[Gentin]

So the CW called me today and told me I was the last person to know that my fd mother is pregnant again. She is the one who decided she could not take care of her daughter and called and asked them to find her a home - now she is pregnant with another one! My fd has not seen her mother or father in 6 weeks but I also found out that they now have clear notes to see her. Dad is in a juvenile jail even though he is 18 and they want me to do a visitation there. They say that because she is attached to him they have to have her see him there and not wait until he gets out. I am a little sad because I don't feel that is a place to bring a 2 year old. We have family team meeting next week so we will see how that goes. My Cw told me she is going to push the mother over the next month or so to relinquish her rights and start fresh with the new baby. What do you all think???

[hubbyswife]

The SW tried doing that w our lil girl but bmom didn't go for it... the kids were TPR'd and bmom was still fighting it til the end....and now we have the baby.

[sky1]

This worked in my case. My fd birthmom got pregnant again, and also got clean. She decided she wanted to keep the baby she was carrying, and voluntarily surrendered her rights to my fd, as did bd. She has since delivered the baby (clean!) and I am in the process of adopting my fd!

[vegaschristina]

My fk's bmom is expecting too. She's all of 21 years old and expecting #4. I have the first 3 but told them we would not be taking the new baby. I feel like taking part of my tax return and once the baby's born, having her Norplanted so that she'll slow down on the baby making already.

[Gentin]

Isn't that the truth!!! I have one child of this mother and she is 19 years old and sllightly mentally challenged. I just don't know how the state thinks she can take care of a baby when she couldn't take care of a 2 year old and voluntarily gave her over!!!

[AKMama]

My girls' mom got pregnant again while the girls were in foster care. She realized she could not handle three kids under the age of 27 months (yes, all by the same two parents!) but she did not want to lose all of her kids. Both parents voluntarily relinquished the two I had in my care a few weeks after #3 was born. We did end up fostering the baby for four month (long story) but she got her act together and completed her program and has now been successfully parenting the third child for seven months.

[Gentin]

My one question would be - do you think that the 2 kids you have will be upset later because Mom has 1 child and couldn't keep them? That is what I am afraid of - my own sister is adopted and her biggest problem with her real mother is that she has other kids she kept but didn't keep her.

[sethsmommy]

You mean if the parents give up rights, then they can keep future kids but if there is TPR they will lose all future kids?

Is this state by state or a federal thing.

VegasChristina.....does Nevada work that way?

[vegaschristina]

In Nevada, the magic number is 3. If you've had 3 kids TPR'd then you lose all future children. We've been trying to get our kids bmom to understand this fact, but she thinks it won't apply to her, ya know? If she relinquishes, then she won't have had 3 TPR'd. What's not working in her favor is she was released from jail to go to the rehab center.

"I'm really going to stick with it" she told me "for the baby's sake." Yeah, Right! She's already bailed from there and is again missing in action. Looks like #4 will end up in the system too.

[eomaia]

I know a b-mom who was given the offer to let her keep her new baby if she'd stop fighting TPR on her older kids. She felt they were asking her to chose one child over another and she kept fighting and lost all of them.

Once I get my kids back, I'm hoping to get to work with other parents who have kids in foster care, and I'm going to explain to them that CPS cannot tell them to use birth control, but that having a new baby definately will complicate their situation.

Before I ever had kids of my own, I knew a couple women who'd had multiple children TPR'd. One was mentally retarded. I'm not sure what the situation was with the other one, but she asked me where meat came from and was surprised when I told her. Both of them kept having kids, and kept being surprised when CPS showed up to take their baby. I know about the history of forced sterilization, but to keep letting these women have babies and just keep taking them seems crueller than just telling them they'll never be able to raise a child and strongly advising them to get their tubes tied.

[AKMama]

Gentin - I do worry about what my girls will think or feel later in life about their sister remaining with bmom. We had hoped (and a lot of other people too) that the sisters would stay together, especially since they are so close in age. It's not that we wanted bmom to fail, by any means. We just thought the girls would benefit from staying together and bmom could make a fresh start for herself after several very rough and rocky years. Almost certainly, their little sister will never have the kind of life and opportunities that my girls will. My hope is that some day they will realize life wasn't so bad growing up with us. Having little sister with bmom also really motivates us to keep in contact with bmom over the years so the sisters will know each other or at least about each other. I think there are some questions my girls will have later that only bmom will be able to answer, as far as why she chose the course she did. Ultimately, I want my girls to know they are and were loved very much by their birth family to let them go and have the kind of life they knew they could not provide, especially with three small children. It's definitly not an easy situation, but I wouldn't trade my girls for the world!

[timleenettesue]

My bmother gave me up at birth but kept my older brother. She went on to have two more children, which she kept also.

I grew up in an adopted family that loved me very much. At first if was hard to understand why she didn't keep me, but later I was very happy. I ended up with the better end of the deal (so will your girls).

If your girls ask you "why" tell them the truth, it's the only thing that helped me. She loved them but knew she could not parent them and wanted better for them. Let them know that in that time of her life she could not offer them what they needed and new someone else could. If she truely loved them and did it for them let them know that. It won't make them love you less knowing she loved them, it will make them love you more for being honest.

God Bless!

[stevenstwin]

Originally Posted by vegaschristina

In Nevada, the magic number is 3. If you've had 3 kids TPR'd then you lose all future children.

I'm struggling with how I feel about that. The liberal part of my brain thinks that is really unfair, because people can change, and what if a young mom with multiple problems lost three children, and then 10 years later straightened around and would be a great mom, and never has the chance? But realistically I do think there isn't MUCH hope that someone who has already lost three is ever going to get it together. It just seems like prejudging, when I think that maybe they should just be looking harder to see if there ARE issues with future children, rather than automatically doing it. After all - where is the cut off? Why not 1 or 2? or 4? Seems a little arbitrary.
ps - does this apply to just the mom, or to the dad, or only if it is the two of them together as a couple? For intance, my fs's dad has lost 5 kids, but there are three different mothers involved. So what happens if he remarries and has another?

[vesw01]

In IL the agency is not even supposed to suggest for the parents to give up their rights. They can let them know it is available, but can't push. They would get into a HUGE amount of trouble is they told a parent that they could keep one if they stopped fighting for the other ones. Also in IL, they can keep having kids and each is its own case, so there is no immediate pulling of the baby, unless there was a majorly violent crime that happened to a sibling.

[vegaschristina]

Originally Posted by stevenstwin

I'm struggling with how I feel about that. The liberal part of my brain thinks that is really unfair, because people can change, and what if a young mom with multiple problems lost three children, and then 10 years later straightened around and would be a great mom, and never has the chance? But realistically I do think there isn't MUCH hope that someone who has already lost three is ever going to get it together. It just seems like prejudging, when I think that maybe they should just be looking harder to see if there ARE issues with future children, rather than automatically doing it. After all - where is the cut off? Why not 1 or 2? or 4? Seems a little arbitrary.
ps - does this apply to just the mom, or to the dad, or only if it is the two of them together as a couple? For intance, my fs's dad has lost 5 kids, but there are three different mothers involved. So what happens if he remarries and has another?

I guess I could have been more specific. You don't automatically lose your kids after #3, but they no longer have to give you "reasonable efforts." You get your case plan still, but are not given the same number of opportunities to screw it up & still get the kids back. They immediately go into legal risk families and it is much harder on the parents to regain custody. I agree, people can get their lives together, but it should be easier to terminate rights on parents who have consistently shown that they can't parent their children.