I am Dee.Fla, my DH and I adopted our 6yo granddaughter and 3 yo grandson on Dec.20,2004. We also have 15 yo twin boys (ours) at home.
Our roller coaster ride started in 1998 when our then 15 yo daughter was date raped and became pregnant. During her pregnancy she was hospitalized twice for manic episodes and this is when we found out that it was a date rape. When our granddaughter was born our daughter went into a depression she complained of migraines, back aches any thing not to take care of the baby she so wanted to have. She did finally go back to school, I think to get away. Soon after her first semester of business school she started a part time job at night and on weekends. She was never there to take care of the baby. By the time the baby was a year old my daughter thought she knew it all, she quit taking her meds and started telling me how things were going to be. Well she was out of my house in a heartbeat, only she took the baby with her.
During the pregnancy and for the first year the sperm donor was never in the picture. We had a restraining order issued against him and he was convicted of lewd act of a minor. He was given 10 years probation. When he found out daughter had moved out he filed for mediation for visitation. She did not tell me about this until it was done and she was going to his mothers house with the baby for visitation. Next thing I knew she and the baby were living there.

After about a week she brought the baby to me and asked me to watch her. It became more frequent and the stays became longer. She became pregnant again and the baby was at my home 99% of the time. I was so upset about them being together and just leaving the baby all the time that I decided to call DCF. 15 min after I made the call I got a call from a friend of hers telling me she was laying in a ditch, he had thrown her out of a car. She called me the next morning and told me she was coming to get the baby and I told her no she wasn't that I had called DCF and the baby was not going back to that house as long as I was alive. The investigator got there in enough time for me to tell him what was going on before she got there. He told me that if he took this to court she would get the baby back. When she came in he gave her a choice. Stay with the baby at our house or leave her with us. She chose to leave. We never went to court as he was able to convince her to sign a care and custody paper (POA) and told her it would be easier for her to get the baby back from us then the state. 3 days later she miscarried and called mommy as sperm donor wouldn't take her to the hospital. She left him and the nightmare began. He was eventually arrested for VOP for stalking and threatening her.
Then came sperm donor # 2 whom my daughter married. Domestic violence, drugs and nowhere to live kept her from getting baby back. When my granddaughter was 3 yo her baby brother was born 2 weeks early by emergency C-section. We almost lost both him and our daughter. She had no prenatal care and had been physically abused by husband and would not do a thing about it. The baby needed 3 blood transfusions and only weighed 4 lbs. I tried to alert the hospital staff to no avail. They lived in 12 dif motels during our grandsons first 2 months pf life due to being evicted for fighting. He was spending most of the time with me as daughter was dancing and sperm donor was doing what ever. Easter Sunday 2002 I got a call from motel manager saying they had the baby in the office to keep him safe as they were fighting and the police had been called. They asked me to come. By the time I got there sperm donor was walking down the street with the baby and was acting erratic, he got the baby after a tug of war over him. The police came and told me to stay out of it and they agreed to split up for awhile. She had to go to work so she told me to take the baby and come back to get her and her stuff later. She decided when I got back not to leave him. Later that day DCF came to the house as the motel people had called (cops didn't care, didn't even make a police report). They sheltered my grandson with us and we had to go to court the next day.
Court was a nightmare. She convinced the judge that she had left him and the judge let her have the baby back and said she could take granddaughter too. She did have enough sense to tell the judge that granddaughter lived with us and she didn't want to change that. She had to return to court in one month for a review, but with in one week they blew it and the same thing happened. This time the caseworker was able to catch sperm donor where she was staying, after they were ordered not to have contact. The baby was placed with us as was granddaughter . Well the rest is fact. They did nothing they were supposed to in caseplan. Both wound up in jail on drug charges, dealing in stolen property etc. When the time came for TPR, my daughter and sperm donor # 2 were smart enough to sign the papers but sperm donor # 1, the registered sex offender decided to fight TPR from prison. He lost and we were able to adopt these beautiful children that we have always thought of as ours. Granddaughter is in kindergarten and has been dx ADHD and disruptive behavior disorder with anxieties. Her mother is Bipolar and sperm donor has dx unknown to us. We were able to get her therapy ordered for as long as needed in the adoption subsidy and she is on medication.
I have been working with KIN and FloridaGRG for almost 2 years now. I am a team member of Florida Kinship Center and I have been able to become involved with Heartland for Children ( the private company that took over DCF) and attend trainings and meetings with all the above. I have started a physical support group in my area and am active with grandparents daily in my area. Caseworkers now call me to answer questions. This all totally amazes me as I was married at 16, quit school and have been a stay at home mom most of my life. I am very passionate about The Best Interest of Children and will fight for what they deserve as well as kinship caregivers.