Laughing with children

Yesterday, I was able to be reminded of why I work in child welfare. I never planned on working in child welfare. I earned a double major in social work and gerontology. Gerontology is the social study of aging. How I ended up in child welfare is a question on money. I was working at a nursing home making nothing with no benefits. I get offered a fairly well paying job with excellent benefits. It was hard to do, but it was a no-brainer, I had to make the change.

So I came for the money. I stayed for something else. I stayed because I still feel I can make a difference. I stayed to be an advocate for children. I stayed to be the only one looking out for children. I stayed to influence their lives and help them find their path. I stayed to help parents learn to parent. I stayed because I believe that people can change. I stayed because it is pure joy when parents learn to better parent. I stayed because I enjoy being a change agent in people’s lives.

Yesterday, I was able to spend 2 hours one on one with a foster child. She is 16, and has a powerful future ahead of her. Her bio-parents were crap, they lost her at birth. Strike one. Her adoptive parents were emotionally abusive, and never let her forget she was not their blood. Strike two. She ended up very young in the juvenile court system, with criminal charges. Foul Ball, not a strike.

Once she got into the system, she no longer had to live with her abusive adoptive parents. She bounced around in foster homes a lot. Her past 3 years have been very challenging. She has really struggled and had a very hard time of life. Then something wonderful happened. She got a therapist who cared. She has an intensive tracker willing to do almost anything to help her. She got a caseworker that is involved with the case and cares about children. She got a foster home willing to take her as she is, and love her. They have incorporated her into their family. They call her “my daughter” not my foster daughter, or my adopted daughter. She now has a little sister. She has a family.

She has turned around. She was sexually promiscuous, she is now stating she is celibate. (not so sure on this one). She went from sluffing to the honor roll. She wants to go to college. She wants to open her own business. She wants to have a strong future. She is taking business classes and preparing to take the ACT. Just a little over a year ago, she was failing school and smoking pot.

Her adoptive father died, so she has financial resources other foster children do not. She is getting a fair amount of social security, so has funds to do things with. Yesterday, she and I cashed a check for $1100, and bought a laptop. We laughed over seeing that much money at once. I have never seen 11 Benjamins in one place before. I’ve had that much money, but never held that much. We joked about what fun we could have. We smelled the money and flipped it around. It was very fun, and we laughed. It was a lovely sunny day, and we were laughing together.

We went and purchased the laptop she had ordered. We then went and purchased a briefcase for her to carry her laptop in. She purchased a very sensible and practical bag, one with wheels and a pull handle. She talked about how she is going to use this laptop to learn design and business skills. She talked about how she is going to use this to earn her degree. She talked about her plans for her future. Her future appears so bright, we all need shades.

I was able to spend some time with a girl who has had too few adults care about her in her lifetime. Somehow she is still optimistic about her future. I don’t know if I had her life how I would react.

I was able to remember why I work here. I work here because too many children have not had anyone give a damn about them. I give a damn. I am proud that I help children, and I am helping guide the future. I work here to be a part of children’s lives and better them. I work here because I feel I can do something about the problem. I work here, because I get to spend time with children and laugh.

Inconceivable

For some reason, I chose to watch a new television show on NBC, called Inconceivable. Maybe I watched because I like Ming-Na as a actress. Maybe I watched because I've been there at the fertility office, and I wondered if television could/would get it correct.

Well the short answer is, NO, they got it all wrong. The long answer is they completely made it up, and no one on the show, no writer, and not even the craft service guy has EVER been to fertility clinic.

The show starts with a man holding a specimen cup, watching what appears to be the start of a porn. He appears to be needing to produce a semen sample. The camera pans out to two staff members standing outside the door snickering. One makes a comment "This will take a while, he picked one with a plot." Now, having done this, the staff treated us with complete professionalism and privacy. We did this in Utah, and there were magazines in a drawer in the room, but no Video. There was a sign offering that there are other rooms if more privacy is needed. The room had a deadbolt and a flip lock. Lousy elevator music was piped into the room. The staff deals with this EVERY day, they stop snickering, unless someone is excited to head in there, I am sure.

