Final Briefings

We were supposed to have finalized the adoption of our kidlets by now. When we said "Yes!" to bringing our children home, parental rights had already been terminated, I.cW.A laws had been more than adhered to, biological family and placements within the enrolled tribe had already been searched for and found to be lacking... We were not supposed to have anything stand in our way to adopt our children. We did not bring them home in a foster placement, we brought them home with the specific intent to adopt. There weren't supposed to be any glitches.

During the family selection meetings, the kids' tribe approved us as their final adoptive placement, as an I.cW.A adoptive placement. Now they're trying to back out of that, saying the tribal affiliations my family and I have aren't good or strong enough. The kids have a biological aunt (a full-blood sister to their birth-father) who is coming forward saying she now wants these children "back home with their family" and doesn't want them to be "raised by strangers". I don't believe our children ever lived with or knew much of their birth-father's family as they lived with and around their birth-mother's home and tribe (a different tribe than the father). This particular bio-aunt came forward twice in the first year and a half our kids were in foster care, saying she would be willing to take one, only one, of them. She was told what to do to be become licensed to foster/adopt and never followed through... twice. After the second time, she came back and said no, she'd gotten pregnant and now felt she could care for even one of them. (She has five sons, including the now-born infant, in her three-bedroom home). A month after we brought them home, she contacted the social worker again and stated she now thought she could take just one of them again but was told they were all placed into an adoptive home that would keep them together. Four months later, she came forward saying she now wanted all of three of them. Then nothing. She did nothing to follow through with it. The tribe did nothing to follow through with it.

The day we got our paperwork back from the state and set a court date to finalize our adoption, we heard we had to now cancel everything because they came forward yet again and we now have to proceed to another court hearing. I tell ya, the system sucks.

On December 14th, we had that court hearing. The tribe and the bio-aunt showed up, my family came to support us, and the kids had their lawyer as well as the state attorney. I was put on the stand to testify. I know my parenting skills aren't being called into question, I know it's just an aunt who feels she has some right to these children, I know I'm not dark-skinned enough in their eyes to be culturally considered as an "Indian", but it was still one of the very worst moments of my life having to be on that stand talking about how I've raised and how I would raise my children. My kids never even knew they were Native until we brought them home, they'd never been to a powwow... their foster family was "whiter" than I could dream of being and this bio-aunt was fine with the idea of them adopting our kids. But because they're now with us... ???

Then she got up the stand. And made me "feel" for her. I'm not in this to attack the bio-family. It was never our intention to keep knowledge of them from our children. We had already talked about setting up a visit with this aunt and it just hadn't happened yet. The thing is, she only saw them twice in the whole two and a half years they've been removed... and they were for family meetings with the state about the placement options for our kids she was invited to and paid to attend. She never tried visiting them otherwise. And what about their birth-mother's family? We already have open communications with them because of all the siblings our kids have, and we have a very open relationship with the one sister who lived with our kids and was removed from parental care with them. She's only been placed separately because she's under a different tribal jurisdiction. Would this bio-aunt continue all those family relations? No, I think not. She didn't have anything to say about that.

Anyway, this court hearing was neither good nor totally bad. The judge very obviously wanted to rule for our children to continue with us as their permanent adoptive placement but the tribal lawyer had gotten up there and spewed a bunch of crap about one single case influenced by some BI.a laws... not even I.cW.A laws, just BI.a "influences"... so the judge wanted to research them and give the lawyers time to present their fully prepared briefs. Today's the day they're due. The tribal attorney, the state attorney, the attorney representing our children, plus the CA.SA worker's recommendation are all due to the judge. He will then prepare his final ruling from the hearing hopefully by next week at the latest.

What could happen? The judge could rule that all is as it stands, they have nothing more to go on, and we can proceed with finalizing the adoption. OR, he could say this BI.a influence is big enough to abide by and the bio-aunt would then get the chance to try and become licensed as an adoptive placement by the state. She's already licensed by her tribe, but the state has different and more strict regulations. From everything we know, she shouldn't be able to get licensed. But... there's always that chance. If she gets licensed, we would lose our children. If she doesn't get licensed, we don't know what would happen. Would that then open it up for another search of family and tribal members, even though that was thoroughly exhausted more than a year ago?

What gets me is the tribe already approved us. They approved us as an I.cW.A placement and are now saying we're not. How can they do that?

And it's not about us. The thing that slays me the most is they could care less about our kids. This aunt was directly asked when she was on the stand whether she wanted the kids for her own self or for the best interest of the kids. She couldn't answer. She was asked three times in a row and couldn't answer. All she could say was, "I need my kids back in the family. They shouldn't be raised by strangers."

Lady, to our kids, you are the stranger, not us.

So, today's the day. Final briefings are due. We've already waited two weeks since the hearing. Hopefully, the waiting won't be much longer until we know the final outcome of the rest of our lives.