Long Story Short

Our son was born on July 16th, 2009.  Our birthmother relinquished her
parental rights to our adoption agency on July 17th, 2009 and we have had
our wonderful son since that day.  Our birthmother placed Brandon for
adoption due to no support from the birthfather.  The birthfather and
mother have another child together that the birthfather was also not
supporting.  The birthmother stated to us that the birthfather did not like
the idea of placing the baby for adoption, but she assured us that he
wouldn’t do anything to stop the adoption from taking place. Unfortunately,
that was not the case.

We filed a petition for the termination of the birthfather’s rights and we
had our first hearing in October 2009.  Our birthfather showed up to court
without a lawyer to contest the adoption and a hearing was set for February
2010.  The birthfather finally retained an attorney in January and the
lawyer immediately requested the birthfather have a visit with Brandon
, which was granted.  One hour was spent together with the birthfather and our son.  No
further visitation request has been made to date.

Our Judge denied our request to terminate the birthfathers rights based on
several accounts that were not accurate.  Not only were they not accurate,
but also we had evidence to support the exact opposite.  Our birthfather
admitted to not providing any support to the birthmother during the
pregnancy, after the pregnancy, admits to having knowledge of where the
birthmother was at all times and pretty much did not have any excuse to not supporting her (or their other son that she was raising on her own).

We immediately submitted an appeal and from April 2010 until December 2010
we waited and waited.  Finally the Court of Appeals made their decision on
December 17th, 2010.  They affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded
certain issues back to the District Court for a retrial. Then we had to
wait an agonizing 30 days to see if the birthfather was going to submit an
appeal to this decision, which would have taken our case to the Supreme
Court.  Thankfully he did not appeal and the decision became final.

This brings us to our most recent trial on March 09, 2011 where again the
birthfather showed up without a lawyer of his own. He then requested a
court appointed lawyer.  The request was granted and the case was
rescheduled for 4-6 weeks out.  This request was granted for a court
appointed lawyer despite the mountain of evidence that we have that the
birthfather could afford a lawyer on his own, but chooses to spend his
money on other things. We were told at this point that we might be
responsible for paying for the birthfather's lawyer.  We were devastated
with the possibility that we not only have to continue to pay our own legal
fees, but also the birthfather’s attorney fees.  We continue to be
overwhelmed with the thought of how we could ever afford this.