Rays of Sunshine

I've had occasion, over the 12 years that I've been running this blog (and its predecessor), to put my grief before your eyes (along with my many blessings, to be sure).  Five grandchildren and no weddings, and other things of that order, have grieved me greatly (and perhaps unduly bent my opinion of my own fatherly qualities in a negative direction; perhaps).  But, to be sure, it's not all gloom around here, and just lately, the news has been trending in a distinctly positive direction. . .

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We are in the last month-and-a-half before we have the first wedding amongst our children.  1F will be marrying her fiancee (call him BN; or would you rather call him 1Fh - 1F's husband, get it?) in May.  My dear eldest had some rough years on the way to this point, and BN would be the first to tell you that he has his own shortcomings.  But he adores her, and the two of them have a delightfully symbiotic relationship (which is to say, they help and support and take care of each other in some lovely ways).  Over the months of their courtship, BN has made his way into our collective hearts, and become a part of our family.  A real occasion of joy for our family.  So, that's nice. . .

About a month ago, 4M announced his engagement to his girlfriend of the past few years (call her MR; or maybe 4Mw, when the time comes), to be married early next year.  She's a sweet young lady.  She and 4M met in college, at Jenn's-and-my alma mater.  After college, they went their separate ways for a year or so, but kept in touch.  Then a couple years ago, she moved out to Seattle to be with him, and things progressed from there.  Her family has been wonderful to ours; Jenn and I spent a couple days with them at their cottage Up North over the Christmas holidays.  Delightful folks.  We could not be happier to be adding her to our family.

So, two weddings in the next year (with the possibility of more to come; but, you know, carts and horses, and all that. . .).  This will be fun. . .

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And we just got word today that the adoption of 6F's new baby girl will be final in short order.

It was a source of great, uh, frustration and sadness when she told us, about a year ago, that she was pregnant out-of-wedlock for the second time.  And her latest baby-daddy was, how shall I say it, a loser of the first order - in his early 40s and living with his mom; and I'll leave it at that.  But we were pleasantly surprised when she made her adoption plan, and started making more constructive decisions for her life and future, like going back to school.

Baby-daddy was just fine with her new plan (since it didn't involve him having to pay for anything).  But then he told his mom.  And she raised hell, even showing up on our doorstep, letting us know in no uncertain terms that she was not going to allow us to send her one-and-only grand-baby away, and calling us nasty things and impugning our religion, and promising to break us with lawyer fees (which betrayed a lack of understanding on her part of how these things go; we've at least gone through the adoption process once before, so we know how it works, and we know that, for better or worse, grandparents, ourselves included, have no standing in such cases, at least not in Michigan).  We were pretty sure that we had the better of the legal argument, but you never know what a slick lawyer can get a court to accept, so it was not without some anxiety on our part.

Baby-girl was born in October, and immediately placed in the care of the putative adoptive parents.  The first court date was in November.  Now, back when 1F was placing her baby girl for adoption, there was only one court date.  But in this case, there were a total of four court dates to accomplish the same result.  Four times, we had to go downtown to the courthouse, and spend an afternoon sitting in the hall (as grandparents, we have no standing in the case, and Baby-daddy's lawyer made sure we weren't allowed inside the courtroom), trying to avoid saying anything to Baby-daddy's mom.  For the fourth court date, they even fired their lawyer, and brought in another one, which threatened to start the proceedings over from scratch, but thankfully, things didn't play out that way.  It seemed a large part of their strategy was to delay, and delay, and delay, and pile up legal fees for our side.  To make matters worse (or maybe better, all things considered), their lawyer was arguing the case as if it were a custody dispute, rather than an adoption hearing making a determination of the best interests of the child.  Incredibly frustrating.

In late February (after four court dates spanning three-plus months), the proceedings finally came to a close.  Baby-daddy's parental rights were terminated (apparently, sending the birth-mother a text message calling her a 'stupid c**t' was not helpful for his case), and then 6F's were, and things for Baby-girl were on their way to resolution.  But there was still a 21-day window in which they could file an appeal, and as they left the courthouse, they promised us that an appeal would be forthcoming, "all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to."  So we waited, expecting to hear about an appeal.  We also received a couple of legal papers, asking us to answer questions pertaining to the custody case; which was odd, since there were no longer any parental rights, on either side, to hold in dispute.  Confused to the bitter end. . .

Yesterday was the last day of the 21-day window, and by the end of the day, we still hadn't heard anything.  But, you know, sometimes these things take a couple days to work through the system before they're publicly posted, so we figured we'd have to wait a few days longer.  But today we got the final word that no appeal would be forthcoming.  It turns out that they did, in fact, see a lawyer about filing an appeal, but the lawyer told them they had no chance of winning the appeal, and refused to take the case.  So the adoption will be final, and 6F, Baby-girl, and the adoptive family can all get on with their lives (and Baby-daddy can get his mom off his back for a while).

As with 1F's birth-daughter (now 12 years old), we know the adoptive parents.  Not well, but we know both sets of their parents better than we know them.  During the 'home study' phase of them being selected as adoptive parents, we got to talk with them.  They told us that, while they were fine with having an open relationship with 6F, they really didn't want to deal with Jenn and me.  That was a sadness for us, but we understand (and just for the sake of saying so, the adoptive parents of 1F's daughter were initially more reluctant to deal with us than they were once they were more secure in their parental status).  And besides, one of the sets of grandparents are pretty close friends of ours, so they will 'smuggle' us photos, and tell us stories, which is a nice bonding thing between us (we've known a few instances, among our friends, of couples whose kids have married each other, and the 'co-grandparenting' relationship is a lot of fun).

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So - rays of sunshine.  God is good. . .