138 Days: Cryptic

So I'm going to be kind of cryptic because I want to respect the privacy of those involved and not come off as talking about their business... especially when what I'm going on is heresay at this point. Needless to say, I may come back and edit this post if I say something that turns out to be completely wrong.

I'm still waiting for a return call from my contact, a pastor in Columbus (we'll call him Pastor T), but I did talk to my neighbor after he talked to him the other day.

Baby J is in emergency foster care in Texas because both of her parents are in jail and her grandparents cannot take her. I believe Baby J is now at the point that they are looking for extended family to take her.

Having foster care already involved definitely throws up a red flag for us... we are not approved to adopt from the foster care system. I don't know when "emergency foster care" goes from being a temporary thing to actually being in the foster care system. Because her parents are in jail, they may have automatically terminated their parental rights... I have no idea how that works with those incarcerated. (I do know that if they will be in jail for two years or more, then their rights can be involuntarily terminated.) If their rights haven't been terminated, I believe there's a chance that we could do private adoption between us and them, again depending on what the laws are for inmates. My attorney suggested that I contact an attorney in the county she is in to get basic things answered,* but I don't know where she is yet. Anyone have any insight to this type of stuff?

I don't know how Pastor T knows this family, but there are other things going on that he is looking into so even if we can't get Baby J, something else may work out. I hope to hear from him today, but if I don't, I'm going to call him again tomorrow.

*I know, you're thinking "isn't that something your attorney should be doing...?" Not necessarily. With private adoption, the adoptive parents (APs) do the majority of the footwork, especially with basic things like getting questions answered. The more we do, the less fees the attorney has to take out of the retainer. So far all advice and stuff he's given us has been free!