Sunday, February 24, 2013
First time in adoption court
It is finally that time. My husband and I went to our first adoption court date. We have a new judge now. Her responsibility is to get this adoption finalized.
Prior to going in to court, a law guardian who was covering for the law guardian who was covering for CD's law guardian as she is on maternity leave, asked to meet with us prior to going in to court. She didn't know anything about our case so she asked a few questions in order to be prepared. It was a little weird though when she started with, "are you here because you are interested in adopting CD?"
Yeah, she's new.
Court went pretty smoothly. The paperwork is coming along. We were asked if we would still go ahead with the adoption if we are not granted a subsidy and we responded, "100%" (I found out later that people sometimes walk away from adoptions where there is no subsidy. It is so difficult to imagine that could possibly happen all that often though). The only glitch was in this little not so little detail. All children, prior to adoption, undergo a psychological evaluation. Adoptive parents can wave this requirement. My husband and I never waived it. We do not want to waive it. The adoption can't be completed until the evaluation is completed.
The judge wants the System to have done everything so that on April 3 we will be ready to choose an adoption date. She was not thrilled that this psychological evaluation has not even been scheduled.
As expected, especially because there is a particular evaluation that I want that can be only done by people who are appropriately trained to do these evaluations, the case manager's supervisor, who seems genuinely excited about our adoption, tried to make an appointment for the evaluation at a pretty busy place. He reached a voicemail that said that they are backlogged and they will get back to him in a "few days" to schedule an appointment.
It may push off the April 3 deadline that the judge gave the System. I am predicting it will. As much as my husband and I want this done already, we decided that we would prefer to wait rather than wave the evaluation though. So here's to hoping that a "few days" really means a few days and that by some miracle, it takes less than a month and a half to complete this evaluation.
Either way, we are getting close. At this 31 month mark, a few weeks here or there doesn't feel like anything. As long as CD is with us, it is all good.
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I actually could see why some parents might have to walk away if there wasn't a subsidy. Specifically, if the child had medical or psychological needs that required treatment that exceeded the PAPs' health insurance coverage. I would imagine that most kids with those kinds of issues do get subsidies, but I also know that sometimes psychological issues aren't seen as "important" as medical, so might not get the same subsidy.
ReplyDelete98% of the kids get subsidies so that would quite rare. It is so incredibly sad to me that a rich family could get a subsidy just because their child is Black but a family just making it and needs the money could be turned down just because it is a white child too healthy and under the age of five.
ReplyDeleteI should also add that when you first apply to foster, they ensure that you can pay your bills without subsidy. To then keep a child you love for between 2 and 3 years at minimum, commit to adopting and walk away to me, is pretty in conceivable. I would not kick my bio kids to the curb if we were struggling, I love my daughter no less. Both my husband and I could lose our jobs and go through our saving and foreclose on our house and we would still adopt her.
ReplyDeleteWe have a deferred subsidy. As in, Medicaid only and if the need arises later on, we can get a subsidy to cover additional medical bills that Medicaid doesn't cover.
ReplyDeleteWe also had a child find before the adoption. Not that we were worried, but we also didn't waive it. I thought of it as a good baseline to know where we needed to work on certain things like going up and down stairs or pushing a toy, etc.
I'm confused - is the psychological evaluation for you or for the system? If it won't affect the adoption, why do you want to have the evaluation?
ReplyDeleteYay, adoption court!
ReplyDeleteWill CD potentially be eligible for a subsidy based on the findings of the evaluation? That sort of thing gets taken into consideration here, though we do also have race-based age differentials. The only way the adopting parents' finances came into it was in how much daycare/aftercare subsidy they'd be eligible for, and I had no idea that was even an option. Policies differ so widely between states.
I want the evaluation as it could affect a later eligibility for some state support or subsidy. Like CD's ears, she is also evidenced some stuff that could be simply developmental for her (meaning she is developing normally but at her own pace and will be on par with other kids) or sheay be evidencing signs that could be predictors of later challenges. I want eval results and to have the documentation will her get some extra support if needed now or later.
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