, and doesn't feel abandoned. I hope she plays and is happy. I hope when she turns 14, she doesn't turn to me in anger and shout, "Its all your fault because of that time you left me in respite care when I was 6 months old!" (I know she will shout all kinds of horrible things as a teenager - I just hope she shouts about something different.)
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 7/05/2006 01:40:00 PM
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