do COURT ORDERED POST-TERM. VISITS harm adoptions?

The Laws we have were written and passed. Children have a legal right to be raised by a family. There is no way that 2 sets of families can successfully raise an emotionally healthy child with these circumstances. We have a totally different opposite lifestyle than our dds bio family. Plus everytime they see us they don't like what they see. They are constantly questioning her. When she started her musical instrument they questioned her if she really wanted to play it? They thought we were forcing it because our family is very musical. It's that kinda constant crap that we have to deal with. They are always watching us and questioning her on everything we do. Looking for any kind of open door to get her away from us. They still want control. They certainly don't want her to like us or listen to us. The bottom line is they want her back and they don't look at us as if we are her parents. We are just court ordered babysitters to them and they have made it clear that she is to come back home as soon as she reaches 18. One of them cornered me in the restaurant bathroom and told me that just because she lives with you doesn't make you her mother. I ask you Eomaia, " Can you really have a healthy relationship with your kids now that the sister in law is there legal mother? Can you except that this is their family and support their parental authority? Even when they have a whole different life than you? This kind of dissagreement (and we have been through much more than musical instuments) make a child emotionally sick. We realized the only way we are going to give her a real chance is to keep her away for a while at least until she feels really secure with us. We know that someday she may want to see them and that is ok when she is mature and able to deal with it.

Doesn't this all apply to children with divorced parents too? I'd be willing to work with the adoptive parents for the good of my kids. I can accept that for some reason I don't yet understand, my children are living with them now. I'm still the one with the stretch marks, still the one who handmade Halloween costumes and birthday cakes, and my kids will ALWAYS remember that I'm their mother, and nothing anyone can do is going to change that. If I'm kept locked out of my kids' lives, they'll find me- probably online the minute they can use a computer unsupervised, otherwise when V turns 18. I try to be forgiving, compassionate and understanding, I know their aunt really wanted to have children and went through years of fertility treatments, and that in her mind, she's doing this out of love. I know that if she keeps telling them that I couldn't take care of them, and they come looking for me, and I've got a really stable life with a nice home, especially if I'm remarried and have more children- that whole "unable to take care of them" line will seem like a lie. If they are angry with her, I will encourage them to keep communication open and resolve things with her. I'd really rather have open communication with the adoptive parents and start the healing NOW. They're in Florida, I'm in Iowa, but there could be contact. I guess what I'd like for them to be told now is "The judge thought Mommy D couldn't take care of you, so she sent you to live with us." because that makes it the judge's decision, that way the judge is the one who was wrong, not the adoptive parents. Historically, the adoptive mom has been a drama queen, very judgmental and hard to get along with, but I've changed, and I'm hoping she's done a lot of growing up through this experience too. I'm hoping we can work together to frame this story as being about how families stick together and work things out, how love is important, and communication & understanding can heal all wounds. I know they're Conservative and I'm Liberal, I know they got married in a church, but I don't know if they're really involved, and I'm a member of Unity which is very important in my life now. Of course, I have a lot of time for volunteer work since I don't have my kids, even with 2 jobs, there's a lot of free time to fill. Those differences don't really matter, I have friends of all religions and political stances. Oh, and they're still allowed contact with their Grandma, who stood by and did nothing while her 4 year old son was being brutally beaten, which I think had a lot to do with why he turned out like that, and why CPS got involved in our lives. Every argument I've heard made against open adoption and contact with birth parents could apply just as easily to divorce/step-parents, especially since divorced spouses frequently have reasons to hate each other. If they can do it, we can do it.

