Bad News or Good News?

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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.

~

Stability Please

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So things continued to go the same way for (S). She acted up in school today and for the first time had a wetting accident while there. She wouldn't listen to her teacher on two separate occasions and she is being obstinate. I guess she wouldn't have these problems is the teacher listened to her. :)

The case worker came by today and we mentioned the problems we have been having with (S) since the holidays. We assumed it was because of the age and the excitement and all of the people that were here over the last week. She brought up something we hadn't thought of..............

It was just after Thanskgiving that she was taken from her last home. I said "come on, she was only 2 years old, she couldn't be making that correlation". The case worker insists that could be part of the issue. While (S) may not be able to explain it and may not even know consciously what the problem is, somewhere in her psyche something says that Thanksgiving is not always a sign of good times to come and Happy Holidays, but a sign of loss of something that at the time was very dear to her. Has anyone who has had a foster child for more than a year seen this before? If you have any info you can give it would certainly be appreciated. If on the other hand you are wondering how this plays out, t me know, I will be sure to keep it as a topic over the coming weeks.

I guess this is just a signal of another loss that we hadn't really thought about. This will be her thrid Christmas with us and we try to make it very special for her. I think we succeed at that. I just wish we could start talking more positively about the future and we could convey that in a way that (S) could feel the stability we know she longs for. (Forget the she....we all long for that stability)
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