So. One of our kids will have been in foster care nearly 1000 days when we next get to court, when the court will determine whether to terminate her parents’ parental rights.
Because that court date is coming up in less than a month, I contacted the guy I’m going to hire as our attorney for the adoption. His statement boiled down to:
Congrats on getting this far, it’ll be at least 18 months from the time of this court date to when we can file adoption papers because of the lengthy appeals process. So sit tight. I’m here if you need me but you don’t really need me for a while yet.
I’m an attorney myself. How could I have forgotten about the appeals process and not realized how long it would take? I got way ahead of myself.
If a parent chooses to surrender their child, you can skip the appeals process and go straight to adoption. But I don’t get the impression surrender is in the cards right now for a whole host of reasons and I understand. I really do.
It’s so frustrating because this is a case where timing matters. Sprout needs a medical specialist team we cannot take her to until after she’s adopted and on our medical insurance.
What can we do? We can sit and wait and hope and pray things go ok in court, but knowing full well nothing will actually be ok that day. Nothing at all. This is messy and ugly and terrible to watch unfold. And it’s terrible to have to wait for it to unfold. But it is what it is and no matter what happens and how, I’m so grateful we have Sprout in our lives, whatever her legal status is.
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