I don't even know how to make this short.

Cookie was removed from her mother again. It will be two weeks on Monday. Cookie is placed with her mother's former foster parents and has no access to her mother.

Her mother, apparently in panic over what she believed to be her sister holding the baby hostage, did some cocaine. So when CPS removed the baby (her sister was not supposed to give the baby over to the mother, but when the sister went to work--the mother went and took Cookie from the adult niece & nephew babysitting), the mother refused a drug test. She had apparently been to the methadone clinic that morning and did her tox screen there; but the refusal will count as a "dirty" screen. That Friday, they did a hair follicle drug test that we know will show that episode of use; but we're all wondering if she's been clean at all since she got Cookie back.

Because the sister called CPS on her before my state got to calling CPS for a courtesy check, Cookie was removed without any of my state's involvement and therefore it may stay in that state--1500 miles away. As of last night, mom was in a women's shelter.

This morning she tried to call at 4:30am her time (5:30am my time). The subsequent texts said that her sister and kids were filing a felony charge against her for "deadly force" and this being the third felony--she'd be in prison for life. In reality, the incident was the day Cookie was removed: the mother pointed her car at the niece and nephew and revved the engine. Matt says it's possible that it could count as a felony.

To be honest, I don't know what to think or hope. The mother's insecurities run SO deep that there's no way she will ever look at her daughter and choose to give her up for Cookie's sake. She's not even aware that what she's doing is completely self-serving. She knows that she loves her child and needs to feel loved back and her child is the only place on Earth she's ever felt love. She will have to have the child taken or she'll have to die before she relinquishes a second child.

And she's clearly turning to drugs and alcohol to escape stress as opposed to having learned how to deal with it. They hadn't even removed Cookie when she did the cocaine. And the sister called her in for alcohol--not drugs. So she's not functioning well and it's been almost a year. She's 37yo. It's not GOING to get better. As the caseworker here told me yesterday: "Her drug history was just too long" for her to actually stay clean.

So part of me almost hopes they convict her and she gets a life sentence so Cookie can live her life with some semblance of security and stability. But it just feels SO wrong to even think in that direction because I know that she loves her mother and will feel that loss. It just doesn't seem there is any good answer for any of it.