Months of frustration leads to Double the Joy

The following months were extremely frustrating for us. Of course, by this time, we absolutely loved Amata and wanted to adopt her. So even though the "goal" of foster care is reunification with the parents, we were not really on board with that theory this time. There was nothing anybody could say or do to convince me that after spending more than half of her life with us it would be in Amata's best interest to go back to her biological mother.

During this time, the visits with her mother were pretty sporadic. There were also numerous reports that she was being seen at parties, but the authorities couldn't catch her, and she was passing all of her UAs. So it was looking more & more like Amata would be going back to her.

That was until July of 2006. She was about 5 months pregnant at that time and she got a minor consumption. I have very mixed emotions about this. Obviously it angers me to know that she was drinking while she was pregnant, putting that unborn child in so much danger. But on the other hand, this was the proof needed to finally get her rights to Amata terminated, because she did not have enough time left to complete treatment again and prove sobriety. Of course her attorney was trying to come up with an argument to the contrary, but she was out of time even under the federal foster care guidelines. So they made her a deal, if she consented to have her parental rights terminated, they would not immediately terminate her rights to the child she was pregnant with, IF she entered another intense treatment program and followed all of the after care requirements. She agreed, and was supposed to leave for that treatment program the following week.

But she never showed up. Bad for her, good for us!

On October 30, 2006, she gave birth to a baby boy. On November 1, 2006, I picked up that baby boy from Human Services and brought him home, where he has been ever since.

We decided to call him Caleb.