As mentioned yesterday, I’m still not over the call I got for four children – 3yr old twin girls, a 7yr old boy, and 8yr old girl. On the heels of that disappointment, I agreed to meet a 15yr old girl with intellectual delays. The child had been in care for some time but the past year had been spent in an institution which sounded top rate. There she’d finally received a formal diagnosis and started on medication that actually helped. Her time there is at an end so the social worker is touring her around to select a foster family to settle with. The goal is that she’ll remain with said family until she ages out of foster care in 2 1/2yrs. They left feeling quite happy. But I left dreading having her here. The hour she’d visited felt like forever. I couldn’t imagine having her here all the time. I tried very hard to figure out life with her but I kept failing. No amount of positives – like her being at her birth mom’s every weekend and being in school full-time – could alleviate the sense of dread that had settled on me the moment I saw her. And so, I had to say no to that placement. And, after the flurry of excitement, everything’s the same. Hopefully not for long.