I'm going to ask my lawyer about this when I talk to her next week as well. I have temporary custody of my stepdaughter's 3 yr old son & 1 yr old daughter. They have been living with us since baby girl was 2 months old. Mom knows that it's just not possible for her to be able to afford both children, plus she & the baby never really bonded, and the baby is very bonded to me, so she's going to let us adopt the baby girl. The 3 yr old son is *very* bonded to his mother, it's been almost a year he's been here, and he still hasn't adapted well.

Ok, so DFCS first became involved because the 6 week old daughter got bacterial meningitis & was in the hospital for about 2 weeks. For the first 2 days they couldn't even tell us if she'd live or not. While in the hospital, mom tells one of the nurses that her son is a year behind on his shots, and she calls DFCS. When they started investigating the bf's parents home, which is where they lived, they were told there were too many people living there. That's when they came to live with us, we wanted to make sure the babies didn't end up in foster care. So after they moved in, we found out there were drugs & physical abuse, and the parents were vacated & we got custody. She finally left him, and has been trying to get clean & sober. She's passed a drug test, she's working 40+ hrs/wk, my husband is taking her & her bf out to look at cars tomorrow. We'd like to get this all over with as soon as possible, for the sake of everyone. The lawyer said if we can close the custody file, we can file for adoption the same day & get everything done in one trip. We don't anticipate much trouble out of the bf; he's stupid, he's a drug addict, he's going to have to pay for child support for his son still, and he has a 7 month pg gf already. Even if he does try to cause trouble, the court won't stand for much, considering he's done nothing to help his family and refuses to take drug tests.

We're trying to decide if we can make a personal decision here to drop the custody order, and let her have custody of her son back, and adopt the baby girl. If we did that, the boy would still be living with us for about 2 months or so, while she finished getting things ready. We would then slowly transition him into her home. She will still be visiting him the whole time, and she would be taking random drug tests. She should have her GED by then, and have taken drug abuse counselling & parenting classes. Her biggest hold up so far was not having a car, but hopefully that will change tomorrow. The plus side of all this is that we would only have to go to court one time. I'm sure that there are things I'm not thinking of though, things I haven't taken into consideration. Is this a bad idea???