The doctor in the show could be one of the doctors from Nip/Tuck. He appears to be an arrogant, egotistical, womanizing, cad of a doctor. He seems proud that he transplanted 5 embryos into one woman at once. This is just not done by ethical doctors today. Great advances in embryo grading allows them to implant the highest quality embryos. They grade embryos with an A, B, C or a 1, 2, 3 and so on. My reproductive endocrinologist typically will only transplant 2 quality embryos. He will on occasion, do three. Transplanting 5 is insane, who wants to have 5 babies at once? In France, they are moving toward implanting one embryo at a time. Increasing the number of embryos DOES NOT increase the possibility of pregnancy, it increases the likely hood of complications. Do you really think that the minister and his wife are going to undergo selective reduction, which some consider an abortive technique?

• This doctor seem proud of couples who have undergone 6 IVF procedures. He said he pushed them when they were ready to give up. Is that entirely ethical? Aren't doctors supposed to educate and let their patients make the decision? How many patients has he pressed, and it not worked? According to American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) information provided in their FAQ " IVF currently accounts for about 99% of ART procedures with GIFT, ZIFT and combination procedures making up the remainder. The average live delivery rate for IVF in 2000 was 29.9 per cent per retrieval--a little better than the 20 per cent chance in any given month that a reproductively healthy couple has of achieving a pregnancy and carrying it to term." ART procedures are those which are advanced, and do not include artificial insemination, medication treatments and other less advanced treatments. In an ART treatment, the Egg is removed from the female, and combined with the sperm in one of several different techniques. These odds of success are not cumulative, each attempt has the same success possibility as the one before. Think of this as a roulette wheel or a throw of the dice. What happened in the previous attempt has no bearing on the chances of success in this attempt. Your doctor may have learned something about your situation to give better medical advice, but the odds remain the same. What this means is that you can have 43 attempts at IVF, and still not get pregnant. ASRM is the foremost organization of fertility treatment, like the American Pediatrics Association is the foremost organization for pediatricians. For a better explanation, visit their website. They are well respected and publish scholarly and peer reviewed research.
• The drugs given during these treatments are powerful and have strong side effects. Concerns continue to exist that these drugs may contribute to various cancers. They cause hormonal swings, and can be tough for the person receiving them. They are expensive, and are usually not covered by insurance.
• IVF is very expensive. According to ASRM, the average cost in the USA for an IVF procedure is $12, 400. How is the minister and his wife paying for this? How is the Private paying for this? IVF, and infertility treatments for that matter, are not covered by TriCare, the military health insurance. At the clinic I go to, finances and how to pay for this is included in the INITIAL IVF consultation. It us usually not covered by insurance. ASRM states, and I agree with this: "The desire to have children and be parents is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human. People should not be denied insurance coverage for medically appropriate treatment to fulfill this goal."
• Egg freezing is pretty hard to do. It is usually only done as a last resort for women who are about to under go chemo, and don't have a partner, or women who are trying to preserve their fertility and don't have a partner. I cannot imagine WHY those eggs were not frozen fertilized. It is 100 times easier to freeze and thaw an embryo than an egg. It is very simple to freeze sperm. Something about the sperm makes the freezing and thawing process easier. They have been having success with taking a slice of the ovary of the woman with the undeveloped eggs in it, freezing that, and then surgically placing that back into the ovary at a later date. The whole scenario just makes no sense. And what was up with the dead wife's sister going to be mommy to the baby, not aunt, and they call the press to shout about it as a positive? Completely unrealistic, and if it were to happen, illegal. Thanks to HIPAA, privacy laws are very strict, and the doctor would be open to huge sanctions if they just call the papers without getting permission from the patient first. Did the Doctor EVEN think about what would happen to the baby in the future when it is know how his conception and pregnancy occurred?
• The doctor tells his patients that once they have their baby, the infertility treatments will all be a bad memory and they will forget it. That again is not true. Getting pregnant, having a baby, or adopting a child DO NOT resolve the feelings and issues surrounding infertility. This is likened to having a baby, it dies, and replacing it with another child. Infertility has its own set of grief, pain, issues and stresses, and these are not just swept away by becoming a parent. Look at what happened to Brooke Shields, he FINALLY had her longed for IVF baby, and ended up having postpartum depression. Here baby did not cure her miscarriage or take away her pain on this. Her baby did not remove her pain from the years to treatments, and the disappointment of seeing her period when she REALLY wanted to not see it. Her baby did not remove her grief over the years she did not have a child. It is not that easy. Telling people that it is that easy does a GREAT disservice to those pursuing treatments. What happens to them when they still have pain after giving birth?
• In the show, they showed sperm sitting unlocked in a fridge. I've seen how they store sperm at my clinic. It is frozen in little pipettes, and kept under lock and key. Several layers of security exist, and no one person holds all the keys to get to the sperm. Sperm is processed and frozen the same day it is produced. Quality and other factors demand this. Sperm is not kept in specimen bottles in an unlocked fridge for some undetermined amount of time. Sperm is labeled and coded. Names are not on the pipettes, bar codes are. Again, there are several layers of protection to ensure that the sperm you get is the sperm you wanted. I highly doubt that a spurned office worker could switch the sperm. From what I saw, it can't happen. Side note, it appears she obtained his sperm sample by giving him a BJ, and spitting the sperm into the specimen cup. Well, saliva is very harmful to sperm. Why, you ask? One of the main ingredients in semen is fructose, and saliva begins to digest this in your mouth. So saliva starts digesting the sperm, if the oral method of retrieval is used, while it is in the cup. When we went for the semen analysis, we were instructed to not use saliva in any form. Another day, I'll post what fun getting a semen sample is. Saliva is also full of bacteria, and if it were to be inserted into the uterus, well, it could cause all sorts of infections.
• Most couples who pursue infertility treatments succeed before they need IVF. I would hate for America to get the impression that IVF is the only treatment out there. Several less invasive and expensive treatments exist and are successful in achieving pregnancy.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that they are making surrogacy seem very routine. Surrogacy is VERY rare. It is illegal in several states. I'm also not going to talk about the fact they are running a surrogacy program at the same location as a fertility clinic. These are usually run in separate locations. They may use certain doctors, but they are usually separate entities.

