Happy Birthday to Peri

Today Peri turned 6 years old... the last time we were able to have any contact with her on her birthday was when she turned 1 year old.
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Peri,

Happy birthday, honey...  I hope from the moment you woke up until you fall asleep tonight, that you have the best day ever.  I wish more than anything today that you were here with us--with your sisters, opening your presents, playing with your toys together, reading books with you, hugging you--my sweet, wonderful little girl--and telling you how much I love you.  Yesterday, Alpha asked if we could find your current house on the computer, so we pulled up something called Google Street View which has pictures of most houses in this country, and Alpha looked at your house and neighborhood for a long time.  She misses you so much, and Echo does too... we all wish we could spend your birthday with you.  I'm doing everything in my power to make it so you can see your sisters a lot more often and spend all the rest of your birthdays with them.

Alpha typed this: Peri happy birthday, I wish you were here sooooooooooooo much, and I miss you sooooooooooooo much.

Echo is making you a card today.  We will give it to you the next time we see you, since we aren't able to send it (for reasons which you will understand someday).

We love you sweetie, and we always will.  Have a wonderful day.

Mommy

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Letters to Peri

I've been thinking a great deal about what I want Peri to know about her situation--and about life in general... and I decided to start writing "letters" to her here...  I don't know how this is ultimately going to turn out, but I hope these letters will be beneficial for her no matter which way things go.

I don't know what Peri is going to eventually know about her situation, and I fervently want to find a way for this to ultimately be a positive for her life--to find a way to turn what happened into a beneficial thing instead of a difficulty.  This is part of what I want to include in my letters--what she needs to know about what happened, and what matters in life, and how to be happy... and above all, for her to know that we--I, her sisters, and her father, Charlie, love her unconditionally and we will always be here for her.

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Peri,

This will be the first of many letters to you...  There are so many things to say, but the first and most important is that you are loved--absolutely, unconditionally, and so deeply I get choked up just thinking about it.  You and your sisters are more important to me than anything else in this world, and I would do anything to give you the happiest, most fulfilling life possible.  If you read this when you are 10, or 15, or 30, or 60, it will still be true.  This might be hard to imagine until or unless you decide to have children yourself--but when you become a mother, everything changes--things you thought were too hard, or too stressful, or too time-consuming--suddenly become possible when your children's well-being and happiness are at stake.

I loved you before you were born, I loved you when I first held you in my arms, and I love you just as much now even though I am not able to see you very often.  I saw you for 2 hours more than a year ago (the first time I had seen you for the previous year), and my connection with you was just as strong as the day you were born.  I loved just watching you play with your sisters, watching you go down a slide--I could have just watched you play for hours and hours.  I would fly 5000 miles to be able to see you for 5 minutes, just to be there for you and hug you and tell you I would always be there for you.  Due to circumstances you'll eventually understand, I haven't been able to do this yet--for years, I haven't been able to tell you in person how important you are to us and how much we love you, but it has always been and will always be true. 

I cannot wait until the day I can tell you all this in person--the day I can know that you're safe and happy and healthy--the day I'll be able to be there when you need me, when you call out in the night from a bad dream, when you have an argument with a friend, when you wonder what to do with the tremendous potential of your life--that I'll be able to help you through those things and all the millions of little moments in your life--that I'll be able to be there with hugs and kisses and all the love in the world.

Good night, sweetie.  I hope you sleep wonderfully tonight.

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The Core Evidence

In light of the skepticism from the lawyers on Dr. Phil as to the strength of my case (and the importance of getting support to take this through trial), I have written and put on the Peri website a focused analysis of the core evidence in Peri's case.  I kept it as short as possible, since I know the rest of the website can be kind of overwhelming to read because there's so much information.

Here's the analysis.  I really tried to limit it only to those facts that I can clearly document (and linked to the documentation).  I also kind of took the opposite approach from the rest of the website; I described first what Susan and Demyn have admitted as to their prior intentions (a critical component in proving fraud), and then explained what that means as to Susan and Demyn's statements and actions in procuring Peri's adoption (so that people can clearly see that this was fraud).

I would welcome feedback on this section and whether you think anything else needs to be included or changed for clarity.  I hope to start publicizing this (either through the internet or through direct contacts with media people) as quickly as possible after the New Year--suggestions on approaches I might use would be gratefully appreciated.

