...a lot can change in 5 yrs

5 years ago, if you had asked me what I think about children taking psychotropic medication, without skipping a beat I would tell you that was outright crazy.  Once again, those freaking parents need to PARENT their children, not medicate them!!  5 yrs ago, my daughter was still just a baby struggling with severe developmental delays- likely attributed to the choices her birthmom made while pregnant with her.

Sure, we had taken all the classes required of us as foster parents.  You know, the classes outlining the good, the bad and the ugly that can come from these children exposed to more in utero than most of us will be in our lifetime.  But I thought our situation would be different.  We had all the best Doctors, intense therapies.  She was loved and doted on 110%.  That would make her outcome better.  She would be okay! 

5 yrs ago, I must have had my head in the sand.

So you can probably imagine the fierce inner war I had with myself as I drove to the pharmacy to drop off my daughters first prescription from her Psychiatrist.  I was literally making myself sick with anguish.  How did it come to this?  How could I allow them to prescribe her medication??  How would I let these mind altering chemicals pass through her lips???  What kind of mother had I become????

...and then from the backseat of my car, a rage began. The rages often begin in the car for reasons I have yet to understand.  Kicking, screaming and thrashing about.  Seat belts are restrictive so she always removes hers and tosses around in the backseat like a bouncy red ball.  Words cannot describe the intense feeling of helplessness when you are driving down the highway at 70mph and your child is in full hysterics in the backseat.  I immediately pull over to remedy the situation.  I grabbed her and held her firmly in her booster seat with one hand while I installed a carseat lock with the other.  I got back in the car and continued on my way, trying to keep my cool so as not to add fuel to the fire.  All the while she alternates kicking the back of my seat and slapping the back of my head with her shoe and belting a high pitched scream. I've long ago learned there is no reasoning with her during this these episodes.

At that moment, I decided I would fill that prescription.  Our daughter needed help so badly, she was out of control and we had already tried everything else humanly possible to help her. 

A lot can change in 5 yrs.

Background story

I guess some background would be good to start with.  I'm, Mo4 and you can probably guess that means mother of 4.  I have 3 biological sons and 1 girl (Kit*) who was adopted from the foster care system.

Our sweet Kit was born in 2005.  We had been Foster Parents for about 4 months and had cared for several other babies and toddlers during that time.

When I got the call from our Caseworker there wasn't much information available.  A baby girl had been born that day (a Friday).  Shortly after birth her birthmother had a "Psychotic Episode".  The baby was taken into protective custody.  They told us that birthmother had a history of drug addiction, homelessness and bipolar and she had already lost custody of several other children. The baby would likely be released over the weekend and they needed a foster family to care for.  We agreed to take her, I was excited to get another little one as our previous foster baby had gone home just 5 days earlier.

On Sunday morning I got the call to come pick her up.  I took the itty bitty, but amazingly beautiful baby girl home to my husband and children.  Our entire family promptly fell in love with her.

Alarming symptoms and developmental delays began showing themselves almost immediately.  The first few weeks she was very easily overstimulated.  She simply could not tolerate more than 1 stimuli at a time.  We spent many days and nights sitting with her swaddled up tight, in the nursery in the pitch dark. Being careful not to rock in the chair or pat her little bottom. She would have been happy to just be left in there alone but we knew how much she needed to bond and so we took turns sitting there quietly holding her close.  By 2 weeks she was in Occupational Therapy for feeding therapy due to a weak suck reflex.  By 1 month, Physical Therapy was started for poor muscle tone and one sided weakness.  At her 4 month well baby check she couldn't lift her head off the table to turn it from one side to the other, something she should have been doing by 2 weeks and she hadn't even smiled yet.  The Doctor warned us at that visit that she was showing clear signs of Fetal Alcohol Exposure and the prognosis for her was not good.  I cried the entire way home but I was not going to give up on this baby!!  We increased the services and I worked with her frequently.  Speech therapy started by 9 months and we pressed on.  Slowly, but surely, she began to catch up. 

The biological parents visits had been cancelled because they weren't working their plan by the time she was 6 weeks old and before long caseworkers were talking about adoption.  It was as if she was meant to be ours!

By 3-4 our sweet girl was completely caught up and was pretty much on target developmentally but she was clearly not a typical child.  She frequently had a black cloud over her head and an extremely short fuse.  She was extremely impulsive and didn't seem to learn from her mistakes.  We always had to go above and beyond normal child proofing measures to keep her safe.

Recently, we learned that her birthmother had drunk alcohol "almost daily" during her pregnancy to self treat her drug addiction cravings.  Now we wade through the distinct possibility that she likely has FASD *and* the mood disorder genetically passed down from her mother.

All the love and therapies in the world did not change anything.  It's something we are still coming to terms with and we're in it for the long haul.

*All names used in this blog have been changed for privacy