They were full of questions; especially Jesse. They wanted to know where he was - was he still with their biological Mom? When we let them know he was with a foster family, they wanted to know why he wasn't with us. Wow, how to explain to our children that their brother was placed with another family, who hoped to adopt him, because of a seeming lack of communication within DFCS. His caseworker didn't talk with L before moving him to a home that wanted to adopt him. So yeah, we left out many details and just told them that we hoped he would be moving in with us in the very near future.
We spent several months arguing and pleading with DFCS. I came close to memorizing their entire policy manual and frequently quoted it to L, her manager M and the director of that county's DFCS office. We started to worry that a misinterpretation of a policy was going to result in Cameron remaining where he was. We made the decision then to hire an attorney. We did lots of research and hired the very best attorney we could find when it came to adoption law. It was the best decision we could have possibly made.
Our attorney, JO, aided in having Cameron moved to our home in June of 2009, 4 months later than we expected. The sad thing is a family that had hoped to adopt Cameron was now heartbroken. Mistakes that were made meant that Cameron remained with that family for 6 months in a placement that should have never happened and then when realized should have been corrected in 2 months.
While we were elated to have Cameron in our home and his siblings loved getting to know him, we knew that we still had several months of anxiety before us. See in our state, foster parents are allowed to appeal decisions that are made that meet certain criteria and might be viewed as having violated their rights. Under state law and DFCS policy, it did not seem to us (or JO) that Cameron's foster parents had a valid grievance. Sadly, the committee that reviewed such grievances did not agree with our assessment and planned to hear the case. We lived through endless weeks of stress and worry until mid-August.
I got a call from our case manager J while at work. The committee had decided that the foster parents had a valid complaint and were recommending that Cameron be returned to them. I got up, walked out of my office, told a friend that I had to leave, got in my car and called JO. From that day forward, we came to realize how very, very blessed we were in our choice of JO as our attorney.
Since this post is getting rather long, I'll wrap it up and simply tell you that JO worked long and hard to make sure that Cameron wasn't moved and is getting to grow up with his siblings. After many sleepless nights and a weight loss plan that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, we officially became Cameron's parents in October of 2009.