It appears this show was written by people who have NO current knowledge of modern infertility practice. They appear to have no desire to show what real infertility treatment is like, rather they are going for the sensational and absurd. This performs a GREAT disservice to the many people who have to seek help getting pregnant. I hope that no one is turned away from treatment by this biased and inaccurate show. It should have a disclaimer, that this show has no real bearing on real infertility treatment.

I have been very satisfied by the care I received from my reproductive endocrinologist(RE). However to read another view of an office visit with him, click here. Her experience is toward the bottom, and she calls him "Big Shot RE" which I think I will call him as well. I feel pretty bad about how they were treated, because I referred them to him, based on my very positive experience with him. WHY does it matter who you love when you want to get pregnant? I feel a bit like a traitor to my friends, but if I have to go for fertility treatments, I'll go see him because he is very good. I will give him a piece of my mind in my next visit about how he treated my friends, and request he be more sensitive to families where there are same sex parents. The desire to parent is not limited to the married community, and my friends had the same goal as DH and I do. They wanted, and succeeded, to become parents. Off soap box, sorry for the sideline.

If you really want to know what infertility treatment is like, check out Resolve.org

Fun with the Army a rant

Can I just have a big screaming temper tantrum for a minute?


I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate the Army. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

I hate our fucking idiot in charge, GWB.

