Now that we can breathe part two

For the first week we were home Andrew's mom came over to help with Jonathan, although she really didn't do anything except change diapers and watch him. I was seeing what she wasn't doing for him rather than what little she was doing. She had taken Jonathan to his therapy both OT/PT, and speech so he wouldn't miss his appointments.
Yes, there were issues and towards the end of the week I told her I felt like I was ready to take the helm back.
Jonathan was not happy with me and had been aggressive towards me since after the first amniocentesis. He was mainly acting out and head butting me in the belly. Our theory is that he was mad at mommy for not being the primary one to take care of him (not like I was very pregnant and could barely walk).
Since he has a speech delay, he doesn't really know how to articulate how he's feeling. He is in speech therapy learning to talk and primarily be able to ask for help.
On August 12th, (it was a Tuesday morning) I was trying my best to get both of the kids in the car so I could take Jonathan to his Occupational and Physical therapies appointment.
As I was loading them up in the car... a car pulls up in the driveway... It's a caseworker from the department of social services. She said that someone had filed a report making some allegations against us about Jonathan's care. I told her that I had to take Jonathan to therapy and that she'd have to come back later, I didn't want to be late.
Later on she came back and Andrew was home. She read the allegations and we were accused of neglecting Jonathan. We were accused of never taking Jonathan to the doctor, never giving him a bath(because he had a rash), and not doing anything about his supposed Autism(What the HELL is a non MD doing diagnosing MY Child).
There were more allegations about my home, but mostly that was a minor issue legally.
This person also alleged my husband of working part time at Pizza Hut as a main source of income and doing work with a ministry doing financial literacy training.
By that point we knew exactly who had filed this report and pretty much we could say, Yea it was Jill (the one who watched Jonathan while we were delivering Daniel).
What Jill didn't know and what we CAN verify is this: Jonathan has a minor to moderate developmental delay of approximately 6-7 months in some things and about a 3-4 month delay in others. The Delay is attributed more to his history of being in the hospital a extended period of time (nearly two months) and missing several of his early milestones. We have been playing catch up ever since.
Jonathan has been in Physical and occupational therapy since he came home from the hospital. He has been in Speech therapy since he was 18 months (with only a tiny lapse because of the fact there is a speech therapy shortage in our area). my husband has worked for West marine for over 11 years and works for Pizza Hut on the week ends for supplemental income only. We do volunteer with Darlene's ministry from time to time but that hasn't happened for close to a year and a half.
We have been to the doctor too many times to number and I will not even hesitate to take either of my babies for any thing. We even have gone the extra mile , taking him to the pediatrician to ask him if he thought Jonathan was autistic. His answer is NO and he specifically told us why. Jonathan interacts with people and make limited eye contact, but the eye contact may also be a trust issue or an eyesight issue.
Jonathan was born with a lung disease called lung disease of prematurity, further complicated by scarring of the lungs (called BPD) He was on supplemental oxygen until he was 7 months old.
He developed a severe case of Eczema(or hives) as a result of having an allergic condition. There are several foods we know he is severely allergic to: eggs, Carrots,String beans... That is why he gets rashes and unfortunately other than drugging him with powerful allergy drugs, and avoiding some foods there isn't a whole lot more that we can help him with. He sees a pediatric pulmonary/allergy specialist in Charlotte 4-5 times a year. His name is Dr. Black, and he is a great man.
I gave the social worker all of Jonathan's doctor's, therapists, and early interventionist professional information. The next time I saw all of them I gave them a head's up.
We were told to clean up the house but the end of the case and she would get back to us.
On the 13th it rained all day... It was my birthday and I felt sick. On that Thursday going into Friday Jonathan had been sick earlier in the week, and for some reason Daniel was sick too.
On Friday I took his temp and it was 100.6 so I called the pediatrician got him in as he was 3 weeks old on that day and screaming non stop. The doctor sent us over to Levine Children's Hospital for the week end as Daniel needed a spinal tap and blood tests to make sure he did not have meningitis. He had both done and received antibiotics all weekend. Monday we came home and although he was still slightly sick from the same stomach virus we all had and colic we were told to let it just run it's course. We told our pastor about Jill making the report and how unhappy we were about that.
On August 26th the social worker reappeared and demanded we clean our house. We called the supervisor to get a little more time and then called anyone that would help us to clean our house.
On the 27th about 10-15 people were at my house helping me clean and we were doing a fantastic job. Social worker shows up again with her own agenda. She was there to take the kids until we could get our house clean. We called our friend Darlene to ask her to take them.
We spend Thursday, Friday,Saturday and Sunday and Monday cleaning as we were expecting the social worker to come back on Tuesday after Labor day. We had the entire house spotless and looking like a model home.
Only thing was that she had not even sent for any records until after the kids were place with Darlene. She had also made me an appointment for a mental evaluation as she was concerned that maybe I was having post-partum depression and was a danger to my kids...
Only thing about that was I was just at my 1 month post-partum check at my Ob/GYN and he asked me several questions and seemed satisfied with my answers.
I had been upset over all this investigating me and my family and how I was accused of being a horrible parent. The Social worker never showed up until September 9th to tell me that I could have my kids back.
It's been nearly two months since they came home. They were gone for 12 days. 12 days I will never get back.
For a while it was rough as they were both having severe attachment issues. They needed to be near/touching mommy all of the time or they would cry non stop. Jonathan was having issues with no being able to sleep and night terrors. Daniel on the other hand had previously been having issues with eating. We were working on not over feeding him so he would not vomit 24/7.
Along with that issue, he also needed to be held and was scared of everything...
Needless to say, it was a difficult 3 weeks before they were feeling emotionally safe and secure.
Daniel's feeding issues were addressed at his 2 month appointment and his formula was changed to Enfamil AR. Since then he has not vomited to the extreme that it was. He is still having issues with screaming, but we think that it's reflux causing it. There is a happy baby in Daniel...sometimes we can see it.
The case was closed on October 7th. We recently received notice that the case was closed and that it was found to be unfounded.

