We were all at court (minus our cm) and in front of the judge and she apparently did not receive a couple of the documents that she required. She asked the AG's office and the GAL attorney if we should proceed and it was decided that we would!
It became official and irrevokable in court that "legal" dad is no longer attached to this child at all and the bio dad is now officially on paper as taking responsibility for Little Man. He has now gained back his visitation rights and will get to see L.M. tomorrow.
As for some other things...they both were required to do a drug screen right there at court. The dad came back dirty on two different drugs. The judge says this is one of the most messed up cases on her caseload! Lucky us that it's our first one! LOL! So...he has a case plan hearing set for Monday and he will be having drug screens as part of that plan.
The big news is that she also set a permanency hearing for December 3rd!! 2 days after what will be the one year anniversary of L.M. joining us. I was not aware (until today) that this case has changed to a concurrent plan. It was asked that if adoption became the goal, would we be interested. Absolutely!!!!!! Of course there are so many ways that this whole thing can still go and pretty much ALL of it at this point depends on how dad does between now and December 3rd! He swore up and down to the judge that he would be clean from here on out and he'd not show up dirty anymore, so we shall see!
On another note...I had to take baby girl (the one I'm babysitting for another set of foster parents until she is old enough to go to daycare) to court with me and oh my was she a hit!!! One big Sherrif could not stop cooing and talking to her and finally I asked him if he would just like to hold her and his face lit up and he said "yes!" So he was walking around court with the baby and walked over to the judge and she held her for a bit too. She only protested one time and it was simply perfect timing...right on cue-lol!
Sharing the life experience of becoming foster parents to the least of these!
2 comments:
Sounds like things may be working in your favor. I can't actually see the dad turn himself around in less than a month. What happens if he is clean but Mom is not? I may be selfish in this whole thing but would rather see him stay with you and then something go bad and he gets placed somewhere that is not as good a home as he has now. Praying
Mom has always been clean, so I don't think it will be a concern. If he stays clean until the permanency hearing they will give him time to complete his case plan, if not, then we'll see what happens at that point. Our judge is very realistic about little ones needing permanency (Thank you Lord!) and she is very upset about the way this case has been handled. It's all in God's hands!! If he were to go home and then come back into care they would call us first so he could be in a familiar placement rather than going to another foster home :)
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