Sadly, it happens. A woman was sentenced to prison and is due to deliver in 6 weeks. She had hoped for leniency, but that didn’t happen. The minimum is a 15 year sentence, her earliest parole is 2031. She has no family who can take the baby (or be approved to take the baby) and she doesn’t know who the dad is. Her only option is foster care or adoption.  She has been told by her attorney and by Child Protective Services (CPS) that CPS will need to sign off on any placement she picks. Due to her crimes and what happened, 99% of her friends have backed away from her, so there are no friends willing to take her baby.  CPS will be notified the minute the baby is born and will take custody. She has a public defender for an attorney, admitted guilt and took a plea to get the minimum available.

One response – access to information is going to be the first step. Make certain she fully understands how her institutionalization will impact the kid’s systemic involvement. But you have to be up front and realistic. Once she is in the custody of the state, she has very minimal legal rights over the child because she’s classified as a dependent of the state and that’s always been their tool to remove or restrict civil rights and liberties from people. Her child will be adopted, if there are zero kin to step up for the baby. There’s not a state in the country that wouldn’t move for a termination of parental rights for an incarcerated parent with such a long sentence. This is a tragic situation where there are basically no options. Her rights will be terminated and the child will be adopted.

Someone else noted that foster care and adoption are likely not actually her only options. Depending on how involved the state already is (hopefully less because the child isn’t born yet) she can likely assign a non-family legal guardian through the duration of her prison stay. Legal advice ASAP is crucial. In my state, she would be able to sign power of attorney over as soon as baby is born and keep the Dept of Family Services from even stepping in – as a temporary situation at first, until a guardianship could be set up.

Yet, it is noted that because of the situation and history, CPS must approve the placement chosen and her attorney has said the chances of them even considering a private placement outside of an adoption are almost zero.

One person noted that even the most distant of relatives may feel compelled to help, if she gets the word out that she’s searching for someone with any familial connection to assume guardianship of the child. She shared this story – I know of a family who wound up adopting a child because the parents’ rights were terminated – child was put in foster care because no one in the family would or could take the child. The adopting family only found out about the child through the grapevine because of a very distant familial connection – it was one of the adoptive parent’s distant cousin’s or great uncle’s great-grandchild or something crazy like that. The adoptive parents didn’t personally know the parents and had no knowledge the child even existed but was able to get the child out of the system because of the very distant familial relationship. They felt compelled to get the child out of the system because even though they didn’t know the child or parents – the child was “family.” These adoptive parents were also past the age of “typical” parents – they have grown kids and are old enough to have grandkids or great grandkids.

One brings up the possibility of a conditional surrender. She would still have visits with baby until adoption and she could do the terms of a surrender to require legally binding visits until baby is 18. It is an agreement between parent and adopters (both sides have to agree to the terms). If adopters don’t follow the agreement, the parent can take them to court. As far as what the courts can/will do, that is an open question until it happens but the courts do have the power to enforce it because it’s a legal agreement. However, sadly all it takes is the adopters with a good child psychologist to go back to the judge later on and say it’s detrimental to the child to continue those visits.

And maybe it won’t actually be 15 years. One shared – What we learned after the fact having had no experience with the prison system, our son’s mother was sentenced for 15 yrs in federal with no option for parole. We assumed there was no leniency based on what her lawyer said. Now at 3 years in, she only has about 2-4 years left. I would highly recommend temporary guardianship.

And then there was this story with a happier ending – Someone I know ran multiple ancestry databases on her newborn because she was facing prison time with no viable caregiver in her family. She had casual flings during that period with no way to contact the potential fathers. She was able to narrow it down to a family. Several awkward phone calls later, she found the father. He eventually took custody (I think his brother and sister-in-law were involved for a bit too and they were foster parents, so an easier time of getting CPS approval initially, while the formal paternity testing was being done. She gave birth while out on bond before her trial. This process may be harder if the person you are helping has the baby in a jail or prison setting where she cannot access DNA kits. And the reply was – sadly, she is already incarcerated. And so this – Some states allow lawyers to petition for a DNA sample from the baby to narrow down paternity. She may need to work with a legal team knowledgeable about foster care and incarceration. I know it’s a long shot, but if it pans out the baby may have the possibility to be with relatives.