Eomaia......what you are not understanding is that this is has absolutely nothing to do with what you do or do not deserve...or about your motivation to be a healthy whole person.......that was your job to be that when you had children........Now is only about the child's right to heal and have the chance to bond and attach with their new Mother and Father....to become a part of their new family. I have held back in responding to any of your posts because I see you don't get it. I am sorry that your are grieving the horrible loss of your children but they need the chance to heal and become attached, Child to Mother and Child to Father with their new parents. From what I have read in your posts you are nowhere near a positive influence in that families attachment and bonding. You were ecstatic when your one child wouldn't call their new parents Mom and Dad. You don't answer these questions but you come back with more about NOT Accepting that this is their new family. That aunt is now their MOM. Can you accept that??? I have an open adoption and I searched out my DD's birthparents and this was the ONE most important thing I looked for. Can they accept and support and believe that we are the parents and we are her family. Are they going to give her that message with every single interaction that they support us as being the parents. Not because I am insecure as my role as Mom. Not because of fertility {I could have popped out bio kids all day long}. Not because I wanted to "steal" someone else's kid. But because my Daughter deserves the SECURITY of her family. She doesn't need a birthparent trying to claim stretchmarks and Motherhood to divide her loyalty and play push/pull with her heart. Kids that are adopted from foster care need to know that their new family IS their family and any body that comes into contact with them need to support that 200% or stay back. Eomaia....I am sorry but at this point I wouldn't let you anywhere near those kids. It would be far too unhealthy for THEM. I hope that you find healing and can find someway to forgive yourself for losing your kids. I hope that you can find some way within yourself to accept that they have a new Mom and Dad. Yes you are their birth Mom but they need a today Mom and the freedom to have a safe and loving relationship with her. To the first poster.......I believe very strongly in open adoption when it is healthy for the child to participate in one. I also believe very strongly that the child's parent needs to be trusted with the responsibility to make that decision in the child's best interest over the years free from any SW or caseworkers or judge's decisions. The parents who adopts and loves and lives with the child needs to make those decisions. sm

Eomaia, I do agree with you that TPR should be a jury trial. It is a huge decision to terminate parental rights with only one person making that decision. It can be appealed but it is rare. However, TPR with adoption is TOTALLY different than divorce/stepfamily situation. When you get divorced you do not have your rights to your children taken from you. When you choose to marry someone it is your decision to have kids together. You know that your husband will have rights to them. It is your choice to do that. When you divorce you work it out with the law if need be when you will see your kids. The kids have a huge change and it is hard on them but they still have both of their parents. TPR is a whole different ball game. You have certain responsibilities by law to provide a safe, somewhat clean healthy enviornment, adequate clothing, food and education for your children. If you cannot do that your kids are taken from you and given to someone else to adopt. Thats the law. In order for those parents to be able to parent legally they must have full rights to parent. Thankfully the law recognizes this. The kids get a new family and are cared for and loved the rest of their lives. If you could provide those things for your kids they wouldn't have taken them away. They could not by law take them from you. If you live with a violent abuser and they tell you you must leave then that is what you need to do. If you are on drugs or neglecting your kids you need to change that. Most parents are given more time than the law allows to get it together. Judges don't like to TPR. It is a horrible day to endure. Can I ask you how much time you had? Our dds bps had 31 months. In our state they are only allowed 12 months with up to two 3 month extentions. (That is if they are working their plan.) The judge did everything he could to keep them together. Eomaia, I hope you do heal and I am praying for you. The first step to healing is admitting. I am so glad to hear you are getting involved in your community. It sounds like you are on your way to a better life. You will probably never fully recover from this. I know I wouldn't. The answer is finding faith in God and seeking the real reason this has happened to you, and finding a new normal. The answer is not in showing your kids someday that you didn't deserve this and somehow secretly hope that your kids will be upset with their Mom and Dad or the sws and the judge. They shouldn't have to make peace with anyone. They will need answers someday from you. They will also get answers from the legal paperwork from your case. We have a stack of papers over a foot high for our dd to read someday when we feel she can handle it. I hope that you won't try to make them take sides. They are innocent and did not ask for all this. I really hope the best for you and that you find peace and a good life. Also I hope that you could come to appreciate your BIL and SIL. They have a huge job taking care of the kids with all of their emotional issues. They deserve your silent support for keeping the kids in the family. Raising kids that have been through the system and taken away from people they know and love have a mountain of issues.

