Legally Freed!

Today we had court for Sprout. A couple of months ago her Mama surrendered her legal rights to Sprout in an emotionally draining court appearance. Today was the date for terminating her father’s legal rights.

Sprout’s father has, er, well, not been involved, at least not since an incident that happened around the time she was removed and placed in foster care. That’s all I’ll say.

He’s never appeared in court on this case. He’s never contacted the case worker for a visit. He hasn’t provided financial assistance. When that happens, the agency can notify the parent of their intent to terminate the parent’s parental rights, and then the parent has 6 months to make an appearance and start doing what the agency requires as far as services go. Sprout’s father didn’t appear during those 6 months any more than he had during the first 2 1/2 years of his daughter’s placement in foster care.

It was a remarkably open and shut case because of his failure to appear and work his plan. The appearance today took about a half hour. The case worker testified that she’s had no contact with him, and then I did the same. The judge read her decision from the bench, citing case law that establishes the procedure for a termination of parental rights under these circumstances.

And that was that.

It was hard to smile at the end when the judge announced Sprout is now legally freed for adoption because even if we don’t know her father, it’s still a momentous event to lose a parent legally like this. But it was not the emotionally charged and difficult proceeding Mom’s surrender was. In fact it was mostly just a relief.

So what next? We signed the intent to adopt form this evening and will turn it in tomorrow. We requested the adoption worker we want to work with – the same one we worked with for Miss Kicks. While things with Miss Kicks went abysmally south, her adoption worker was Da Bomb. There’s no guarantee we’ll get her but fingers crossed.

We have an attorney already waiting in the wings. I’ll call him tomorrow. There’s a new permanency hearing for Sprout in mid July. And then after that, basically, we wait.

Sprout can’t stand the waiting. She wants certainty. There’s lots she doesn’t understand at age 5, but there’s lots she does. She knows she wants to stay here forever. She has decided she wants our last name, and to make her current last name her middle name so she can keep it. And she knows she feels unstable with this hanging out and waiting thing.

I wish this process weren’t so drawn out. I’m still waiting for something to go wrong and for someone to say we can’t adopt her. I’m trying to make no mistakes, play as nicely as possible with everyone, and not jeopardize this pending adoption in any way because in foster care, anything can happen. It’s stressful, this waiting, for us and for Sprout and even for Sunny.

But the good news is we are one step closer. One mighty step! Sprout is legally freed! The rest is all just paperwork.