Hey guys, for those of you who are praying people, I'd like to ask for you to keep my family in mind this week. I'll try to make a very long story relatively short. Some of you guys may know/remember my wife and I are foster parents. We got our son when he was 3 weeks old straight out of the NICU. That was May 2017. Oct 2018 it went to trial and parental rights were terminated, many of you all prayer for us that week and it was greatly appreciated (There's a thread here that probably has some additional details on the situation if you are interested in it). Since then, the case has been crawling its way through the legal system.
In Oct 2020, it was at the Supreme Court of Texas and they decided not to hear it. Turns out the way the system works is you can ask them to reconsider that, which happened and they did. End result is a couple months ago they ended up throwing out the jury trial verdict based on how the judge delivered the jury instructions. Trust me, I've worn out about every explicative I know about it and came up with a few new ones, but at this point that is in the past and we've just got what is ahead of us.
So this Thursday morning we go to mediation to try to reach a resolution that avoids going back to another trial. Here's the thing though, it is only the biological father in the picture at this point and he is in his mid-70s. The good news is from what his attorney expressed to CPS' lawyer and our son's, he knows he can't raise him and doesn't want to, so I don't believe there is much danger that he gets removed from our home. But it is still a situation where a 5 year old that has no idea he's even in foster care is facing a lot of traumatic stuff being potentially thrust into his life
Our hope is that now that he's gotten his parental rights re-established, he can be convinced that it is in the best interests of his son to voluntarily surrender them in exchange for updates about how he is doing and promises of some limited involvement, but after fighting so long about it I don't know how realistic that is. Funny (if you can call it that) is that out of the different options, that one might actually be the best for him as most of the others ends up with him being legally obligated to pay us child support. We will find out pretty early exactly what his goals in this are and then go from there, but assuming what has been communicated is accurate then he can relinquish, we can adopt, and he can get what he wants all at the same time.
All that to say, you can be praying for wisdom for me and my wife in what words we use (we are the only ones in the room without representation) and that he'd be receptive that this is what is in the best interests of his kid and that he'd be willing to do it, and overall that our guy's heart and mind would be protected from some stuff coming at him that at 5 he's nowhere near able to grasp and could have some profoundly negative effects.
Thanks guys
In Oct 2020, it was at the Supreme Court of Texas and they decided not to hear it. Turns out the way the system works is you can ask them to reconsider that, which happened and they did. End result is a couple months ago they ended up throwing out the jury trial verdict based on how the judge delivered the jury instructions. Trust me, I've worn out about every explicative I know about it and came up with a few new ones, but at this point that is in the past and we've just got what is ahead of us.
So this Thursday morning we go to mediation to try to reach a resolution that avoids going back to another trial. Here's the thing though, it is only the biological father in the picture at this point and he is in his mid-70s. The good news is from what his attorney expressed to CPS' lawyer and our son's, he knows he can't raise him and doesn't want to, so I don't believe there is much danger that he gets removed from our home. But it is still a situation where a 5 year old that has no idea he's even in foster care is facing a lot of traumatic stuff being potentially thrust into his life
Our hope is that now that he's gotten his parental rights re-established, he can be convinced that it is in the best interests of his son to voluntarily surrender them in exchange for updates about how he is doing and promises of some limited involvement, but after fighting so long about it I don't know how realistic that is. Funny (if you can call it that) is that out of the different options, that one might actually be the best for him as most of the others ends up with him being legally obligated to pay us child support. We will find out pretty early exactly what his goals in this are and then go from there, but assuming what has been communicated is accurate then he can relinquish, we can adopt, and he can get what he wants all at the same time.
All that to say, you can be praying for wisdom for me and my wife in what words we use (we are the only ones in the room without representation) and that he'd be receptive that this is what is in the best interests of his kid and that he'd be willing to do it, and overall that our guy's heart and mind would be protected from some stuff coming at him that at 5 he's nowhere near able to grasp and could have some profoundly negative effects.
Thanks guys