After my ex finally left, I had a month before they filed for TPR. Back then, CPS here tried to help couples with domestic violence issues stay together and work things out, and held both parents responsible if it happened again. They wouldn't help me get out safely. Thankfully, this law has changed. So, we had 18 months, but it was like trying to run a 3-legged race while tied to a sociopath who wants you to lose. Once he destroyed my final chance and got the kids put back in foster care, he left. I now feel that's the only way he was ever going to leave me in peace, that if I'd gotten the kids back, he would have made false reports to CPS, and if that didn't work, he might have hunted me down and killed me. TPR was the only way to ensure the kids' safety and my safety under the laws at the time. That does not make it right. I understand needing to believe that horrible things only happen to really bad people who deserve it. There's a terrible feeling that goes with looking at a situation and realizing it could happen to you. An old friend is dying of cancer, he's been too sick to work for a couple years, he's got 2 school-aged daughters that he's not going to see grow up. A relative told him this is happening to him to punish him for not believing in God. Another friend's husband was in a car accident and got brain injuries that changed his personality, he got abusive, she left him, and he stalked her with death threats. Someone told her that all happened because she'd stopped going to church. Bad things happen to good people, and it's hard to accept that the same thing could happen to you after a series of unfortunate events. At this point, I think it did happen for a reason, but that doesn't mean I deserved it. I think a parent who was educated, tech-savvy, articulate, smart, and emotionally-resilient enough to survive TPR had to be TPR'd to speak up for all the parents who can't speak up for themselves but didn't deserve to be treated like animals any more than I did. It's not exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but it makes sense. Laws can be unjust, and laws can be changed. My great-grandmother marched for suffrage. My grandfather refused to fire on Union workers on Bloody Friday. My aunt was part of the lawsuit that inspired the movie North Country. I started with getting myself healed up, now I'm going to start volunteering to work with other bio parents, eventually I hope to have a voice in changing the system to be more fair, more safe, and more efficient. The one thing I'm happy about from this is that I found a wonderful spiritual community that I've become a valued part of, I'm trusted, appreciated, and I've been doing a lot of work on forgiveness and trying to find the good in everything. The night my ex finally left, I remember talking to a divorced friend about not trying to make the kids take sides, that they will figure it out for themselves. All I can do is be my best, and they'll see that when they find me. I know if someone had kept me away from my Mom, I would have been very angry with that person. Mom wasn't perfect, but she was so loving and taught me so much, and I know my kids miss me as much as I miss her and them. I hope the kids' adoptive mother will eventually feel secure enough that she'll be willing to get in contact with me. Last time we had contact, she got mad at me for following my case plan, and then anonymously posted nasty comments on my blog. When I tried to send my son a birthday present, it was donated to the Salvation Army unopened. I've tried to be nice, they've been consistently nasty, and I just keep trying to stick with forgiveness & turn the other cheek plan. It's really frustrating at times, but I know it's the best way in the long run, that loving the kids will change her, that she has good in her. I grew up in a family where we talked, fought, talked some more, and never stopped talking. In their family, people get mad at each other, stop talking until they forget what they were mad about, then start getting together for holidays again without ever resolving anything. I don't know how to deal with that, but I'm willing to see that she's trying her best at the level of consciousness she's at and with her dysfunctional background. The kids' old foster mom says the adoptive mom feels threatened by me, and that's why she doesn't want any contact- but they're talking, so maybe eventually the adoptive mom will be open to some kind of contact with me, maybe we can get past this- I've heard that the kids are having all kinds of behavioral problems, which is what I'd expect given what they've been put through, so the sooner healing can start the better.

