Not to look after my sister's baby

[LillyPillly]

This is a pretty long story so I'll try not to ramble too much....

My twin sister is pregnant. This is her second pregnancy. Her first son was taken off her at 10 months due to neglect. He is now with a loving foster family, who treat him as though he was their own, and still let my mum and I see him. My sister has no interest in seeing him and never tried to get him back. Failed all drug tests and skipped all court appearances. This was 5 years ago and I was in a different country. My mum did everything she could to help, paid my sister's rent, bought all the nursery furniture, went there every day to help etc and still my sister couldn't cope and didn't want her baby.

I am now in the same country as her. She is currently sleeping on a friend's couch, she has never paid rent, never worked etc. She told me a couple of weeks ago that she is pregnant again. I organised doctors appointments, pregnancy assistance appointments to try and sort out accommodation for her and she hasn't done anything apart from take a pregnancy test.

I have 3 children of my own, with my husband of 11 years. They are all under 6 years old and one has special needs, so I have my hands very full. I am so scared that my sister is going to lose this baby and that I should be the one to look after it, but I just don't know how I will cope! I would need a bigger car, bigger house and about 5 more hours in the day just to get everything done! Not to mention how it would affect my family. My husband and I would have loved to have another baby, but we made the decision not to because we would not be able to give our current sons the love and attention they all need and deserve, especially with our special needs son requiring a lot of extra support.

BUT, I can't bear to think of this of this innocent little newborn going straight into the foster system if my sister can't/won't do anything to keep it. It will probably have drug addiction problems / possibly foetal alcohol syndrome / breathing problems due to her smoking. It actually breaks my heart. I have been having nightmares , not being able to sleep and constantly stressed andin two minds about what I should do... so....

AIBU not to look after my sister's baby? :(

Dare I even ask about the father's?

Addiction is a terrible thing. To think that someone would put drugs before their own child is absolutely heartbreaking.

The father is a heroin addict with a violent temper.

I wouldn't help or try to 'save' the baby. Better it is in they system so that your DSis's access is controlled.
If you had the baby how would you monitor her behaviour if she rolls up wanting access at who knows what time? Will you take on the next baby she has after this one?
Put your own family first.

And if your sister had yet more children would the foster carer be able to take them? Probably best to have an abortion.

In my experience as a foster carer for many years I'd say this baby will do far better emotionally to live with a family member. If there is anyway you could receive a fee for caring for the baby would this make a difference? I'm thinking along the lines of paying for child care, extra room in the house, bigger car etc. As someone said up thread in U.K. There is a special guardianship order that can be granted in cases such as this. The fee attached is means tested but certainly makes a difference while bringing up another child. What is the process in Australia?

Your sister should be sterilised. I feel for the children.

I also meant to say you are not being unreasonable, sorry you are going through this. It's a hard thing, I have watched this with family members.

Someone in the U.K. that I'm friendly with went through a similar situation recently. Basically, they let the child go into care/to eventually be adopted because they knew that if they kept her, the mother would be an influence and they'd struggle to keep her at a distance. They took the heartbreaking decision to let the kid go so that she could really and truly start afresh. I think that potentially your energy would be well spent convincing social services to remove the parental control from your sister, in order for both children to be adopted. Another thing - Not sure about Australia, but in the UK, a relative that takes guardianship(family fostering) is given a weekly allowance, so that's worth looking into if you decide to apply to take care of the child. Another possibility is that if CPS decide she can't have contact, they will decide against you having the child anyway as they will remove them to somewhere fairly distant from the biological parents. Seek advice from the relevant departments, once you know what's possible and what isn't, it may help you to make a well informed decision. I'm just sorry this is happening, it's such a sad and unfair situation.