December 2008 Daniel continued visitation with his parents in the psychologist's office. His job was to coach the parents as well as observe Daniel's responses to their interactions. He had been recording the visits and had served as a witness in court for the 2008 jury trial. We were all supposed to be part of the visits but emotionally I could not handle it anymore. I began sitting in the waiting room during the 1 hour visits praying.
Even as I was struggling with my emotions during this time I decided that I would give the parents Christmas gifts, an effort to show some form of friendship I suppose as God began changing my heart. I did actually enjoy shopping for Daniel's mom and looked forward to giving her a small gift.
Daniel's post-visit reactions became increasingly worse even as he began coping better in the visits--in other words he was no longer crying and in obvious distress during the one hour. At home he became increasingly volatile though and would go into rages and start banging his head with virtually no provocation. For nights following visits he would have night terrors of which we videotaped a few so that someone at DHS, or his psychologist, or attorney could see what was happening. By this time I could count on one hand the number of nights Daniel had slept through the night since he came in April 2007.
Beginning in January 2009 the judge wanted Daniel to begin twice/week visits with his parents. One visit would continue to be with the original psychologist, the other would be at Parent Child Center with a psychologist who would do Parent Child Interaction Therapy. The first appointment was set at Parent Child Center. Psychologist 1 would brief Psychologist 2 on what he had been doing so far and how the interactions were progressing. Then Daniel, his parents, my mom and I and psychologist 1 would visit in a play room while Psychologist 2 observed from behind a window.
Daniel's dad never came but the rest of us proceeded with the visit. It was one of the best visits to that point. Even though Daniel for the most part kept some distance from his mother, she eventually was able to have some periods of interaction and more eye contact than I had previously seen. After 20 months of visitation this was the best I had observed and I figured that Psychologist 2 would be pretty impressed.
We were prepping for a review hearing the end of January and the caseworker informed us that Psychologist 2 from Parent Child Center had written a letter to the judge explaining that she would not be able to facilitate visitation. She was concerned about the original abuse, she felt that there was no point in continuing visitations and believed that Daniel was at risk for continued emotional harm and attachment issues if visitations continued.
This came as a surprise to us and when it was presented to the judge at the January hearing he was at a loss as to what to do. Daniel's attorney filed a motion to have visitation suspended. The judge was hesitant to suspend visits since the permanency plan was still reunification. No one could file a motion to have parents rights terminated until 90 from the permanency hearing but the DHS county director had already stated that if things didn't begin improving DHS was ready to recommend termination as soon as the 90 days was over.
The judge set a date for a visitation hearing in February. The state/DHS planned to have Daniel's psychologist as a witness. Daniel's mother hired a psychologist to testify against Daniel's psychologist. By this time I had compiled a CD of Daniel's night terrors (both video and audio) as well as audio clips of his distress during visits. Daniel's attorney also informed me that I would be called as a witness. One visitation hearing turned into three separate hearings since there were several witnesses. I was ready to be called and spent days feeling anxious and unable to eat.
I dreaded having to be cross-examined by one particularly nasty and sarcastic attorney in front of of a courtroom of people. I had to keep reminding myself that the outcome was not my burden to bear but it was in God's hands.
I sat outside the courtroom waiting to be called and I heard as they played the CD of Daniel's distress inside the room. It was awful as Daniel's wails could be heard throughout the courthouse.
Finally I was called in. That walk to the witness box felt super long and the courtroom was so very quiet. It began with Daniel's attorney questioning me about the effect of the parent visits on Daniel, his sleep patterns, behavior changes, how his development had progressed when parent visits had been suspended the year before and how his development had quickly regressed when visits were resumed. The judge had some questions about whether Daniel was perhaps just an anxious child. Was he overly clingy in all situations? Perhaps he was not exposed to strangers and new situations enough? Did I provide him opportunities to be separated from me? Daniel's mother's attorney declined to cross examine but Daniel's father's attorney stood up like he was ready to rip into me. And he was. With a perpetual sneer he inferred that I was making things up. He thought I was cruel and heartless to video Daniel's night terrors instead of comforting him (although we had at least one video clip from a day time nap in which I picked him up and attempted to awaken him but clearly he could be neither awakened to comforted.) He insinuated that I had little experience with children so how would I know what is normal and abnormal. He tried to put words in my mouth that I never said and confuse me. There were several times that he asked me difficult questions and there were long silences as I prayed silently asking God for wisdom. I had great peace by this time but also had a bad headache! I don't remember his exact final question but it was along the lines of when I encounter situations with Daniel where I don't know what to do, what do I do? I was weary by this time and didn't know exactly what to say. My simple answer was "I pray." he stared at me for a second with a frown, tossed his pen down, and said "no further questions Your Honor." done!
Daniel's attorney sent me an email following the hearing thanking me for my testimony and stating that he felt that the judge was finally able to see that I was not the manipulative, lying foster parent I had been made out to be. We had not been fabricating stories to sabotage reunification. There had been so many people praying for me. I knew that the peace and ability to answer questions articulately had been God's help!
The judge's decision was that visitation would be suspended for Daniel's mother until the next hearing, but Daniel's father would be able to continue weekly one hour visits with the psychologist. All along he had been better able to engage Daniel in playful interactions so it would be interesting to see how visits would go when it was just him without the mother.
My tale of two trials is getting longer and longer and I'm nowhere near the second trial! To be continued....
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