[Cast of Characters relevant to this part of Owen's story: Satan (Owen's caseworker), The Bitch (supervisor of licensing and placement division at CPS), Wimpy (our licensing worker), The Pawn (Satan's new supervisor), Betty (Owen's useless GAL)]
Read the rest of Owen's Story Here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
After Satan kept Owen out for more than 6 hours without any of his medical equipment, I knew that she was seriously unbalanced. I filed complaints with the state office, wrote letters to the head of the agency and the head of the GAL program, wrote letters to the judge assigned to the case, letters to the attorney for the state...anybody that I thought could possibly intervene before this moron killed a child. But we all know that the wheels of justice move slowly and when those wheels involve the CPS system, they practically grind to a halt. On the advice of our attorney I began recording all conversations with a digital recorder and sending the recorder straight to the attorney's office to be transcribed. I also sent him every email and voice message that came from anyone involved in the case. Also on the advice of our attorney, we filed a petition to adopt Owen in family court. Essentially we were asking the family court system to overrule CPS and not allow them to remove Owen. Not something that happens often in the world of CPS and something that is rarely successful. Our attorney felt we had enough evidence to support the filing and that we could make a case that Owen would be best served in our home.
Things were quiet for about two weeks. Then I got a call. Wimpy wanted to set up an appointment to go over some paperwork for our upcoming adoption. I was immediately on guard, not knowing what was really going on. Big Daddy took the day off of work to be home and our attorney also made plans to attend this meeting, just in case. I even went so far as to have my mom take the kids for the day so that Owen was not there when Wimpy came. I just didn't trust her or her motives.
She showed up half an hour late, as usual, and was all sugar and sweetness seeing as how she was by herself. Apparently she only wears her big girl panties when other people are around to back her up. Big Daddy rolled his eyes so hard that I'm surprised they didn't come right out of his head! Wimpy started going over the paperwork with us and it took more than a minute for the name on the adoption paperwork to sink in. Owen. The adoption paperwork was for Owen. Our Owen.
The relative didn't work out, is what Wimpy said. More likely, the relative couldn't pass a homestudy and got shot down by the state. There were no other relatives that could pass a homestudy and no other foster homes that were willing to take on Owen and his high medical needs. Our attorney noted that we had been deemed better than an institution, how nice for us. Ah, sarcasm. This is why he's our attorney. He went over those papers with a fine tooth comb, making notations and asking for things to be clarified. Wimpy stressed that if we decided to pursue the adoption of Owen we would not be receiving a state adoption assistance package. I assume that chess move was designed to see if we were just adopting him for the increased assistance that a special needs child would receive from the state. We signed away our rights to an adoption assistance package without a second thought.
We signed the adoption papers, our attorney called his notary who was kind enough to come out to our home to witness. It was done. In less than 60 days, Owen would be our son and CPS would be out of his life forever. So why did I feel so uneasy in the days afterwards? Things were nagging at me, things that I couldn't reconcile in my mind. I wanted to dismiss that little voice, to believe that we were less than 2 months away from making Owen our son forever. But that stupid voice wouldn't shut up.
Why were we not presented at an adoption committee for Owen as we had been for The Pre-Teen and Boy2? Why did Wimpy come out to our house for us to sign papers, not knowing that we were going to have our attorney and a notary here? Why were adoption papers drawn up before we even knew we had been chosen to adopt Owen? Where was Satan and why did she not come with Wimpy?
Too many Why's and not enough answers but we didn't want to rock the boat. We just wanted it over with. As the weeks passed, we began to really believe that Owen was going to be our son and that the drama was behind us. We began to relax. We should have known better.
10 days before our adoption was set to be finalized, our attorney called us with some rather disturbing news. He had tried to get Owen's adoption hearing on the docket of the same judge that finalized The Pre-Teen's adoption but nobody at the courthouse could find the paperwork for Owen's adoption. His adoption hearing had not been scheduled by CPS.
Why?














































































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