Covid definitely slowed things down. We saw it throughout the year, as courthouses and social workers figured out how to do things in the midst of global pandemic limitations. But, thankfully, the paperwork the court needed to go forward on our foster daughter’s case was filed right in time. If it had been a few weeks later, the case would have been frozen in time. But ours got in, and so we were able to make- albeit slow- progress.
Right before Covid hit, D.S.S. had arranged for us to try to do mediation with the bio dad. I guess the best way to describe that experience would be “deer in headlights.” It was nothing like what we were given the impression it would be like. And the same was clearly the case for the bio dad as well. I’m not sure if we were all intentionally misled or if it was just more of the same “oops, we didn’t communicate well with you” saga we’d been in. We knew the goal was to get the bio dad to terminate his rights so that the court didn’t have to continue the process to do so. We knew part of that would mean us agreeing to some level of communication with the bio dad post adoption. My husband and I talked extensively before and agreed to send photos and updates online, with no commitment to visits. We had been told we’d see the lawyers there, and pictured a big meeting room with all of us including the lawyers to walk through things.
But when they called us into the room, it was a teeny tiny room. With a small table and the only people present were the mediator, bio father, and my husband and I. Confusion lingered in the air right away. The first words out of the bio dad’s mouth were, “I am not signing anything that signs away my parental rights.” I wanted to grab my stuff and go right then- what was even the point? The hopes for the day were dashed.
But the mediator began her smooth talk, and the back and forth began. Tensions were high. The bio dad asked where his lawyer was. We asked the same for our foster daughter’s. It turns out mediation is supposed to be lawyer-free. Which leaves a lot of confused people and strained emotions in the room together. We were all on completely different pages, and eventually did go out to another room to talk to D.S.S.’s lawyer.
Nothing was signed that day, but verbally we did get to a close enough place that the mediator was going to put together paperwork that we all said we felt comfortable signing. But in the days ahead we would learn that the bio father would not follow through on signing the papers.
Then came Covid. And with it, in person visits stopped. This was a huge relief to us- we had been driving to the supervised visitation site almost every week for a year and half and so often there was a no-show ending. Visits switched to video calls, which were still pretty sporadic, but when no one showed it was a lot less of an inconvenience on our end as it no longer meant the drive downtown and check in through security. The video visits also meant we began forming a level of relationship with the bio dad, which God used to help bring him a level of comfortableness with us and gave him the opportunity to see our loving relationship with her. Maybe all those times of D.S.S. keeping us and the bio family apart weren’t so helpful after all.
I remember the day the bio dad said it, said he could see how happy she was with us, could see how good she was doing, said he knew we were also her family. Said he couldn’t take her from us, couldn’t offer her anything better, and was ready to come to an agreement and sign.
And I could tell, this time, he meant it. He was ready.
And the back and forth would go back and forth some more, but we did make that agreement and he did sign. On my birthday. Two years after she came home on my birthday that year. Isn’t God so gentle to let us ever see His weaving?
And when it was done, we were told it could be just a few days before we’d get the court call with the date for the adoption. The bio dad had waved his rights to a 30 day revocation period, and since the court had been trying for TPR and D.S.S. had already set us up as the adoptive family, all the adoption wheels were already in place. Our file was done, everything on our end and D.S.S.’s end was supposed to be ready. We waited for the phone call.
But didn’t get it.
Weeks went by. We found out they hadn’t even done the file. Hadn’t even assigned us an adoption worker. Our case had been sitting, ignored, with people thinking someone else had done the job. But it wasn’t touched. Meanwhile, our foster daughter’s case worker changed yet again. And would even again before the end. She ended up having five different case workers. Five. In two and a half years. The system needs so. much. help. The new case worker ended up calling our case worker and going toe to toe with her on the phone on my porch over the delays. I realized how far we were still from adopting and cried. She asked me why I was crying.
We kept waiting again.
We contacted a foster parent advocate with D.H.S. who had us send out a string of emails to all the D.S.S. supervisors on the case all the way up the chain. Finally, over two months later, we got a call from the adoption worker. We had more paperwork we needed to sign, and then should get a court date soon after that. We signed the papers a few days later- they were the official adoption petition papers, which was amazing to sign- incredible to see our names as the official parents-to-be. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. For weeks.
We found out, finally, that this next delay was because the previous court case had an error that the judge had to fix. And at this point, let me just say that it felt like pretty much all the mess-ups that could happen, did, and all the people who could make mistakes, did.
It was March by now- six months since we had been told “days.” We were so discouraged. We had thought we’d have her adopted by Thanksgiving, but no. Then we thought it’d be by Christmas, but no. Then an entire new year started, and we looked back on the year we thought we would adopt to see no adoption and still have no adoption date.
Finally the judge fixed the case. Finally the paperwork was done. The adoption worker had to pick up the file and deliver it to court to petition the adoption. Then it could actually be “days”.
She let us know she was heading to pick it up and take it to court. We were finally in the home stretch. And then she called us.
And said she couldn’t find the file.