DH's unit let him know TODAY, that he has to be there TOMORROW for SRP (paperwork needed before they deploy, the last step before orders are written). Why the fuck could they have not done this on a drill weekend? Because they are going to deploy damn quick, that is my guess. We were told that after Christmas the deployment will happen, but with the Elections in December, I bet he is gone before Halloween...

He is in freaking college, he has class. What FUBAR (fucked up beyond recognition) is this crap?

I hate the loss of control. I hate the thought of my love and I being separated. I am just pissed and upset. I've held in the freaking out for several hours, here it is. Stomping foot, Stomping foot, Stomping foot.

I just want to SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM .


I cannot imagine living without him for 18 months. I will go freaking insane. I cannot imagine how I will handle worrying about him. I cannot deal with this all right now. I am almost petrified.

Yeah I know he signed up, blah, blah blah. I don't want to hear truck up and drive on. I am scared, hurt, worried, and freaking out.

PS. Someday I will talk about something other than the Army and GWB, but not today.

The War is Over!!!!

I'm declaring the war in Iraq over. "Mission Accomplished" We've "stayed the course". We've searched high and low for the weapons of mass distraction, oops distraction. None found. Saddam is done. Once they have a constitution, we need to just pack up and leave. No more dead Americans. No more flag draped coffins. No more wounded men, men and women who are at their prime, and come home with half their limbs. No more soldiers coming home and going out of their minds because of the PTSD. No more tearful goodbyes and separations so that the soldiers can go fight jihad.

The chief idiot in charge won't do it, so I will. State the mission is done. The problem is that since no one knows what the goal is, no one knows when they have reached it. Is the goal a constitution? Is the goal running water and power to everyone? Is the goal a TV in every room, two cars in the driveway, and endless discussion because the Iraqi version of Brittany Spears had a baby with her trailer trash husband? What is the goal?

John Lennon did it, and now I am. The war is over. No one won. Everyone lost something, some lost all. Everyone on the first plane home.

Our beloved president recently said "When your talking about war, your talking about peace." Right. He was itching to start a war since he was elected. If he could, he would invade Canada. He's love to start another war to distract the people. We are now dealing with his failed response to hurricane Katrina, so I think it is time to "wag the dog" and start some new battle elsewhere to distract us all from the fact that one of the largest cities in the USA turned into a third world. He tried tonight in his speech in front of a building that looked like he was standing in front of the castle at Disneyland. He tried to recapture the leadership and strength he demonstrated when he stood on the rubble and told the fire fighters he could hear them. He failed.

Did you notice his "my sleeves are rolled up and I left my tie on the plane" blue oxford? Did you notice how wrinkle free and pressed that shirt looked? It looked freshly starched and pressed. Did you notice the lack of sweat on that shirt? He is in New Orleans for crying out loud. It is humid and hot there. Did you notice how perfectly his sleeves were rolled up? No shuzzing there. All show, no substance. We have seen him all messed up clearing brush on his ranch, why is he not proud of a dirty sweaty shirt when he is helping others?

Anyway, the war is over. We lost it when he was given the presidency by the Supreme Court, and when he was re-elected.

Double Standard

Sorry about turning on the comment verification. I got my first taste of comment spam today, and when I clicked on the link it went to an adult site. Nice. Thank God I did that at home, not work.

So I'm going to a conference on Friday and Saturday. I for some really dumb reason volunteered to go as a chaperone for 16 and 17 year olds. I had all sorts of great reasons like I want to get noticed so I can get promoted. Well, I got promoted, so now what? Anyway I do like teenagers, I just expect to not get much sleep.

So, as I've mentioned before DH is in the Army, and facing a deployment. He just came back from being gone for a months worth of training, and goes for a weekend once a month. In fact he goes next weekend, which is his birthday weekend.

