Essay 2- Draft 2

November 23, 2017, Jacob and Marisol get their first foster child straight out of the hospital. They fall in love with her, the same way we all did, not thinking about the long term and how getting attached to her may affect us. As a premature drug baby, Araceli didn’t eat, cry or sleep like a normal baby which was different for her foster parents. It was easy to get frustrated and stressed out when the baby that is in your care eats less then she should be, cries and sleeps more than the normal.  The weight that was put on Jacob, Marisol and their family wasn’t expected by them, keeping in mind they have their own kids as well, ages 6 and 4. There were times where my aunt felt so defeated that returning her to the foster system would cross her mind. She started having these thoughts about 3 months in, which, by this time we were all so attached to her, which meant we would try our hardest to keep Araceli where we know she is being well taken care of. When my aunt expressed how she was feeling and how it was affecting her, my mom offered her to help and take care of her through the weekends. Which, we did, for 8 months, we took her home with us Friday through Monday and when we were able to, we would extend her stay 2 more days! My mom, 2 younger brothers and I absolutely loved having Araceli over at our house. She added so much joy and happiness to the household even at nights when I would lose over 5 hours of sleep, everything was worth it. My dad was the only one who preferred not to have her at our house. Not because he didn’t like the baby or any of that sort, but because he was thinking ahead and he knew she would eventually leave and he didn’t want to get attached, nor did he want us to although, we did. During this whole time, Susanna still had rights to Araceli and would be able to get her back once she took required classes as well as having her grandma, who took care of her own kids as well as all her 4 grandkids, to agree on taking in Araceli. Susanna also, at this time would have supervised visits with Araceli. As time went by, Susanna stopped going to her classes, canceled her visits time after time, and eventually had very minimum to do in Araceli’s life. Susanna still having her rights to Araceli, she would constantly ask Jacob and Marisol to adopt her. There response was and always has been “no” since they wanted to finish having kids of their own then later, eventually adopt when they’re ready.