Our story first began in late 2001, when our youngest son ( almost 21 years old) told us that the girl he had dated for 4-5 weeks, but no longer dating was pregnant, but she did not know for sure who the father was. There was a chance that it could be his baby or the other guy that she had dated for 2 years, but had semi broke up with during the weeks that she dated our son. During this girls pregnancy, we had very little contact with her. I initiated contact a couple of times asking her to come by and get some things that I had bought for the baby, but in the most part we had no contact with her. After she and my son stopped dating, she returned full time with the other guy. They moved in together and he was there when Cole was born. I did not get to see Cole until he was 3 weeks old. She allowed me to go to her apartment to see the baby. I knew the minute I saw him that he was our sons baby. I came home and told my husband that we were a nana and papaw. The mom had already returned to work at this time and she called me a couple of days later and wanted to know if I could keep Cole while she was at work. Of course I said yes. I knew he was ours, but our son did not want to admit it. A DNA test was done when Cole was 7 weeks old. He was our sons by 99.998%. Woo Hoo....I was a nana.
Bio mom brought baby several times wet through and through his clothes. She had not changed him since she had picked him up the night before...most of the time she had not fed him either...at 3 weeks old she would say that he had gone 12-14 hours between bottles. I was hoping that she would grow up. I talked with her, but nothing really improved. She began to leave baby more and more. We had a verbal agreement with her that we would have Cole every other weekend, plus Monday-Friday that I kept him while she was at work, and then every night that she called and wanted to know if he could stay the night. We ended up with him more and more...close to 90% of the time. Our son was giving her $50.00 a week in child support, this was the amount that she had asked for. When Cole was 9 months old, she married the other guy. Five months after their marriage was when things really started going south. Another couple and their baby had moved in with them. Bio-mom and her husband were fighting constantly. When Cole was 14 months old he got locked in his moms car. This was July and 97 degrees outside. She called her husband to bring the spare key. He was working 2 towns away. Cole ended up locked in the car for 1 hour and 10 minutes, because she would not break the window to her car. A few days later, when she and hubby woke up that morning, Cole was outside by himself.....they had no idea how long he had been out there. He had 9 splinters in his feet that took 3 weeks to work themselves out. My hubby and I decided that something had to be done, but before we could even get to a lawyer we found out that her hubby was mixed up with some really bad guys and had fingered one to the police in front of the guy. We had heard of this guy and if he got out of jail, it would not matter to him if Cole was in the house or not when he got his revenge. CPS was called on them, we hired a lawyer. We were not going to let Cole go into foster care... or even worse if he stayed in the situation he was in at home. Our lawyer served bio-mom at work with a restraining order. We had temporary custody of Cole until we were to be in court five days later. When CPS went to her house was when we had temporary custody of him. Bio mom wanted me to bring Cole to her house so they would not know that she did not have custody. Of course I did not, but I asked her to put the caseworker on the phone...I explained everything to him. I was told that I would need to bring Cole into their office the next morning, because they had to actually lay eyes on the child that had been reported to them. Cole and I went by the CPS office the next morning, which was actually the day of our court date. Caseworker told me that drug para. had been found in the house along with a very small amount of marijuana, but if the dogs had been called in he was sure more drugs would have been found. He put this in his report and he was going to leave it up to the judge. Everything that we told the lawyer was not hearsay....it came from bio moms own mouth. The lawyer explained that the first court date was to establish our son as the father and to go for joint custody, and since bio-mom had been talking about moving half a state away, to order that she could not do that, and that I would continue to keep Cole while she was at work. We met in the conference room with our attorney, and bio-mom. She admitted everything, so the next step was just to go before the judge and hear what our attorney suggested to the judge. Everything was granted that day. Our hopes were that this would wake bio mom up and she would take responsibility for her son. Not a chance, a couple of months later bio mom and husband told hubby and I that she and hubby had gone to a working meth lab....this was her weekend with Cole. We immediately called our attorney and another court date was set. When we got to the court house, we again went into a conference room ,first without bio-mom and then with her. We told her that she only had 2 choices...1) she could agree to give us full custody and her have the visitation every other weekend as long as she did not have Cole with her husband, or 2) everything could come out before the judge and she would lose Cole as well as the baby she was 6 months pregnant with. She agreed to give us custody. Again we went before the judge, and everything was granted. My husband and I have managing conservator ship of Cole.The only thing bio-mom wanted to know was if she would still get child-support payments. She was told no, but that she would now pay child support. Our son was court ordered to pay $50.00 a week to us for Cole ( which he has never paid), and she was ordered to furnish his health insurance, which she does.
It has been almost a year since we went to court that last time. We know bio-mom has had Cole with her hubby, but we have not caught them. When we do we will go back to court.
I have never wanted to adopt Cole, I wanted to be his nana, not his mommy, but who knows in the future. Bio mom still gives up her days with him when she wants to do something else, still neglects him to a certain point...like not putting coat/hat on him, keeps him up very late at night, etc..She has the same girl living with her, only now she has 2 kids also. This other girl has also had CPS called on her, and was warned that the next time they had to come out that she would lose her children.
Cole's daddy still lives at home, he is 24 now. In 2004, we found out that he had stolen several things of ours and pawned them. We spent over $2000.00 buying our own property back. He was into drugs, had a drug addicted girlfriend ( she also stole from us and pawned the items), was beaten up in a motel room because he owed somebody money. One week after we got full custody of Cole, and he was ordered to pay child support, he quit his job and has not worked since. We told him last week that he has 3 weeks to find and job and a place to live or he will be out on the streets. He is now clean from drugs, but just doesn't want to work...always some excuse.
My dream is that Cole's mommy and daddy will grow up and realize what a precious little boy they have, but the problem is that Cole is growing up faster than they are.
The thing I miss the most is just getting to be nana....but for now I am, and will continue to be whatever Cole needs me to be.
Coles Nana