[Lumpkin]

I am looking at a relative adoption of my brother’s child who has been taken from him by DHS for neglect and abuse. Currently the child resides with our mother who was originally given temp custody by the courts, and later received shared guardianship with the state – presumably because adoption of the 2 year old child is pretty likely.

TPR proceedings have taken place for my brother, and his rights were terminated. The mother could not be found until about a week later, so now the TPR hearing is scheduled for next week for the mother. The mother plans to contest, but there is more evidence against her, and she has not attempted to contact the children (or provide support for them) in over 7 months, so we’re hoping the courts just terminate.

I live Iowa, so I’m told by DHS (who knows I wish to adopt, and who has named my family in court as potential adoptive parents) that I must take a PSMAPP class and have a home study done before I can adopt. Of course, I just learned this (as everything has happened so quickly, and we were not truly certain that it would come to this), and I’m struggling to get the agency moving along to get things done. It’s looking like 3-4 weeks for the background check, then probably 3-4 more weeks to have that reviewed and approved (I already know that I will have one DCI hit from a 5th degree theft charge from 25 years ago when I was a stupid kid. That shouldn’t stop the process, but I’m told it goes to manual review when there is a DCI hit, and it could take 30 days).

They will not let me start the PSMAPP classes and the home study until the background checks are approved. And then they have to find a class for me and get me into the classes which will take another 10 weeks. So best case scenario is that we’ll have 16 weeks until we are done with all of the classes. Yet there is only probably 1 week left until TPRs are done.

With all of that background, my question(s) is/are this – should I get an attorney to draw up adoption paperwork now, and submit it on the day (or next day) of TPR? Should I wait until after the TPR to hire an attorney, so as not to waste money if TPR does not occur (in other words, how important is it to get that paperwork filed quickly)? Can I even file for adoption if I have not gone through the approval process?

Also, any advice on moving the process along more quickly? I would like to get the child in our home as soon as possible to get him used to our family and help him through the adjustment stages before he gets much older. My thoughts are that the longer he lives in the spare bedroom of my mother’s house, visiting me only occasionally, the more he’s going to start to realize that he’s not living a “normal” childhood. If we were to get him into our home soon, he may have an opportunity to never “remember” this stage of his life - yet if we wait another 6 months to a year while this process plays out, he’s going to be over 3 years old.. and he’ll be well into the stage of being able to remember these times for the rest of his life. ( Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to hide the adoption from him, but I would like for him to adjust to the family and learn about the adoption when he’s capable of understanding better.)