Bad things happen to alot of people. My dh and I have been through 3 huge trials these past few years. We have closed our home because we can't take anymore stress right now. Two of them are bizarre and if I told you about them on -line some folks on here may know who I am and I do not want to give up my anonomous status and confidentiality. We have alot of foster-adopt families in our area. Our Christian agency is shocked at what we have been through and have been very supportive and understanding. We have faith in God and we go to church. One of them could have been prevented the other two were just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We being believers know that while we are on earth trials will come. We believe God allows them for our spiritual growth and refinement, and God is there helping us, giving us new wisdom, and caring for us as we go through them. I personally believe that true Christians go through alot and some even die for their faith. Going to church or not going to church makes no difference. We still don't know what the future holds for us. I am now partially crippled, and I may never fully recover. I am still improving so there is hope. There are many things that I cannot do now that I could before. I never thought in a million years this would happen to me. These are things that you hear about that always happen to someone else. I have always been so healthy and active. Hopefully this will all go away in the next several months. Eomaia, I find it hard to believe that you lost your parental rights because they wanted to keep the kids and you safe. Your husband may be a sociopath, but if you have a safe healthy home for the kids you could keep them. Time does run out at a certain point though and then it is too late. The state does not want kids lingering in foster care. Studies show that this is not good for them, and the older they get the harder it is for them to be adopted. I don't mean to be harsh to you, and I don't look at you as sub-human or an animal. Really I feel for you and I am so sad that this has happened to you. Many things that happen to women start by the choices they make when they are very young and inexperienced. Who you marry and or have children with can ruin your life, or give you the best life has to offer. I hope that you continue to do well. I hope the kids can find you well and successful someday.

I had a safe home when the case went to TPR. A 2 bedroom townhouse with a lot of bad memories, and I only got to see the kids for a 2-hour fully supervised visitation each week. Meanwhile, I was spending more time at my friends' house, a few blocks away, they were facing foreclosure, had 4 kids, were struggling financially, and there was always laundry & dishes that needed to be done. So, I moved in with them, it made sense, just until I got some spark of hope. After a couple months, CPS said that was a problem, so I got a studio apartment on month-to-month lease, and explained to CPS that as soon as I started getting more visits, I would get a bigger apartment, but I didn't see the point in committing to a 6 or 12 month lease on a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment that I was only going to use for 2 hours a week. They had said it wasn't good enough that I had the apartment, I needed to live there too. So, I tried to spend more time there, sitting on my butt watching dvds while a few blocks away, my friends' 15 year old with ADHD was trying to watch her 5 year old brother & make dinner & do homework & text boys all at the same time. CPS didn't notice, they just left a voicemail saying not to bother coming to court, my rights had been terminated. Nothing I did was good enough for them. Maybe it would have made a difference if I'd gotten a big apartment and sat alone in it while my friends' family fell apart and their kids ended up in foster care- or maybe CPS would have just kept nitpicking, and when I got TPR'd, I would have been alone without anyone to tell me to eat or go to work or not kill myself. If CPS really was concerned about my kids, they would have helped me make plans with smooth slow transitions since my son has Asperger's. Instead, they wanted me to just keep jumping through hoops without getting any promise of reward, they wanted me to just trust them after they'd proven themselves completely untrustworthy. The guy I'm sort of seeing now has worked for a CPS-related agency, supervising teens with substance abuse & behavioral problems, and he's told me my mistake was in not trusting them, in not telling them what was going on with my friends, but I didn't want for ALL our kids to end up in foster care in an attempt to get mine out.

I guess we could go on and on about this for a long time. I am sure CPS did not want you to move in with someone elses family with a teen ADHD and 3 other kids. Also they can't give you back the kids if you only have a studio apt. You need to have a bedroom for them and things ready for them to come home. You only have so much time. CPS doesn't have the man-power to help you with everything. They have some 30 cases or so per sw that they are working on. They can only give you names and phone #s of charities that can help you. You have to do the rest. Taking care of your own family needs to come first. Your friend needs to worry about her own life. How could you be so concerned about someone elses family when you were so close to losing the kids? Well anyway this is all "water over the bridge" what is done is done. Now all you can do is pick up the pieces and move on. I 'm posting all of this to try to help you not to judge you or to put you down. I hope that if you settle down with your new boyfriend that history doesn't repeat itself. I also have too much time on my hands while I am healing.

