[Lioness]

I am a distant relative attempting to adopt two second cousins age 3 & 7. These children were subjected to a violent home life and as a result My cousin and his wife are legally seperated. They both are drug users and parental rights have been terminated.
The children are now awaiting adoption.

It is common knowlegde within the family that the birth grandparents have a history of being physically & verbally abusive and they also use drugs but I have no way of proving it officially. It is one of those dark family secrets.

In our home study my husband & I stated that we were not opposed to contact with the birthparents with the stipulation that they would have to be reformed - have gone through rehabilitation and proven stable & clean before we would allow a contact as we do not condone drugs or want to subject these children to the even more complicated emotional trauma of interacting with drug users.

We did not bring up the issue of the birth grandparent's drug use
but are very uneasy about the children being in contact with people like this.

Since I am a relative I do not have the option of a closed adoption and we do want the children to benefit by continuing their relationships with the more stable people in our family.

Does anyone have any advice on how to handle an open adoption with these sort of birthparents and birth grandparents?

[momof three]

I am in a similar situation. I have adopted the child of my half brother and his girlfriend. I have two other biological sons that are grown. We had the same situation with the biological parents and the drug use. Our situation has been long and drawn out. Our son is 7 yrs old now and he came into our home at 15 months old. After living back and forth between our home and his unstable drugged up mothers various different homes he moved in with us permanently at about 2 1/2 years old. It took a while for the terminations as both of his birth parents were selfish and did not want to give him up legally. They also did not want to stop their destructive lifestyle. His birth mothers parents got involved and took us to court to try to get custody back for their daughter. That didn't work because she could not stay off of drugs or out of jail. So they fought us for visitation for themselves and to make a long story short we gave in and allowed court ordered visitation. I do not recommend doing that if you have any choice at all. Grandparents rights are not getting very far in the courts these days at least not in our state. If we knew then what we know now we would never have allowed the visits. We adopted him at 4 years old and since then the birth mother has had 3 more children that she has all lost and have been or about to be adopted by different parents. These grandparents are intrusive and are relentless in keeping their daughters memory alive for all of her kids, regardless of the cost to each child. I could elaborate more but it would fill up a book on what this child has had to go through. If you have a stable loving home I would not recommend in any way an open adoption with an unstable family of drug users who only are interested in how they feel not how the child feels.

[Cobb]

Wow, I can't believe how much your situation parallels mine. We are currently in the process of adoption my three second cousins ages 4, 5 and 6. Bmom & Bdad are currently in jail on drug charges. They are have been given the option of terminating their rights voluntarily, if not, papers to terminate rights will be filed within the next couple of weeks.

Bgrandparents are similar to yours. Many family stories - much of which can be substantiated. At the last minute, they decided they wanted coustody of the kids. Their line of thought was that they could then allow the bmom (their daughter, my cousin) contact with the kids. I too struggled with whether I should tell what I know. Fortunately, they have been denied based on SRS's study of them, so I never had to go that far. I can't begin to tell you what a relief this is. I don't know if they have been told yet, so I'm still nervous about the fallout.

Two weekends ago we met the kids for the first time (our family has been split for years due to differences in lifestyle - several states separate us, so contact has been minimal). We also went to the jail to visit with bmom and I had dinner with the bgrandparents. All was very stressful. Everyone was so defensive about our involvement. I didn't want things to become confortational, but also didn't want to imply I agreed with their perspective. I found myself saying "I can see why you would feel that way" alot!

I too am nervous about how the family dynamics will affect the adoption. From bgmom's is insistence that bmom will always be their "mother" (true, but I will become mommy) to worrying that bparents will show up on our doorstep. Because of our family connections, I can't control them knowing where we are. Fortunately, the stable members of our family are offering their support and already planning to protect our privacy as much as they can. Probably the best advice I've been given is from the girls social workers. She told me that it is not my responsibility to fix my family. I really needed to be released from that expectation.

I realize that this post is disjointed. I'm finding that I've been living with a persistent low level stress. While I don't have any advice, I wanted to let you know that someone else is going through what you are. Reading your post and realizing I'm not the only one was a great comfort to me. In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on all the blessings our family is being offered.

On a happy note, my daughter at dinner the other night told me she really hopes we adopt the girls. When I asked her why, she amazed me in that she had contemplated all we had discussed to such an extent that she was able to formulate a response that touches the core of the issue. She said...

First, the girls need a safe, loving home. We have that and can share it with them.

Second, they are already our family, we will always be connected to them and they should be with us.

Finally, I really want little sisters!

With my eight year old's guidance I know I can face whatever comes my way!

God bless you and yours, I'd love to hear back from you!

[bromanchik]

Originally posted by Cobb

On a happy note, my daughter at dinner the other night told me she really hopes we adopt the girls. When I asked her why, she amazed me in that she had contemplated all we had discussed to such an extent that she was able to formulate a response that touches the core of the issue. She said...

First, the girls need a safe, loving home. We have that and can share it with them.

Second, they are already our family, we will always be connected to them and they should be with us.

