What to expect now?

I believe everyone who has been served has the right to hire an atty and plead their case. I believe at this point it's most likely you'll find out if relatives will come out of the woodwork or not. If noone files answers then it will likely move toward you being able to adopt. If others file to become parties to the case then it has to be determined what is best for the kiddos. Since you're already bonded and attached I think there will be good odds for you.

Yep everyone will be served, including you, since you are the current foster parents. You do not need to get an attorney for the TPR trial, even if family comes out of the woodwork. As foster parents in MO, we cannot be parties to the case, so really you will have nothing to do with TPR, unless for some reason they call you to testify. You can still go to the hearing (we went to our AD's TPR hearing) but you just sit on the sidelines. But you will eventually need an attorney for the adoption. And if family contests the adoption or if the kids are moved to other family and you contest the adoption, this is where your attorney will come into play. Make sure you hire an attorney familiar with the foster system, it will help a lot. I don't know what area you are in, but our county has a list of attorneys that do a lot of work in our county for the foster system. Most of them are GAL's as well, so they are very familiar how the system works. Our attorney is a GAL for a lot of kids in our county and I am so glad she was not our daughter's GAL as we really wanted to use her. She was great and was on top of everything that needed to get done. Another nice bonus is she billed the state directly for our portion of the cost that the state was going to cover in our subsidy so we didn't have to pay for anything up front except our adoption filing fee. The TPR process could be relatively quick or drag on forever, depends on how cooperative parents are and how much they fight. It is possible, you could have a TPR trial date before your next review hearing in January. It depends on when everyone gets served and how many times they try to get a continuance on the court date. As far as the adoption profile, it's customary for every child here going to adoption to have one. Even if they are not going to recruit other families. They did one for our daughter and there were no other families involved. But it's just "normal procedure." Don't be surprised if they do go ahead and complete a home study on the aunt. I don't know how long the kids have been with you, and if the aunt has been involved since the beginning. But if the kids haven't been with you very long, the aunt will have a much stronger chance. If they have been with you a while your chances are better. If it's been more than 9 months, your chances are even better. And working on reunification and adoption at the same time is also common here. Our AD's bio mom requested services at the last minute and was granted them while we were going through the TPR process. She was trying to make a last ditch effort to not lose her daughter, but it didn't work, TPR was still granted. Don't be surprised if visits continue, if you currently have visits, up until TPR. There will also be a "goodbye" visit after TPR is granted. That was one thing we never had to deal with was bio parent visits. Even at the end she never requested to see her daughter. Good luck!