So I am going overnight to this conference. I'll be gone all day Friday and most of Saturday. And someone who is facing being gone for 18 months is complaining that he will be lonely and does not know what he will do. Can you say double standard? He said he worries about my safety and will miss me. Well, when he is gone, I miss him and worry about his safety. So turn about is fair play. Maybe this will be a taste of what I go through when he goes away.

He's doing better after we had a long conversation about this. It has made me wonder, that why does he get the adventures and I don't. Next time I get invited to Vegas without him, I'm going. I'm going to this conference because it will be good for my career, and it will be good for my burnout to get to be around kids in a fun setting.

There is another conference, this time for adults the last weekend of the month. They will pay for one hotel night, I may go to that one as well.

Maybe if I got a tan....

Ok, this is try two because my browser crashed. I’ll blog about Microsoft some other day. I’ll also do a better job of updating this on a more regular basis.

Dh asked what I was going to do with what I write. I’ll compile them and write a book called Misadventures in Child Welfare, and publish it under the name Jane Doh. (like what Homer Simpson says). I use sarcasm liberally in this blog entry.

So today, I have a meeting with a client. She is a royal bitch. Everything is someone else’s fault, nothing is her fault. She has someone to blame for everything. She has a huge chip on her against the world. I am her second worker. She was so horrible to her last worker, that she got a new worker. Her children are in foster care. I am amazed at how this mean, nasty and angry woman managed to raise such wonderful, kind, and caring children as she has. (except for the one which is a clone of her mother.) Even her oldest son, who has a drug problem and a criminal record is a really good kid and is working really hard at his treatment program.

The meeting today was about why she was not having unsupervised visits. Why does she not have unsupervised visits you ask? Lets see….
1) She has supposedly completed anger management, but I’ve had to hang up on her several times because she has flown off the handle and is yelling and screaming at me.
2) I don’t trust her to not emotionally abuse her children, or berate them. She has a trigger hair temper, and can just blow up. If she can’t manage to not yell and scream at me or the therapist, how can I trust her to manage herself with her mouthy daughter, mild mannered son, or very curious daughter?
3) She is continuing to violate a no contact order.
4)I don’t trust her to not sabotage the working relationship I have worked hard to create with her children.

I tried to explain the reasons I was not comfortable with unsupervised visits. I tried to push part of the blame for the lack of the change onto the Guardian as Litem, the children’s lawyer. Sorry, but that is how the system works. If I’m not comfortable, I can bet you a million dollars the GAL will not be either.
So this is a super productive and positive meeting. At one point, I threatened to leave. I can usually take notes on my PDA, and participate in the meeting, but not this one. I gave up and turned on the recorder on my PDA, which recorded until it ran out of memory. My PDA is now having serious problems working which I will hopefully resolve when I sync it tomorrow.

The mom threatens (not in these words, but it is understood) to give up if she does not get her way. That’s a great way to give it to the child welfare system. Fuck your service plan and give up and ensure your kids stay in foster care. Yup that will show DCFS. She also is hinting she’ll get her oldest son to give up.
She has complaints about everything. She twists everything around, and the accuses me of twisting, not being truthful, or hiding the facts. She is a MASTER manipulator. I have a sex offending teen who wants to be just like her. Yeah.

One thing I have failed to mention at this point is that the entire family is Native American. They are members of one of the largest tribes.

At this point, her sister pipes up. She asks why they don’t have a Native American caseworker. OH, Pick me (hand waving in the air.) Because DCFS keeps them locked in a closet? Because the state of Utah is full of Racist pigs? Or is it because we don’t have a Native American caseworker? Ding, Ding Ding, you win what is behind door number two!!!