Finally, I really want little sisters!

With my eight year old's guidance I know I can face whatever comes my way!

God bless you and yours, I'd love to hear back from you!

What a smart, caring child!!! You must be really proud of her.

[Cobb]

Thank you!

She really has amazed us these past months. It's a wonderful confirmation to us that what we've tried to teach her about family and relationships and our ability to reach out to others, has really sank in. Recently she's talked alot about the time we spent as house parents at a group home. We left right before she turned four, so I didn't think she would remember alot about that time in her life. While she may not remember the details, the reasons that we were there and what we wanted to contribute to the children's lives seems to have made an impression.

She's a great reminder that while it's important to teach and guide our children, we also have alot to learn from them!

[bev in okla]

my name is beverly and i adopted my husbands 1st cousins 1 yr old son. he is the 2nd of 5 she had. the oldest is with the grandmother,(our aunt) and after my son , his brother is with another of our aunts (grandmothers sister) the next one died shortly after she was born. and now she has another little girl. who is with the cousin (birth mom) Sorry my story is complicated. I have 2 children of my own. I'll call my adopted son "c" for the story. Our cousin had "c" and his sister with her when we found out about the drug use and living condtions. "c" was 7 months when he came to grandmothers, she got an order for emergency custody without the mother knowing it. my aunt went to visit and found "c" sitting on couch with a dirty diaper and puke all over him. his sister was running around the house without clothes. the mother was asleep in the living room and the dad was asleep in the bedroom and they had left the bathtub full of water. he didn't have a bed to sleep in . he slept in a laundry basket and then was on the floor next to the kitty litter box. there was no food in the house milk or anything except some cat food, which is was he had been eating . She brought the 2 kids home with her and had cousin served with the papers . she came to her mothers house and tried to break down the door and get the kids. she brought both the kids dads. they we very messed up on drugs. we called the police and they were arrested and later on that night she said her stomach was hurting and the jailer was in the cell with her while sitting on the toilet she gave birth to (we'll call him "t" for the story) he is exactely 9 months and 5 days younger than "c". he weighed about 3 lbs. and was the size of your hand. he was addicted to pcp and lots of other stuff. the cousin finally admitted that she had taken pcp the night she gave birth to him. and that she had done meth. daily. It is some kind of miracle but "t" is now 5 yrs old and is doing great so far. me and my aunt helped the grandmother take care of all 3 kids. and she took " t" and i had "c" alot and after about 3 months we asked the my aunt about adopting the boys. so thats what we did. it took 3 yrs and alot of praying but it finally was final Dec. 19, 2001. my aunt couldn't give up on her daughter and tried every way she knew to help. "t" s mother and i didn't want her to have anything to do with the boys. she came to see their sister a few times who is with the grandmother. my aunt wanted us to all get along and give her pictures of the boys , but we said no not as long as she is using drugs. I didn't have a problem with any of "c" other relatives having pictures. (the fathers parents and family) but they didn't want anything to do with "c" .. And finally the cousin met this guy that had been to prison for drugs and had straighten up his life. and she has been with him for 2 1/2 yrs. she was still on the drugs when she had the 4th baby that died on mothers day. and i think that was the turning point. she got clean and so far that i know of stayed that way. she had the 5th little girl who is now 6 months old. and is fine. This has divided our close family so much that my mother in law and her sister (grandmother) were having to choose between each other and their kids because we didn't want to have anything to do with her. So "t" mom and i talked and decieded that it was time. So i talked to the mother for the first time since we got "c" april 6, 2004. and told her that if this was going to work we needed ground rules. so we could do things as a family again. so we did and our first gathering is going to be easter. The boys don't know they are adopted. we just started using the word adopt and what it means so we can get ready to tell them. they know they are brothers and sister. and it is normal to them that they don't live together. it's been that way since they were babies. but we have a special holidays together for them. they have christmas together and then we have it with our family. I'm having trouble with how to tell "c" and "t " and withwhat they will think when we tell them and then they see her at some family thing with the baby she has now. how they will feel. "she kept her and loves her but not us." what they will feel.. and that scares me. I don't know if what we are doing is the right thing i can only pray it is. my other 2 kids still have bad feelings toward her. I told them that everyone needs a second chance, (even if this is her 3 or 4th one.) and it's not our place to judge her. It's just nice to know your not the only one out there with this problem. I would love to know how things work out with you. and maybe we can help each other by what happens to us.
my email is bevduke@hotmail.com

__________________

[Sledge]

Adoption within families is tough, but once you adopt you set the rules. If bfamily is causing problems, wants visits but won't give up the drugs, too bad for them. You can cut them out of the picture once the adoption is finalized. But remember you will also be cutting yourself away from them also, be prepared for a lot of name calling against you by family members and a lot of tension for years to come. We are going through this right now because we tried to keep in touch with bmom and bfamily but they constantly caused issues so we told everybody that they were going to have to choose between the bfamily or us. Most chose us because they knew what bmom and bfamily was like but some didn't, makes family functions a little tense but we did what we though was right for our family.