When will sadness end and the happiness begins?

For Seven months I have been fostering my niece Aireanna to help out my in-laws and because I love her like she is my own child. She is so special, sweat, and a perfect addition to my family. It was hard to begin with. Life changing. You go from having a normal life to having an extra body to feed, clothe, love, and take care of properly. I love this little girl like she is from my body. I know logically that she is not mine and that she will be going home some day. But for now I am taking it all in and enjoying her while I still can. The problem is the future. What am I going to do when I have to give her back? I though I would only have her a few weeks maybe a couple of months, but not this long. I have allowed myself to get too attached to her and its going to break my heart when she gets to go home to her mother. I will be happy for her mom and sad for my loss. Its a mixed bag of nuts.

Lately she has been calling me mommy, I keep telling her that I am not her mommy, I'm her auntie, but she always responds the same, "No, your my mommy here and she is my mommy there." She is so cute, and smart. She wants to be accepted the same here as my daughter Meagan, she longs to be as important to me as Meagan is. I keep reassuring her that its ok, for her to love me and her mommy and that her living here doesn't mean her mommy loves her any less. But she is only three almost four, a still doesn't understand the logistics. Lately things have been really hard. Her mom and I had a fight over me trimming her hair. Aireanna came home from daycare with tree sap or glue in her hair. I could not get it out of her hair. I even took her up to the barber shop up the street where my friend Lenny works. He said he could not get it out and had to cut it out. Aireanna has been a baldy most of her life. But since she has been in my care I have been taking good care of her hair and its grown alot. I tried to call her mom more then ten times and gave up before I cut her hair. The following Sunday she had visitation with her mom and she called me freaking out about me cutting Aire's hair off. I tried to explain to her that she was not available for me to ask, as it is most of the time lately and she flipped out calling me a fucking bitch and then hung up on me, instead of letting me tell he what happened.

The following tuesday we had class together at first she was giving me dirty looks and ignoring my existence. I had to tell her about my daughter being injured and that I might need to bring over her daughter and then she seemed to warm up and stop acting that way. I thought things were going to work themselves out like they have in the past. By the past I mean, a few years ago she stole my credit cards, debit card and even our quarter collections. Plus who knows what else. It took me two or three years to sort of get over with, or put it sort of past me. But the reality is she has not changed much from then. She stole around $1500.00 from us just ten days before christmas. My bank account was massively overdrawn and my family did not get much of a christmas. It was a really dark time in my life, she was my best friend. I shared everything with her . She knows things about me that I had never shared with anyone. It broke my heart that she could care so little about me and her brother to hurt us that way. But with that being said, I forgave her, I will never forget it but I have forgiven her. Even though her family just acts like it never happened. Let just sweep it under the rug and act like no one got hurt. I never could understand why things are this way.

My husband is held at a completely different standard then his sister. Its not fair. Her parents bought her a brand new car(which she destroyed), they pay all her bills for her and she lives with them. We bought a home by the time I was 23, bought our own cars, have never borrowed money from them ever, yet now we are in financial hell, we need help but there is none to give us, we are on our own. I sit here writing this while my little Aireannaok? Will Aireanna always know how much I love her? Will her mom ever appreciate the sacrifices we have made to help her? Will she be safe when she goes home? Will her sister hurt her again? Will she be emotionally ok? So many questions I can't answer.