Katie said:

in many cases when the birthmother signs has nothing to do with when the adoption becomes finalized/irrevocable. i had to appear in court 48 hours after jonathan was born to orally & by signature waive my rights … but the adoption wasn’t truly finalized for another six months, despite both my appearance and the birthfather waiving his rights within that 48 hours.

This is a good point because it can all be confusing.

Here in Ohio and with our agency, the soonest birth parents can relinquish is 72 hours but, of course, they can take longer. Most, like Kate, don’t want to wait because they don’t want to put the baby in foster care during that time and they don’t feel prepared to take baby home. There are a few hospitals around here that will board a newborn for some time but not all of them will.

Also, our adoption won’t be finalized for six months either but if Madison was taken from us, she would not automatically go to J. The fact that J. has signed away her parental rights means that if Brett and I were found to be inadequate parents, Madison would be in the custody of the agency. They could then find other parents for her. In other words, J.’s surrender of parental rights is a separate issue from her adoption. Weird, eh?

Our agency visits us once a month but the visits are nominal. Our social worker comes and asks how we’re doing. Makes notes about Madison’s height and weight and picks up proof that we’re doing the recommended well-baby check-ups. We also need to inform them if we leave the state because they are required to know where the babies are at all times.

I don’t know what it would take to make us lose Madison but I think it would have to be big and bad and ugly. Other than making sure we’re doing the well-baby checks, not smoking around her and that one of us was home with her for six weeks, the agency actually has very little to say about our care of Madison. For example, they haven’t made us get a crib (we co-sleep so we don’t have one). I was relieved to discover this. I was afraid we were going to have to make it look like she had her own room since I know this is an issue in foster care.

During these six months, we could also give Madison back to the agency without repercussion because the adoption hasn’t been finalized. (Obviously, this has never even entered our minds!!!! Well, it might occasionally wander into Noah’s mind.) The most recent time this happened was when a child proved to have very severe health issues and the potential adoptive family felt they couldn’t provide the care she needed. The agency networked with other agencies and found a waiting family who was looking to adopt a child with extreme special needs.

I don’t think it’s fair at all that the birth family wouldn’t be considered for the next placement should the adoptive family prove not to be up to the task. I’ll ask the social worker next time about their policies in contacting the birth parents about it.

The reason that J. wouldn’t be next in line is that she has been effectively erased from Madison’s life in a legal sense. Again, her surrender of parental rights has nothing to do with our assumption of parental rights. I wonder, though, if this is different in states where open adoptions are legally enforceable. Would a birth parent there have a say in the next placement?

As an aside, at our agency, J. did not have to go to court. The social workers video tape the legal surrender so that the birth parents can choose not to appear before a judge. Obviously they can appear anyway if they want to but most are relieved to be able to do the surrender privately.

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