Friday, June 30, 2017

Court Continued

We had Elmer's TPR Hearing court date on June 16.  The week before, his caseworker asked if I had heard anything from his mom, and said that when they tried to serve her at the address on file, someone said she didn't live there and they didn't have a current address.  (The address is her mom's house, so... yeah, right... they didn't have a current address!  And then when the caseworker finally got in touch with mom a couple of days before court, she gave the exact same address they already had on file!) 

So court was already continued (cancelled for that day) because they were unable to serve the mom.  But then there was also an issue with the state-appointed lawyers of mom and dad, so they had to get that straightened out as well.  So I think that court would have been continued no matter what. 

Mom ended up showing up about 15 minutes after court was over.  We talked, and she wanted to know if I would let her see Elmer if I adopted him.  I told her that as long as she was clean, sober, and safe, that I would allow contact.  She also asked if I would change Elmer's name.  I did not want to discuss this before the actual adoption, but I wasn't going to lie to her face, so I told her that yes, I would probably change his name.  (Separate post about the name change to come.)  She mentioned that bio dad says, "That's my Junior" but I mentioned that even if I didn't change his first name, his last name would change and so either way he would no longer be a Junior.  Mom also told me the street she lives on and a pretty good description of the house, and it is about five minutes from my house, so I am going to drive by and see if I can get an alternate address for Legal to use to serve mom next time. 

So now we wait... again... for another TPR Hearing date.  And I anticipate that parents will contest the TPR at that hearing, which would mean that we would have to go to a TPR trial.  Such a long process for a case where the parents never had a treatment plan!

 

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