Court report

We were in court from 8 until 11 AM (and then I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics for my sinus infection).

K's case was trailed again because his bio mom's attorney has not yet spoken with her about the case. This guy is a loser with a capital L - our attorney says he gets $70k/year from the county to represent people in the CPS system and basically blows it off. Same attorney who represents S on Z's case and caused all our cases to be trailed LAST week. Apparently his policy is "do no work until the case has been trailed three times." So we go in again for K on April 1.

Z's case was much more productive.

The judge heard "change of circumstance" petitions from the bio dad and from the cousin. The bio dad's came first and it was basically heard on the basis that he is now in rehab instead of jail, and denied because his "change of circumstance" is not complete - he is not done with his program and ready to take Z.

Then the mom's attorney pulled this shenanagan saying that our attorney had a conflict because she briefly represented S when her older kids were detained in 2005. They never met on the case and she never appeared for S in court. Nevertheless she excused herself for the purposes of the TPR hearing so that the case could proceed. That was fine because we are not in a position to say anything about TPR anyway.

S tried to say that the county had not offered relative placement earlier in the process, which is the opposite of what is stated in their court reports - they investigated options and found no suitable relatives to take Z a year ago and then again in September when Z came back into care. So the judge terminated all parental rights and at that point our lawyer was back on the case since her supposed conflict was no longer a party. So Miss Z officially has birthparents now ... not parents. Yet.

After that the judge heard the petition from the cousin, which was nerve wracking because he really listened carefully and the cousin's attorney was starting to make up stuff about us (saying that our older two kids were also adopted from the foster care system - trying to make us out to be some kind of child collectors). The judge assured us that he was not considering any of that and our attorney explained that he was just listening so that nobody can say they were not heard and have basis for appeal. Anyway at the end of it all our attorney corrected the misstatements about us and the petition was denied.

We are still the county's recommendation for adoptive placement. As long as there are no appeals we should be able to get this wrapped up in a few months time. WOOHOO!