What can you say about the state?

Athen wasn't walking and she was not even hardly even communicating.  Now, at exactly one year old, I was to care for her while working under the state and while trying to get my brother and his wife to see the possibilities of them being different and raising a healthy family.  At this point I was still hoping they would step up and then the rest of my dream need never come true.  I worked for a year with them.  I worked for the state and though they are trying to do good in a fairly hopeless environment, but the reality is they have more rights then me and they shouldn't.  I spent quite a few months going over to my brothers home before the state came in and would knock on the door, knowing she was in the apartments, yet would never answer.  I would put my mouth to the edge of the door and yell that if she needed anything to give me a call.
How does one talk about ones experiences with the state?  It is far from enjoyable and to even say it is rewarding for me or my family would be a lie.  I did learn though that they have people working for them who have not had children of their own.  who don't know that it is ok if a child has green poop sometimes and who have no interest in your own family surviving intact while you take care of the children under their care.  I learned they are nosy and question me on very intimate details of my life and put me through the ringer.  I learned it is ok for them and the birth parents to be late to an appointment, but as the foster parent it is not allowed.  I also learned to thank God for Guardian ad litems that are relaxed and do trust you.  And that if I state what is best for the children with confidence they would listen to me.
But it does not negate the fact that as a relative if I had gone in and taken the children out of harms way I would have ended in jail, yet the state could go in and do the same thing and have it be appropriate.  I just have mixed feelings on them.  I don't think I will ever be clear on the state.
The second baby was born two months after we got Athen. A boy, they named his Aren.  They kept my sister-in-law and baby in a rehab home hoping bonding and learning to care for a child could be done.  About three months later, we received a call from the state saying the baby was labeled "failure to thrive" and would we take him? We did and at 40 and three kids of my own, I was now juggling two foster children and I kid you not, the state and their meetings and classes ( required parenting classes for me and husband, and other classes too) took more time then I got to spend with my own family.  It was a sacrifice for our whole family and without any rewards other then the ones I taught my children.  The ones of love and giving and not judging and not giving up just because life got harder.
Sometimes blessings come in mixed up packages.  they give us something, but they also take something away.  for me it took away my naivete.
 It went this way for a whole year.  She would be found with drugs and have to start over and they would give chance after chance trying to help her overcome something I don't mind telling you, that may have been too high of a mountain for her.  My sister-in-law came from crap and she was still living in crap.  I am not sure if she has ever known anything else.  I do not excuse her, I just state that it is hard to be angry at someone who has never understood that she is capable of more or even of something different.  Though my brother was taught better, he too didn't feel he could do much more then he already did.  He was the great enabler, if he didn't acknowledge it then it must not be a problem. Of the two parents, Athen had trust for my brother.  He would play with her when he got home, before he would fall asleep on the couch.  Athen slept on the couch and played on the couch.  he told me this with pride when I first got her.  "She won't get off, so you don't have to worry.  She'll stay there all day.  She fell off once and never again.  She is smart."
That is how Athen was cared for.