Pros vs.Cons

I knew my heart was ready to jump at this chance to help this child but I wasn't sure where my husband stood. Before we gave Leyla and answer we decided we needed to go home and talk about it and get back to Leyla by the end of the day.

There was a rush on us giving her an answer because the rule was that any child (especially an infant) could only stay in a receiving home for 60 days. At that point the child needed to be moved to a foster to adopt home or a foster home. The purpose of this is to get the child in a secure environment early on so that they can bond and they aren't being shuffled around while social services tries to reunify the family. It was Tuesday and Julian need to be moved by the following Monday into a foster to adopt home (also called a Legal Risk Home). If we decided to pass on this case then Leyla would need to search for another home but they needed to find a home that was willing to keep Julian forever because the case wasn't looking like the parents were going to be able to get him back.

As soon as my husband and I were in the car we began weighing out the pros and cons to the situation. The only CON that we came up with was we hadn't met his social worker. Which meant she could have some sort of insight that Leyla didn't have just because she had been on the case longer and had personally met with the family. But the PROS so out weighed the CONS for us. It had been two months and the parents hadn't been to any court hearings and there had 4 hearings so far. His injuries were severe and they already had one dead child. It just seemed like a no brainer.

We both agreed we needed to meet him. We needed to see his little face and so we called Leyla to see if we could set something up. She was thrilled to hear from us and agreed that meeting him was the next step. He was having his first physical therapy appointment on Thursday and we were invited to attend. The appointment was going to be an evaluation for Julian and they would be able to give us a better picture or what his physical needs would be in the future.

We agreed to go to the appointment. It was two whole days away. I was so excited and I wanted to tell everyone about Julian....but I wasn't sure without meeting him if we would be bringing him home. So the only people I told were family. But in my heart I knew he was ours...my entire being told me I was meant to be his mother. Now all I had to do was wait until Thursday to finally meet my baby.