In short currently I feel disappointed in how it was dealt with. I am upset that all this even took place and it all could really have been avoided if Jill would have just asked about Jonathan and his life.
I seriously regret ever telling the pastor about it as he desired to not have anything to do with either side. Only thing is that I definitely believe someone played some politics and played a card that made him choose sides, and it seriously isn't ours. I refuse to believe this for several reasons and I pray for him to understand that. trust never comes easily or fast and takes a long time to be restored when it gets broken. Sorry.. that's just the way it is.

I would rather just call it what it was: a serious case of no one wanting to communicate and I just want to be able to say I forgive and just move on. Everyone else can seriously kiss my butt if they think I want to throw blows. I am seriously not like that and will more likely just say yes, you messed up but you're forgiven and walk away. Yes I can forgive and my friends know it. Yes, I am seriously upset about what happened. must I go on and pretend nothing ever happened? NO, seriously that would be lying.
It's way more likely that it will take a while before I let myself off of the hook, as I have a tendency to blame myself even when the causes were external. I am way more severe on myself than other people.
I did on my own initiative go see a counselor at the church, but that is more my own deal than anyone Else's, and I will not talk about that. I will say that so far it has helped me.
I was told that I needed to pursue having the meeting myself since I am the offended party. My thoughts are it's a. been way too long for anyone to remember and B. why should I have to initiate anything if I am the one who has been hurt in this. shouldn't an effort be made by the offending party to get forgiveness.
Only thing is I might be willing to say that certain alliances were made already and there were absolutely no consequences to Jill or her family and she was allowed to work with the children. I really don't give a lick in general because I trust most of the people that work with the kids back in Children's ministry... It's more principle over dishonesty, and how untrustworthy she is to us.

We are choosing to stay with this church as we love it and the people there are super. We are trying not to let the actions of one woman-who was herself having family issues, taint our view of anyone there. People have problems... but when they turn into problems for others it should have been immediately dealt with instead it continues to drag out...
If we don't go to the Rock Hill campus we will go to the Main campus in South Park.
We calculated that there is only a 20 minute difference between the two. and to us that doesn't justify going to one and not the other.
We would love to be involved in another life group, but it might be a while before we go to one again.
I feel shattered, and rather than lash out at the people who've caused me pain, I just would rather be allowed to deal with everything in my own way. No mediator is needed, trust me I know other people involved don't trust me... anyways.. Just let me talk to Jill and tell her that I forgive her and I promise I'll be done.
Honestly, right now I have a few regrets I shouldn't have, like for instance the guilt I have over having the issues in my pregnancy that led to our having to move the birth day two weeks later than we had previously planned. I however, will NEVER feel guilty for having Daniel. He is just one of the sweetest boys in my life and I will never regret my children.
It took us too long and we went through too much for them to ever regret one thing.

Why we chose not to talk about any of this... While the case was open we felt that we needed to keep attention focused away from our situation locally and steered friends and family to call their congress people to lobby for change in the social services system.
Now that the case is closed we feel we can talk more about it.

That's all for me and our family for now...
Trina