We're friends. They're the ones who were there for me when things were bad with my ex, they gave me a key so I could go stay in their house anytime I needed to, even if it was the middle of the night or they were out of town. If it had been a real choice between helping them or helping my own kids, of course my kids were top priority. If CPS had been willing to work out a plan- say, if I got my own apartment that was big enough for the kids, then I could get an increase in visits and decrease in supervision, and gradually work towards RU, then I would have. But I wasn't going to sign a 6 or 12 month lease when I might just be TPR'd the following week, and I wasn't going to sit on my butt watching Supernatural on dvd when my friends needed help. A lawyer friend has said since that she thinks they'd made up their minds to TPR me before he even left, so they were going to find fault with anything I did. Also, my ex was making a lot of false accusations to CPS, all my close friends got investigated, so I felt an obligation to help the friends I was staying with be prepared for a visit from CPS. By the point he left, I saw CPS as a bunch of evil control-freaks on a power trip, and I needed some proof that I was going to get something I wanted if I did what they wanted. I didn't need their help, I didn't need charity handouts, I just needed some evidence that my effort was going to be rewarded, it's hard to stay motivated when nothing you do is ever good enough. As for the new guy- he's not my boyfriend, we have not labeled it anything more than friendship, we've been getting to know each other for the past year, and it really bothers me to have people assume that having made one bad choice in a partner, I am going to just keep repeating the same mistake over and over- I suspect that assumption might be the real reason I was TPR'd. Anyhow, my not-boyfriend is really awesome, pillar of the community, does volunteer work helping kids make healthy choices, organized a major charity fundraiser, is on the Board at our church, all while working 60-80 hours a week. He's done a lot to help me get past the anger and stop being so judgmental and start forgiving. He encouraged me to start going to Al-Anon to deal with my issues, and when I've gotten upset, he's calmly listened to me rant then replied "Is there a way to re-phrase that as an 'I' statement?". Knowing him & knowing that he's worked in the system has helped me be more understanding of workers- because of course they all have their own personal issues too. When I first met him, I thought he was really cute, but figured once he found out I was a bioparent, not a real person, that he wouldn't want anything to do with me. It took me a long time and a lot of work to get to the point of feeling like I'm good enough for him, that not only do I deserve someone as awesome as him, but he deserves someone as awesome as me. It's best to focus on the future. My friends still have their kids, I went to visit them tonight and the 5 year old says he misses me all the time and wanted me to stay over. If I'd done what CPS wanted, I would have been TPR'd and gone home to an empty apartment, and been so alone, I don't think I would have gotten through it. Sometimes I wonder if CPS sets things up to encourage bio-parents to commit suicide- I'd really like to see follow-up stats on bioparents post-TPR, but there aren't any. Anyhow, my focus now is on helping other parents, and maybe eventually CPS will start treating bioparents like humans. My not-boyfriend's done work with helping people make healthy choices, maybe he'll have insights on how CPS can empower parents to make healthy choices, not micro-manage every detail of their lives as if they're total worthless idiots. I know how I was treated, and no human being should ever be treated like that.

eomaia, you sound a lot like my FC's mother and I don't mean that in a degrading or negative way. For the first year the kids were in care, she fought social services with everything she had because she didn't agree with their reasons for removing the kids from her care. And she sure and heck didn't think she needed any of their services or that those services would actually help her get her children back. She was so close to the agency filing TPR after 12 months, but she rallied and changed because she saw she was getting nowhere by fighting them tooth and nail on every little thing. She eventually worked up to unsupervised visits with the kids and even had them overnights for 4 nights. But that was also what showed social services that she was unable to handle parenting her children on her own, full-time. I think her stubborness is actually one of her best qualities. She will stand up for what she believes in, its just unfortunate that she does it to an extreme and to the detriment of her relationship with her kids and her future (or lack of) with them. I disagree that CPS sets things up in such a way that bio parents are encouraged to commit suicide. It's a ridiculous accusation considering in my case, the kids' mother has been given all the mental health services they can offer in addition to all the parenting services she was offered. I agree that you need a supportive network to help you through the ups and downs of life, but at the same time, you are the only one who can be held accountable at the end of the day. Your unwillingness to comply with CPS that I've perceived in your posts, is/was a big issue. And your obvious anger regarding the entire process is holding you back, and I think you may finally realize that. Without knowing your full story, it's difficult to know exactly where things went wrong and if TPR was the right path, but from what you have shared, it appears as though the decision was made in the best interest of your children.

