Neither of the girls' birth fathers showed up. The birth mother arrived 30 minutes into the hearing.
The hearing part went fairly according to plan. The caseworker and lawyers announced the plant to move towards terminating the rights of the biological parents in July if changes and progress aren't made and maintained. Like I've mentioned before, Mom has been only sporadic in completing what's been asked of her, and the fathers have done nothing and are not even in communication with the caseworkers and lawyers at this time. The official status of the case is now "dual contingency" - meaning they are preparing for either reunification or termination at this point - which is a change from the past, where the status was only "reunification" - and is the step before officially seeking termination.
Our next - and final - court date is July 9th. This is the trial to determine the ending of the foster care placement one way or another; either the girls will be reunified with their birth mother or the birth parents' rights will be terminated and we will move towards adoption. We thought there would be another hearing at the beginning of June, but as that is so close to the July 9th date, they are foregoing another hearing and just scheduling the trial. In case you're wondering, "trial" doesn't usually mean a jury setting, just coming before the same judge who has been hearing the entire case, and getting a final ruling.
One tiny snag entering into the situation is that father #2 is now claiming he is the biological father of BOTH children instead of just one. We have been trying to get DNA testing done the entire 6 months to prove paternity, and he has been a no-show at both appointments the department has set up for him to be tested. Hopefully this can be done soon and we can know for certain. He has been listed as an "alleged father" in the court documents and included in the court ordered services list the parents have to complete (of which he has done none). He needs to prove he is in fact the biological father of one or both girls to be termed the "legal father". He does have parents he wants to go through the home study process to determine if custody could be awarded to them, but that won't happen until he goes through the paternity test.
I can't talk much here about what happened immediately AFTER the judge dismissed the people involved in the case... it happened very unexpectedly and quickly, apparently... but the birth mother will not be in the picture now for an indeterminate amount of time. An issue came up that we don't know much about, but suffice it to say that it strengthens the case further for terminating the rights of all the birth parents.
There is definitely a twinge of guilt feeling happy over something that means the misfortune and unhappy circumstances of others. While we are filled with joy at moving towards making these girls part of our forever family, we can't forget this will be complicated for them to process - lots of emotion - and comes at the expense of another family falling apart. That's hard to contemplate. I found this quote recently, and it really spoke to me:
Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we all function towards whatever ending God has planned for us. We ask to be the people He needs us to be at this time. Please be thinking and praying for the birth family. Through all of the bad choices, there is regret and pain, and it hurts to watch. Peace to all involved.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment