
Quoting
saspho
My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Alabama
We need all help we can get in this custody battle. To give you some background information, we are trying to get custody of my 5 year old cousin, Emma. We are trying to get custody of her since she is in foster care in a different county than us.
My cousin L had 4 kids, all with different fathers. Emma is half black and the 4th child. L's mother, R, has custody of first 3 kids. L had Emma in prison. R's husband is racist and would not accept a bi-racial child. He is so sick of cleaning up L's messes that he said he would leave if she had anymore. The racist is R and L's other 3 kids only form of financial support. The racist does not know that Emma is L's biological child.
My cousin, K, took Emma and had custody of her, but never formally adopted her. K got very sick this summer and almost died. She had complete kidney failure. When the ambulance got there to take her to the hospital, they said it looked like a horder lived there and called DHR.
K went to the hospital and Emma went into foster care.
I found out K was in the hospital 4 days after she got there and they had already had the hearing to put Emma into foster care, so I couldn't stop it. I have been trying to get custody since August.
Emma's foster mom, J, is an attorney for DHR in their County. She wants to adopt Emma. We are fighting to be able to ultimately adopt Emma, but fighting an uphill battle. R and L want J to adopt Emma because it is a status symbol to them for Emma to be with an attorney and to hide the fact that Emma is L's child. If the racist finds out about Emma they are afraid he will leave and they will be destitute.
We want Emma to grow up in a happy home. We love her and want to be in her life. We want to be her parents. L doesn't care what happens to Emma as long as her secret doesn't come out. Since we are cousins and see each other at family functions, they're afraid the secret will come out if Emma stays in the family.
R and L have filed motion after motion to stop us from getting visitation with Emma so that J will have a better chance of getting her.
I fear they are poisoning Emma against us. J is telling straight out lies about me to my cousin K. J is not passing along any of the messages I send for Emma telling her how much we love her and miss her. They didn't even tell Emma we were even trying to get her until February. They stopped our visits in September. She hasn't heard anything about her Family since September. So, I'm certain, she feels like her family has abandoned her!
The foster mom and the DHR worker are buddies. I fear the foster mom is poisoning Emma against us. The only person she let's Emma talk to is R, who hates us. I'm sure R is badmouthing K and me to Emma. They never tell her any messages that we love and miss her. Then J started calling K and telling her lies about me to try to get K to agree for Emma to stay with J.
I fear because J is so close to the case that Emma should be moved to a different foster home. I fear it is a bad environment for her because of the bad things she is hearing about K, the only mom she has ever know, and me, the cousin that is "trying to steal her away". How can I request a change in foster home?
This is breaking my heart. We need all the help we can get!