Picking up where I left off with the adoption of my first son.......
After receiving a hearing notice in the mail we were left to scramble to find an attorney to represent us.  Lucky for us he lived with us for a little over a year and the law states we have legal rights.....
Our sons attorney was the GAL that had been appointed to represent him, the very man that thought it would be in his best interest to send him back to the very people who fractured his skull, broke the bones in his legs, and beat him about his body from the age of 0-9 months....
It was an education in itself to find an attorny who not only specialized in family law, adoption law and familiarity with the foster care system, but also believed we could win and understood that we were in it for the long haul.
We located such an attorney, Thomas E Kennedy.  After all is done I can say that he is one of the most upstanding men I have ever met.  I know all the attorney jokes.  He is the exception.
Meeting with him and making the financial arrangements were the first order of business.  My police training prepared me in ways I could have never imagined.
The notes I kept from day one were the most useful tool.  To show a detailed consecutive history of our sons life and happenings.
Every Doctors appointment, hospital visit, OT, PT, speech therapy appointments, brain scans, bone scans, blood work play therapy.
His reactions to visitation.  His difficulty in preschool.  The record of all the status hearings we attended.  The fact that the GAL never met our son or any of his treating doctors and medical professionals, never spoke to us......
The fact tat the family who abused him claimed that he fractured his own skull by banging his head on the floor, despite the MD that treated him and specialized in treating and diagnosing abuse stated that the force necessary to cause the fracture was that of being dropped from a fourth story window on his head.
He broke his own legs by twisting them in the rails of his crib, and the bruises that were documented by the hospital staff just did not exist...
The attorny filed all the necessary papers to appear in court.  The dates were set....Dept. of Child and Family Sevice recommended that our son stay with us.  All the legal steps had been taken to work toward this.  Our attorny assured us this was a no brainer....

to be continued