Prayer request

So, we called CPS on ourselves yesterday.
Reported ourselves incapable parents and unwilling to parent. (That's what they wrote on the paperwork anyway.)
They took Max and placed him into foster care.
It was a long time coming - and the last 6+ days were AMAZINGLY bad.

(For those who don't know some of the history, we adopted Max at 9yrs old. We went through a grueling "proving" process to prove that we could parent his difficult problems -- by 9yrs old, he'd been fully adopted three times...AND returned to the state, been in 27 adoptive placements (adoptive, not including foster!), umpteen foster placements, residential settings, hospitalizations, group homes. His diagnoses are many - along the road and among others, they've included ADHD severe, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, reactive attachment disorder. We were never offered him - they weren't even going to attempt an adoptive placement. We only found out about him in a casual conversation with an old caseworker of ours - and felt like he was to be one of our kids. We didn't just ask for him - but fought hard for him AND asked that he be reunited with both his brother who has paranoid schizophrenia and his sister who has mental retardation and fetal alcohol syndrome. Max came and he was a TOUGH kid - and he showed us every reason for leaving his other placements. 7.5 years later, I wonder sometimes if all of our efforts have made a dent. Well, I know that one thing we've showed him is that we don't give up - and I hope that it's been long enough and he's mature enough now to see that we STILL aren't giving up - we're hoping for another route to help make things better and keep everyone safe!)

We've tried everything else we could possibly think of before calling CPS -we had no other options.
I can't even begin to list all of the things we've tried - hundreds of things, services, people, etc.
I don't feel bad and I don't miss him.
I feel horribly guilty saying so.
The only thing that I feel bad about is exactly that - that I don't feel bad.
It's sad that a kid should have been acting up so much that all his family feels at his leaving is relief.
I'm certain that, once we all have time to breathe without threat for just a bit, we will miss him.
He really has such "great kid potential" under his many sad masks.

Steve and I go to the bit initial meeting tomorrow where all the people involved in the case state their intentions and goals.
We may go before the judge.
What I know from years of sitting on the other side of this table, as the foster parents, is that we are about to head into deep waters.
Everyone else gets caseworkers and lawyers. We get nearly nothing (scanty representation at best).
The entire case, from the moment we called CPS on ourselves and forever forward, is about as and our inadequacies/failures as parents. It ceases to be about the astronomical needs and behaviors of the child.
Well, if it must be said, I am inadequate to parent - to parent Max, anyway. I don't think any human can be parent enough to cause Max to improve. But if they think they can, I'm willing to share the opportunities here.

The BIG issue is that our state REQUIRES that child abuse charges be levied, just for our placing him out of home through child protective services. We will receive charges - and, nearly certainly, convictions - of child abandonment and child neglect. We will be placed on our state registry for child abusers. (We avoided this with Shawn by being successful at forcing the hand of mental health - I can't see how we can make that happen here....we haven't utilized enough mental health services already, due to our requesting them but Max refusing to cooperate or comply.)

Once we are on the child abuse registry, as I understand it, I will not be allowed to continue working (for a foster care agency). I will not be allowed to volunteer in - or even be on the premises of - my kids' school. (Are the parent teacher conferences I attended today also going to be my last?). I will not be able to teach children's church or youth group anymore. Lots of things like that....

I sat today and watched my younger children playing outside on a big grass lot next to our house. They ran and laughed and played. For the last week+ (and many other sporadic days in the last couple of years), they haven't been able to leave the house. It's been beautiful weather - but Max has been out harassing and hurting and taunting them, throwing things at them, making fun of their disabilities, causing one sister to need treatment for torn tendons - getting other neighbor children in on his "thrills". It hasn't been safe for them to be out of their own house. I haven't even been able to get anyone to go out to feed or water the dog - they're afraid they'll run into him (he comes into the backyard to hurt everyone or just act a general jerk also). I walked into my front door, with echoes of their laughter behind me outside, and looking at the big hole he punched into the front door this week, and I KNEW I made the right choice - at least the only one I had left to make.

Now, I hope the repercussions are as minimal as possible!! Pray for the whole situation?