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Well (S)'s parents have filed an appeal with the state supreme court. (This is the only court that hears appeals on these matters in this state).
There is no one that thinks an appeal will go through, but as those of you who have been reading this blog know, stranger things have happened. So is it good news or bad?
The bad news is that this will hold up any adoption for a few months longer. It means that we probably will not have everything complete in early spring. We are just hoping it can be complete before school starts next year so (S) doesn't have a name change while in school. The other bad news is that the court could make any decision and we don't know for sure what that will be. While all the experts are saying there is no way this appeal will go through, all the experts have been wrong before in this case.
So where is the good news? you ask.
Well, Bio mom and dad never showed up in court for the initial TPR hearing. We were there for two days and there was never any proof indicating where they were or that they even cared about their children. I may be going out on a limb here but at least this shows SOME degree of caring for their children. I would have expected them to fight harder in the intial case then they did. By fighting now, at least when (S) grows up, we can tell her that her parents did fight to keep her. I don't want her to feel as though she was the cause of anything pertaining to her removal from her birth family or that she was unloved.
The second part of the potentially good part is that once the appeal is over there will be no more possible chance for recourse. They won't be able to come back and say we didn't get the chance to present our side of the case or anything like that. They will have taken it as far as it can go, and the court case will be over.
So is it good news or bad? Well, like most things it is a mixed blessing. We won't know the final outcome for a few months, but we will continue to keep our fingers crossed and hope that ultimately what happens is the best thing for (S).
In the meantime, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.
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Even things that you might think are clinchers against the parents might not be if there is some other context you haven't been made aware of. For instance, they could argue that the reason they didn't show up in court was because they never received proper notice. Or that the reason there was no evidence of their efforts was because of ineffective counsel. Or the reason they never made those efforts to begin with was because they never got notice of what they needed to do. That sort of thing. Not to say that it's likely, but when you say "stranger things have happened" those are the types of strange things . . .
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