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We adopted BIL's son 2 1/2 years ago and have an OA with him and birthmom. It's gone fine with BF and he's had quite a bit of access to our son, he's always appropriate, etc.... birthmom is a different story. To make a very long story short, she hasn't maintained her end of the agreement so we see it as null and void. Well she took us to court to have it enforced. We never actually had the hearing...the first time she claimed she had just hired an atty, but he couldn't be there. The second time, the atty for many reasons was completely unprepared so they ended up having to withdraw the complaint. We have no clue if she'll re-file or not, but either way we feel very confident that it will be declared null and void.
Where I really need advice is how to proceed from here. It hasn't been our intention to have no contact, but we want less than the agreement states as she's clearly not in a good place with the situation or really anything in her life. Even with that being the case we went into this court situation saying that we would probably still do one visit/year if appropriate. Well, I was sitting right near her in court the other day and could hear quite a bit of her rantings to the atty's assistant and what really troubled me was hearing her talk about having him emancipated when he's 14!! It's a non-issue because we don't have that in our state, but the fact that her head is in that place really concerns me. Also, her mom and mom's boyfriend have said things it the past like they can't wait until he's older so they can tell him the truth (they think we stole him).
what do you think? Should we be allowing any contact if that is where her head is?
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I would back it down to 2 letters with a picture a year. One near your son's b-day and one near the holidays. Can you have an attorney draft up that new OA agreement for the next court date, if it comes.
I am sure you already have it, but be sure to have your info in writing--missed visits, inappropriate behavior, etc.
You are making the right decision, we had to make a similar one for our son.
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Document Document Document. It is your job as your childs mother to put him first. It sounds to me like First Mom has mental health issues and needs to get herself together first. I wouldn't close the adoption but I would go back to letters / photos until she get the help she needs and is an appropriate person to be around your child.
I understand she feels the system "stole" her child. But either way I think the next time she takes you to court I'd ask the judge to stay the contact order until she can prove she's gotten herself together and I'd ask for a no contact order to prevent her from contacting the child on Facebook, school or elsewhere until she's proven to have complied with the court. I'd tell the judge her threats and comments. Document everything and once First Mom has it back together; go back to the agreement.
However I'd made it very clear that her "version" of the truth or any version that tells your child that he was stolen, will not be tolerated and that you have the paperwork and will provide it to your child when it's age appropriate. Set clear clear boundaries once contact is re-established.
No one should be allowed to lie to an Adoptee not even their birth parents.
This is the very reason I never opted for an OA agreement. I say when/where etc...our daughters biomom has contact. I'm glad I did cause biomom is back on drugs and has been arrested a few times in past year.
I'd make sure you have a journal and document everything. Then you don't have to remember it all and you have something to show court what is going on. I'm glad we did that during our daughter case trying to get her moved from Idaho to us.
Good luck!
Thanks everyone for the responses. You've reassured me and my feelings toward this. I always end up feeling bad for bio mom, but I know for the sake of my son and his stability, what needs to be done for now.We have always been concerned with her mental health, and she was arrested with drugs just a couple months ago so that's not going to help. Unfortunately, I don't see her getting better anytime soon. Her mother is just like her, and feeds her thoughts on this, if not, completely controls her thoughts. wrking21- It's not that she thinks the system stole her child, I could understand that too. It's that she thinks we orchestrated the whole thing, which is obviously very concerning. I could also understand her living with the hope that he'll come back to her. I imagine that's probably a pretty common coping mechanism for bio parents, but the fact that she would talk about it 6 ft away from me, in a court setting, to an atty's secretary is scary. Also, to actually talk about emancipation when he's 14, like it's her plan, freaked me right out! As I said we've always known that she has mental health issues, but the emancipation talk hit me hard. My first feeling was deep sadness for my DS that his biomom would even consider trying to do something that would be so disruptive to him. I wanted to stand up and scream.....do you want him to be a healthy, happy adult or not!!I guess I'm just ranting now so thanks for listening. I try to talk to some of my friends and family about this, but I know they have no idea what it's really like to live it.
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Thanks everyone for the responses. You've reassured me and my feelings toward this. I always end up feeling bad for bio mom, but I know for the sake of my son and his stability, what needs to be done for now.
We have always been concerned with her mental health, and she was arrested with drugs just a couple months ago so that's not going to help. Unfortunately, I don't see her getting better anytime soon. Her mother is just like her, and feeds her thoughts on this, if not, completely controls her thoughts.
wrking21- It's not that she thinks the system stole her child, I could understand that too. It's that she thinks we orchestrated the whole thing, which is obviously very concerning.
I could also understand her living with the hope that he'll come back to her. I imagine that's probably a pretty common coping mechanism for bio parents, but the fact that she would talk about it 6 ft away from me, in a court setting, to an atty's secretary is scary. Also, to actually talk about emancipation when he's 14, like it's her plan, freaked me right out! As I said we've always known that she has mental health issues, but the emancipation talk hit me hard. My first feeling was deep sadness for my DS that his biomom would even consider trying to do something that would be so disruptive to him. I wanted to stand up and scream.....do you want him to be a healthy, happy adult or not!!
I guess I'm just ranting now so thanks for listening. I try to talk to some of my friends and family about this, but I know they have no idea what it's really like to live it.
Courts are not going to be in a hurry to emancipate a minor. They know that a 14 year old needs to attend school full-time, and not worry about getting a full-time job, renting an apartment, and so on . And if they know the birthmother's history, they are certainly not going to emancipate the child on her say-so.
Sharon