Maybe for right now they're better off with 2 parents who both work at Disneyworld than with a single mother, but that's probably true of all kids in single-parent families. In the long-term, I'm hoping that the adoptive mom's love for V & L will overcome her insecurities and fear. It is clear to me that ya'll Believe in The System with a deep and abiding Faith, and that in order to see the problem, you'd have to go through it yourselves. You're not perfect, and if someone was stopping in at your home unannounced for long enough and looking hard enough for something that would make you look bad, they'd find it eventually. I don't think that's how the system should work, I think they should concentrate on preventing child abuse. I think the way they handled my case should have been treated as a major failure for everyone involved, from the worker who backed up my abusive ex's crazymaking to the Appeals Court judges who rubber-stamped the TPR. I also wonder if they weren't so busy messing up my life, maybe they might have done something before Skylar Inman's mom and/or mom's boyfriend beat her to death. On a metaphysical level, I accept that it happened because they saw me as being different from themselves, and thus somehow exempt from the Golden Rule. On a practical level, I accept that my ex would not have stopped his war against me until I lost the kids or was dead, and that it's only temporary. On a social consciousness level, I see all the ways the system undermined my confidence, made me doubt my basic worth as a person, and disempowered me. I understand that they have good intentions, but I also think that the social work field has a long way to go in understanding effective & efficient ways to modify human behavior & make families safer. Without knowing any details, it sounds like a major power struggle, and that if instead of trying to bend her to their will, they'd worked with her to help her be her best, things could have been different. I hope she's at least allowed to have a relationship with her children. I'd really like to see a study that follows up on bio-parents and children post-TPR, comparing based on whether contact is allowed or not. I've seen the stats on kids aging out of foster care, but never factoring for whether or not they'd maintained contact with their parents.

We have a court ordered post adoption visitation with an aunt. I feel the contact has been ok. She is not over stepping her boundaries, but the other family members keep asking her if they can have visits also. I have had several bio relatives try to contact me over the years and it has been very stressful and annoying. I have to keep saying no contact until the child is older. I get mad somedays that the court ordered us to do the visits, I feel like they are interferring with our family.:(

I have not read all the replies so excuse me if I repeat.We have adopted 6 children. 2 sibs of 3. They are bio cousins to one another. Their mother's are sisters. There is a ton of mental health issues in this family and it was deemed unsafe for us to have visits. We felt that in this situation it was better for us to not volunteer visitation. We are again in the process of adopting. Because my first 6 have attachment issues we feel that they wouldn't comphrehend why our new children get to see their bio family and they don't. We have decided that our only option is to adopt children through foster that do not require any personal contact. Had we had open adoptions with our other six I would be open to adopting that way again. I will say that I think, especially when dealing with foster system, that there has to be some leeway in the open adoption.

The question though was court ordered. Would you have wanted the court to order those visits? We just had the first post adoption visit with LG's family....and one parent smelled like alcohol. LG revered to negative behaviors. During visit family tried to sublty separate me from LG and countermand my instructions to LG. The next day at school LG was agressive with staff members (first time since foster visits were discontinued). I know throught the grapevine that at least one of the parents was presenting this as a court ordered visit---it wasn't. I had said when asked if I'd allow any visits and I'd said that I was willing to do 2 a year assuming boundaries were maintained and there weren't negative behaviors. And depending on how things went I might be willing to do more. At this stage I'll stick to the two a year....but imagine that had been court ordered? In order to not have visits with someone smelling of alcohol or having to deal with negative behaviors (agression) I'd have to get on the court schedule and explain my parenting decision to a judge to get the "change".

We are signing papers to adopt in the next week and the great grandparents, who have had court ordered pre and post adoption monthly visits since TPR, have filed a petition to keep the monthly visits in the adoption contract. DHR says they can do this but it will be up to a judge to decide whether or not it will be beneficial for the children. But you better believe I will not be signing any papers that have these terms.