I cannot image what you are going through......... My family mean so much to me.....

I haven't heard from my brother in close to 3 years and my sister hasn't talked to me in quite awhile. She waited over 6 months to tell me I had a great nephew but won't share pictures or really say much about him. (He's in her custody, at the moment).

Well Dear Hang in there. Sometimes time and age and situation turns things around. Often the kids come looking when they are older just out of curiosity.

Sometimes desperation. That can be a mixed blessing if they pick up bad ways of coping. Adopting a child in crisis is much more difficult than you can even imagine. And do NOT kid yourself the "system" will lie like a rug about what problems the child has to drop them off their roles. Insist you retain their Medicaid subsidy until age of majority if you even think about taking custody or adopting. The medical expenses alone will bankrupt you.

While few of us would chose a pet over a child you have to be prepared to board your pet or defend it 24/7 because pets/kids in crisis often do not do well co-mingling. It can start off fine and suddenly deteriorate fast.

It is always your right to contact the state and show you are next of kin if the mother does loose custody. Often over worked under staffed social workers don't have time to chase down suitable family members if the client says none exist. Often they will lie to forestall out placement. Because the law always prefers to opt for family over state custody/foster care if you can prove you are a fit home it helps smooth the process along that often happens suddenly. If you live at great distance then you absorb the travel expenses. The guide lines are public record but the certification home study is still expensive. And if the sibling alludes to issues it is your responsibility to document the truth/prove your innocence. But inner-state compacts happen all the time. I had a couple of sibling groups several times over the years. One group would tell the social worker "it is time for you to send us again". Thankfully they were old enough they could stay on their own before my Dad's health failed or I really would have been part of the sandwich generation.

It is painful but as a sibling you can get the state to send you a copy of the birth certificate and use that to take out a small policy to have the burial expenses covered. To me it was preferable to having my sibling buried in a potters grave. If you don't need it then you can always cash it in but believe me it is very expensive if a body is "in the system" for any length of time being identified or the kids don't have it. Sometimes the kindness is the first contact the kids will have with their parents siblings. Very difficult.