SGO advice - birth mother not sticking to the agreement
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:21 am
Hello all,
Sorry to bore you with a back story, but obviously it's necessary. I'll try and keep it brief!
In March 2016 my sister in law announced to us and other family members that she had given birth to a baby girl...3 months after it happened. Due to mental health issues, and drug use, the baby had been taken straight into care, and had to undergo treatment in hospital for opiate withdrawal. The father is unknown, certainly to us, and maybe even to my sister in law, who had apparently been prostituting herself for drug money. Sounds like a classic tale so far.
In the next few months, and for the reasons we chose, my wife and I were granted an SGO in Sep 2016 to look after her. The agreement was that my sister in law would visit every 8 weeks or so. Everything was going fine from Sep 2016 until the very end of Feb 2017, at which point she stopped visiting and has not been back. So basically, despite our initial reasons, we now feel we have been lumbered looking after a child. I'm ashamed to say, but if we could turn the clock back we wouldn't have done it.
So she's not seen her own daughter in almost 3 years, but will occasionally send a card (like the recently arrived Christmas card), which says how much she loves her beautiful girl, and how special she is. Completely empty sentiments. Her daughter has NO idea who she is (partly due to age). My wife and I let her call us mummy and daddy now, since birth mother is no longer present.
So as it stands now, the whole thing has put strain on us all, and has definitely left us feeling more stressed. We can't help but feel how different life would be if it was just my wife, me, and our own 5yo daughter.
Our niece has just turned 4, but she is some 6-8 months behind where our own daughter was at that age. She has problems concentrating, doesn't play with toys on her own as she seemingly lacks any interest in them, and can instead be a bit destructive, ie: wrecking things our daughter is doing or playing with, then smiling about it. She seems to be a more sociable person, preferring our company to playing with toys, but then pretty much annoying us all after about 3 mins.
We feel trapped and frequently have discussions about what we could do to remedy the situation, ie: could we hand her back to social services. We then have that discussion about could we really do that, how would we feel in the days or weeks to follow, and obviously how would it impact our niece, as well as our daughter. There's also the effect it would have on my mother in law, who loves the child like any of her other grandchildren, and there's a very real chance that my sister in law could commit suicide, such is her mental state. My wife's relationship with her sister is at rock bottom, but she doesn't want her sister to take drastic action following a decision we could make. No one else sees what we see on a daily basis.
Can anyone offer any advice?
Sorry to bore you with a back story, but obviously it's necessary. I'll try and keep it brief!
In March 2016 my sister in law announced to us and other family members that she had given birth to a baby girl...3 months after it happened. Due to mental health issues, and drug use, the baby had been taken straight into care, and had to undergo treatment in hospital for opiate withdrawal. The father is unknown, certainly to us, and maybe even to my sister in law, who had apparently been prostituting herself for drug money. Sounds like a classic tale so far.
In the next few months, and for the reasons we chose, my wife and I were granted an SGO in Sep 2016 to look after her. The agreement was that my sister in law would visit every 8 weeks or so. Everything was going fine from Sep 2016 until the very end of Feb 2017, at which point she stopped visiting and has not been back. So basically, despite our initial reasons, we now feel we have been lumbered looking after a child. I'm ashamed to say, but if we could turn the clock back we wouldn't have done it.
So she's not seen her own daughter in almost 3 years, but will occasionally send a card (like the recently arrived Christmas card), which says how much she loves her beautiful girl, and how special she is. Completely empty sentiments. Her daughter has NO idea who she is (partly due to age). My wife and I let her call us mummy and daddy now, since birth mother is no longer present.
So as it stands now, the whole thing has put strain on us all, and has definitely left us feeling more stressed. We can't help but feel how different life would be if it was just my wife, me, and our own 5yo daughter.
Our niece has just turned 4, but she is some 6-8 months behind where our own daughter was at that age. She has problems concentrating, doesn't play with toys on her own as she seemingly lacks any interest in them, and can instead be a bit destructive, ie: wrecking things our daughter is doing or playing with, then smiling about it. She seems to be a more sociable person, preferring our company to playing with toys, but then pretty much annoying us all after about 3 mins.
We feel trapped and frequently have discussions about what we could do to remedy the situation, ie: could we hand her back to social services. We then have that discussion about could we really do that, how would we feel in the days or weeks to follow, and obviously how would it impact our niece, as well as our daughter. There's also the effect it would have on my mother in law, who loves the child like any of her other grandchildren, and there's a very real chance that my sister in law could commit suicide, such is her mental state. My wife's relationship with her sister is at rock bottom, but she doesn't want her sister to take drastic action following a decision we could make. No one else sees what we see on a daily basis.
Can anyone offer any advice?