Defacto Parent Status

My attorney explained it to me like this - once it was approved the judge and court would ask my thoughts and input in the same way that they'd talk to a biological parent. I was given that legal status sort of...When the judge approved/granted it she immediately said - well now I have a question and asked me what I thought about visitation with the Bmom and my son. The next court dates they also had me sitting at the table with the attorney's, SW, ect (mom wasn't there but when she was she was next to me.)Basically you can have some sort of say in the case. For me it was the first step towards adopting - the judge said she could tell from my documents when I was asking for the status that I wanted to adopt and she wanted to start that process (she never even asked if that's what I wanted - she could just tell.)