Jeremiah’s Adoption Story – Part 5
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
I, of course, called Vicki that same night and was able to get more information about the little boy they had. The G’s had been fostering for 17 years, but the last half of those years they had only been fostering severely handicapped children with serious health issues.
They had a young boy at their home they were fostering by the name of Andrew. This sweet guy was very disabled and was placed in their home because his mother was not capable of taking care of him due to her drug and alcohol use during his pregnancy. When Andrew’s mother became pregnant again and had a baby boy in March of 2005, the G’s were contacted to take Andrew’s baby brother.
Although the G’s usually only fostered handicapped children, they wanted to make sure the two half brothers stayed together so they chose to foster him as well. They were given this new baby boy, Gilberto Jeremiah, 3 days after his birth and had raised him since then. They called this sweet guy, Jeremiah, who was now, the baby boy Vicki was trying to find a home for.
Jeremiah was born full term on March 2, 2005 in Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. When he was born, he tested positive for Cocaine, but he was not addicted to the drug. The biological mother, Martha, admitted to using drugs during birth and because she had open case files with CPS, Jeremiah was immediately taken from her after his hospital stay. Jeremiah’s biological mother was given a family service plan that she had to follow to ensure getting her son back. Martha did a few visits in the first few months of Jeremiah’s life, but by August of 2005, she had stopped and no longer chose to follow the service plan to get her son back. Because of that, the judge decided to terminate Martha’s rights to Jeremiah on January 31st of 2006. At that time, he was free for adoption and could no longer be taken away by his biological family. This was right around the time I had contacted Vicki G.
After talking to Vicki we knew for sure, we wanted this baby boy in our family. We contacted our agency who sent our home study to Jeremiah’s case worker to review as a prospective family. Because Vicki had been fostering for SO long, the case worker listened to Vicki when she explained that Jeremiah would be best in our family. Still, the case worker had to follow the state rules regarding adoption and hold a meeting to decide which family would be best for him. Luckily, there was only one family in mind for Mr. Jeremiah…OURS! Once we were chosen I could finally relax!
From that point we had to wait for silly paperwork junk to be done and filed so we could begin our visitations to finally meet the boy we had only imagined about.
Stay tuned for the finale in this adoption series.
[...] Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 [...]