So they then proceed to tell me that the children won’t tell me anything because I am white. They don’t trust Whitey. (their words.) The sister said that if I was black or even if I had darker skin, I would work better. She was using her hands on her arms like she was rubbing lotion on her arms, maybe suggesting I use a self tanner? Well, then I’ll just go figure out a way to change my DNA to suit you. I tried to explain to them that race is not taken into account when assigning cases. They thought that was interesting, and wrote it down to use against me. They also wrote down that I have cases of different backgrounds on my caseload. She again wrote this down to use against me. I did not tell them that cases are usually assigned to the worker with the least cases and I was assigned her case because the manager flattered me into saying how I can handle the hard cases.

So now, they want a new caseworker, because I am a racist just because I am white. For the record, I am very pale skinned. I’m of Irish descent. If it helps, whenever I procreate, my children will have darker skin because DH is Mexican…. (I did not mention this.) The sister said that the children were afraid and would not trust Whitey. They are telling the mother all sorts of horror stories about the foster home. As a result of the mother’s request, I had a child protection worker conduct full child protection interviews on the children. They disclosed absolutely NOTHING. I pointed this out to the mother, and even that they did not appear scared, and that one of them got out her new Hilary Duff CD and pointed out her favorite songs and showed off her new purse. Scared kids say not a thing, they don't just get out CD’s and talk Hilary Duff with the interviewer. They said they are not going to sit and cower in front of Whitey, they act strong. Basically, they said this 12 year old is aware of race enough to be afraid and cover it? Only if they are carefully taught. I asked them who taught them to have distrust of whites. OF course there was no answer to that one. They said it is their way. Nice, so racism is ok. Great thing to teach your children. Teach them to fear and hate a good part of the population because of the color of their skin. Great. Don’t trust the white man, that was also said. She must have a blast at court, where everyone is white. She does live in one of the least diverse counties in Utah, so what does she expect?

One more thing, the mother asked if I have children. Ummm, I’m smarter than to answer that question. I said that we are here to talk about her and her family, not about my life. She keep on with this, and I again said my standard response when I feel this info will be used against me. She assumed that I have no children. I stated that is not what I said. She then said that the last worker said she doesn’t have children, she has 3 cats. (Well so do I, so that is the problem.) She then spread her legs and used her hands to mimic a child coming out of her and said that if I have not felt them come from my body, I have no idea. She asked how I would feel having my children ripped from me. I said that if I have children or not, I don’t know what it feels like to have my children in foster care, so I would never say I know what that feels like. She said that if I don’t have children, I have no business working in child welfare. So she wants my employer to discriminate too? She threatened to call the tribe and have them take over. FINE, let them have her. I adore the children, but the tribe can have the mom.

Imagine if I had said that I could not work with them because they are Native American? I’d get fired. Even if I was the client and she was the worker, it would be awful to say that I could not work with a Native American worker. Why is it ok for them to be blatantly racist, and not a white person? Why can they request a new worker based on race, when as an unwritten rule white racists get assigned a worker of color, (or me a race traitor as I have been called)? What the Fuck is this Shit? A co-worker has a case where they are refugees, are we supposed to find a refugee to be their caseworker? Utah is SO diverse, that should not be a problem. Right.

So, because I’m not a Native American or a mother I am worthless to them. Sure, my people were not driven off my ancestral lands, but neither was this mother. This happened to her ancestors, not her. My people were persecuted, had an extermination order signed against them, and had to flee across America to Utah for peace, but she has the monopoly on this one. I am white, but since I acquired a Hispanic last name, I have noticed a difference between how I am treated. I get ID’d tons more, etc. Am I discriminated against, not usually, but it exists.

Why does skin color mean that much? You can’t help it, get over it. I can’t change my color, and would not want to as much as they can’t change their color or would not want to. I may not know what it is like to have my children come into foster care, but I have grieved over the fact I have no children. Do all rape counselors have to be rape victims to be successful? No. How about sex offender treatment? Does the therapist need to be a sex offender to treat an offender? Horse shit.

As much as my dad was a lousy dad, he taught me to not see color and to respect people on who they are, not what they look like. Maybe since he taught me that, he was a fairly successful dad.