Horrible feeling

There is not feeling more horrible to a woman than to know that you spent all of these years taking care of someone else's kids, being the "mom" in their lives just to be completely disregarded like yesterdays trash. I did that. I was the one in the bleachers at the football games watching one cheer and the other play while nine months pregnant having contractions when you are supposed to be on bed rest because of complications in your pregnancy to be there for the kids because their mother thought her boyfriend was more important. It was not their mother that was at the parent/teacher conferences when they were having trouble in school. It was me taking them to the doctors appointments and doing every thing that a mother was supposed to be doing.

Then to have to listen to them tell me that I was the reason that she was not there for them. The only way that we could get her to be there for the kids was to provide a roof over her head and even then we were still having to pay a sitter so that we could work because she would never stay at home with them. She would go off with her boyfriend and would not help with them at all. Then while she still had custody, we would kick her out and she would pick the kids up at school the next day and take off with them. She would keep them from us until she had something that she wanted to do and she needed someone to keep the kids. Then, she would just leave them with us. She would then get back to her old ways and they would be lucky to hear from her once a week.

When they would see her we would have so many problems out of them and it was stressful on all of us. But if they would go more than a couple of days without any contact things would be great with them. But then as soon as they get into a routine she would come back and disrupt things all over again.

Even when I was pregnant with both my little girls. As soon as it got close enough to start having contractions here she would come starting any argument that she could getting me upset and causing us problems. She would pull a power trip any chance she got.

Then about two years ago, she was living with us and would not find a job. We finally kicked her out and she ran off with my stepdaughter. She took off with her and when she came to get the rest of her things she locked the door to pack and then took off like a bat out of hell getting out of the house. While she was leaving, I checked the bedroom that she shared with my stepdaughter and discovered that she had both her things and my stepdaughter's. We knew that she was hiding out at her best friend's house but she would never let us know where the house was. So we called the police. The custody papers state that she has visitation every other weekend. She saw the kids the previous weekend because she was living there. The police told us that there was nothing that they could do because it was her visitation weekend and we argued that. The officer told us that if she didn't bring her back by the time that the visitation was over then to call them and they could take care of it.

She didn't bring her back. We called the police back and then they told us that if we knew where she was that they could follow us to go get her. I told them that if we knew where they were that we would not need them to follow us that we could go get her ourselves. They told us that unless we knew where they were that they could not help us. I asked about filing a kidnapping report because she didn't have permission to have my stepdaughter and they told us that they could not do that. That night we saw on the news a report where a custodial grandparent reported her grandchild missing when the non-custodial parent took offf with them. We were told we could not do that.

A few days later we found out from a friend of her's that she had taken my stepdaughter to a shelter. We called all of the numbers for the shelters that we could find asking if we could fax a picture of them with the copy of the custody papers could they call the police and let them know if she was there because I knew that they could not tell us where they were to keep the other women there safe. They would not agree to that but told me that we could have a police officer call and that they could tell the officer. We called the police again and was told that they could not call for us unless we had a contempt order filed. I thought that us having papers stating that we had custody and that her visitation was over that was enough to show that she was in contempt? I guess I was wrong. Then DFACS shows up at our house stating that a report was filed on my husband that he was physically abusive to me. They came in and investigated and saw that it was not true. Then the case worker stated that the person that filed the report stated that she and the child were in a shelter and that she and the child were kicked out of the home. She was the only one that was kicked out of the home and we had just found out that she was in a shelter. That told us that it was her that filed it but to this day she still swears up and down that she was not the one that did it. She tells us that it was her friend that filed it. I know better but with her and my in-laws what can I do?

Well, that is my rant for tonight. It is not an easy road to deal with. I feel like someone has just ran over me and is sitting on my heart. I put everything into this family to make sure that no matter what the kids had a mother-figure there just to get tossed out in the mud. It is a horrible way to feel. I know in my heart that someday the kids will realize what all we have gone through for them but until then...this is my release.