Opened this thread a few times with the intention of updating it but it's been a challenge to do so. Usually this is on some night during the past 1.5 years, or on the 20th day of a month, where I'm either at the office late or home by myself because my wife and kids were out of town but I chickened out each time. Those of you who keenly read the last sentence probably caught the plural "kids" so I'll start there with a positive update: two weeks after I last posted in this thread my wife and I adopted our oldest daughter and, this past December -- after probably the smoothest/easiest foster to adopt situation I've seen -- we adopted a second daughter. They are wonderful and we're very happy. We have still kept our foster license active/open on the chance Benjamin comes into care and, to a lesser extent, because we were advised we were the only family willing to take in a black child in the area and because my wife will occasionally do respite care for other foster parents.
After 10/20/17 my wife and I received no information on how Benjamin was doing. When we sent him to his biological mother that last day we sent him with is stipend from the state (that my wife and I never felt comfortable spending on him) and a stroller. My wife noticed the the biological mother cashed the check and listed the stroller on the local online marketplace a few days later. We just hoped the money was used on him. We thought maybe she'd reach out (although we simultaneously feared she'd do so solely for money). But she never did and her court case was closed shortly thereafter so we he basically went from the most important thing in our daily lives to not having a practical existence in them.
Contrary to my wife, my work and my hobbies took me relatively frequently to the area Benjamin lived. Every single time there'd be some near debilitating moment where I'd see some little blonde kid at the gas station when I stopped for gas or a coffee and think it was him. Or I'd envision seeing him at the playground immediately next to the courthouse or him with his biological family just randomly at wherever I happened to be. I'd hold my breathe for a moment whenever I'd see a new case report of some sort of child crime from that area. But, thankfully I guess, nothing. For about the first six months he was gone I'd have the same recurring nightmare about him a few times a side. But, eventually, that did subside. We attended counseling for few sessions after he left. I was also eventually able to look at pictures of him and talk about him relatively casually. My wife was able to do the same.
The above was true until two Fridays ago. At ~10:30 AM my wife and I were sitting in a coffee shop in Sedona and I was firing off the last of a few necessary work emails before we'd start our anniversary. We were set to leave to go wine tasting for the afternoon. I finish and look up at my wife who is just holding up her phone with a look of panic. She had just received an email that Benjamin was back in care. I immediately called the case worker. Apparently a meth pipe was found in one of the kids' toys at the house and the biological mother was agreeing to go into in-patient treatment. The sense of all this was overwhelming. I told the case worker that my wife and I were just about to begin a three day vacation. She said she was still trying to find Benjamin and his siblings and we'd touch base shortly. She noted that she was still going to try to find placement to take in all 4 kids but that would be incredibly unlikely. She did ask if we could take in all four but, my wife and I had discussed this, and I advised that just isn't something we can take on in our current situation.
I went back and filled my wife in. We were both pretty much shaking at that point. Surprisingly, my wife was initially somewhat hesitant to get involved. But, of course, and after getting over the initial shock, fear, frustration, etc. of the situation (this was our first alone vacation in one year and I was set to play in a 5 day golf event the next week with my wife going on a girls' trip to Hawaii the week after) we agreed that we'd take him in. We notified the state agency and they said they'd call us when they found him. Not in a logistical position to get there within a few hours we called close friends of ours who had a qualified fictive kinship to Benjamin to see if they could pick him up and take him for the night.
My wife and I still went wine tasting but it was basically secondary to our conversation and anticipation of seeing our former foster son. We finished earlier than normal (we basically have the same routine on our anniversary trip) and checked into the place we were staying before heading to dinner at our favorite restaurant in that area. As we pulled into the parking lot we got the call that Benjamin was in the state's care and our friends were going to go pick him up within the hour. He was coming home. I went to go stand in line and my wife stayed in the car to call family and let them know. We both went from a mix of frustration to simple elation. I spent a couple minutes mildly annoyed at the timing of this all (I had finally started the first week+ vacation I have taken in more than 5 years and we were going to have to cancel those plans and go back home the next day but, frankly, I'd never been so happy to cancel last minute a big golf tournament.
We were seated around 30 minutes later. We were happy and excited. We knew we were staying the night so we ordered a celebratory drink and some appetizers. We talked about the possibility that he'd remember us. We both didn't think so but he's still seen us as his parents for more than half of his life. We tried t guess what sort of ways his personality may have changed. We talked about how to go about re-introducing him our oldest daughter (who is like two weeks younger than Benjamin) and introducing him to our youngest/newest. My wife was thinking out loud about how she wanted to rearrange the bedrooms and what things we'd need to get for him. She even gave me the speech about how I'd need to cut out more of my hobbies than I already have since we had kids in the house.
We were still talking about the above when our appetizers arrived. I picked up my phone from the table to quickly look at it and put it into my pocket. When I did so I noticed a text message from my friend which was a screenshot of text messages with the case worker. I had to read it three times to believe it. But had I read it is one thousand times it still would have plainly stated that my friend didn't need to go get Benjamin because they found a foster family willing to take in all four children and we had agreed that it was in Benjamin's best interests to be placed with his three biological siblings.
I commonly have to tell people things some very serious, life-changing information that they probably don't want to hear. But the next few moments marked the first time I had to do that to a loved one. I took the same approach and just flat out told her. She had to excuse herself and lost it halfway to the bathroom. I sat their alone and while I wasn't vocally emotional I'm sure I looked incredibly pale. I had to explain to our server that we needed time. I didn't know what to do other than apologize as I knew the restaurant was busy and I assured her that my wife and I weren't in a fight or anything but that we had just receive some bad news outside our control. My wife returned and we got through dinner the best we could but it obviously wasn't enjoyable. We then went to the place we were staying and, contrary to original plans for weekend, we just laid in bed both basically trying to ride out the emotional rollercoaster. While life isn't fair and we recognize that life has been very good to us in many ways the longest stretch of that rollercoaster ride was a descent from joy to anger.
We did get some relatively good news the next day. We learned that Benjamin and his siblings have been placed in a very reputable foster home in an area pretty far away. We also learned that the foster parents are willing to speak to us after the kids get settled in. They even indicated that they'd be open to FaceTime in the near future. We were informed that he was still a very kind and innocent kid and got along well with his siblings.
We were able to be happy about that -- that he can be with his siblings -- and were able to enjoy the latter half of our trip (aided by copious amounts of wine). The next week was good too and I think we both appreciated the mini-vacation with our daughters. As I type this I think I have resolved that Benjamin should, at least in his current situation, be with his biological siblings (hell, it's what all the training, literature, and statutes say should be the priority in these situations). Still, it's hard to know that he came back into care and he isn't with us. It's also even more difficult to resolve the fact that he likely experienced things a child shouldn't after he left us and there was nothing we could do to stop it. It's also in the back of our minds that maybe we were selfish by not immediately getting in the car the moment we received that email and not stopping until we had him but, then again, maybe that act would have been even more selfish.
TLDR: After about 1.5 years of no information regarding the little boy I considered my son my wife and I, at the moment we were about to start our anniversary trip, were told he was subject again to abuse and/or neglect and, for 30 minutes, we thought he was coming home. But, instead, after that 30 minutes, we received an indirect text message essentially telling us, "just kidding."