[The Beach Bears]

While all of the thoughts you have expressed Curvyred may be true, we are not family, we do not have any rights to her and the birth mother is her mother and has an inherent right to her. They are also shades of grey, everyone in the family including the Grandfather has stated that they want us to adopt her, we have been the only party interested and willing to go this “private” road with them (Forgive me foster parents out there, the family has a antiquated view of the “system” and will do everything in there power to prevent her form going to the “dreaded” foster care) and third while it may not be a popular thought on this board any mother who put her child in the trunk during the winter and drives around while going to buy and sell drugs should not have rights to speak of.



That being said we were not looking for advice, well we were looking for advice before but little or none was forth coming on this board, so my wife and I changed this into somewhere we could express our emotions an what we are feeling, not necessarily based on legal thoughts.



I understand what you are saying about the state agency but it has become clear that for five years the state agency has not done anything for this family or child, due to the fact she is in family care. As we have researched this it seems that there is any number of ways that an adoption or we taking custody could occur, and most if not all of them do not involve a state agency at all.



We will be taking custody of this child now or in the future it’s what the family wants, its what the Grandfather wants, he is 85 and is dealing with his wife’s death and his own mortality, we can understand what he is thinking that does not mean we have to agree with it. We will be pursing termination of the mother’s rights under abandonment. This has become a place for us to express ourselves in what has become a high stress situation. Thank you for the well wishes.