Dr. Phil Show and Worrying

Well, I've had considerable positive feedback from the Dr. Phil episode last Friday (the transcript and video excerpt are permanently online here), although a number of people have commented that the show didn't include enough detail to really get a clear picture of the situation or the evidence of fraud.  A lot of people were also frustrated by the comments of the attorneys on the show saying that I had little chance of proving fraud (it was clear that they didn't know the whole picture).  I am grateful that Dr. Phil's people found me and were interested in covering the story, though--and I understand that it's difficult on that kind of show to really cover everything.  I liked Dr. Phil's comment, after the attorney who represents adoptive parents said something to the effect of, “After an adoption, the adoptive parents can pretty much do whatever they want in terms of contact.”  Dr. Phil responded with something like, “So is there no such thing as open adoption?”  It's a very good point--if there's no accountability or recourse or reasonableness, “open adoption” really means nothing.  I don't understand why contractual open adoptions are not treated the same as divorce situations so that biological parents have rights to enforce their rights to have a relationship with their child, except in clear situations in which they pose a threat to the child's well-being.  The way the laws are now, adoptive parents can cut off everything (including letters, pictures, etc.) and claim, “Oh, we're just acting in the best interests of the child.”  There's a point at which “best interests” ceases to have a reasonable meaning...

The issue of raising money has been all-consuming this week--it's agonizing to be so close to being able to make this right for Peri, but not knowing where to turn to make it work now...  I did find an organization that may be interested in a partnership for my babies-at-work efforts; I'm going to be working on a proposal for the next three weeks in hopes that things will work out....  They're an incredible organization and I think it could be a great fit; we'll see.  If not, I'll be sending the finished proposal to every possible group I can think of--I need to find a way to make this all work out.

I've been thinking lately about blogging about the things I wish I could tell Peri--about the adoption, her sisters, things to make her life easier and happier long-term...  I go back and forth about the idea...not sure if it would be something that would be helpful to her down the road or if it would be beneficial for others to read, and I have such limited time as it is that I probably would be wiser for now to focus on trying to raise money for trial or trying to get the babies-at-work work off the ground financially so that I can make everything work in the case.  I may still decide to do it, though--just in case things don't work out, so that Peri has documentation of how much we love her and how important she is to us.

In other news, Susan and Demyn let Charlie (my ex-husband and Peri's biological father) visit them today for a few hours--I found this out yesterday from Alpha (Peri's older sister) after Charlie told her on the phone.  Alpha became upset immediately after telling me and said, crying, “Daddy sees Peri more than I do.”  Susan and Demyn had refused my request in April 2006 to allow Alpha to talk to Peri a few times a year on the phone as a first step in returning to the contact we had agreed on prior to her adoption.  At that point, and until nearly two years after I filed the lawsuit, they limited Charlie to the exact same tiny amount of contact as the rest of us.  Then, in 2008, they apparently decided that they really needed a new strategy in the lawsuit (since their claim of always having given our family the contact they had promised was completely contradicted by the documentation and the adoption counselor's recollection), so they started claiming that the relationship had been close but that I had overreached and made them feel compelled to limit contact (the handwritten note I'm having tested for authenticity is the only piece of evidence backing up that claim).  As part of their effort to make this sound plausible, they started being really friendly to Charlie and inviting him to visit them when he was in the area.  Considering that this expanded contact only began well into the lawsuit, it means almost nothing in terms of buffering them from the evidence of fraud, but I'm glad that this has meant that at least Peri has been able to see her sisters and biological father slightly more than she would have under the severe limitations in place prior to my filing the lawsuit. 

Of course, even though Susan and Demyn were letting us see Peri for six hours once a year, because they had intentionally not filed the contact agreement, they could have completely cut us off at any time and they knew there would be nothing we could do about it.  I strongly believe that, had I not filed the lawsuit, they would have done that when Peri was between 3 and 4 years old--when the statute of limitations would have expired for filing to overturn the adoption based on fraud.  Considering Susan and Demyn's careful planning of the fraud and their restrictions on contact starting only days after finalization, waiting to cut us off completely until just after they were legally safe to do so would perfectly fit their pattern...

With Charlie seeing Peri today, though, I've been an emotional wreck all day (although obviously hiding it from Alpha and Echo), wanting to be there in California being with Peri, in agony over the fact that Susan and Demyn were able to delay this so long, and terrified that I won't be able to come up with the money to take this through trial and ensure that Peri is happy and healthy.  I've come so far, but none of it will mean anything--for our family as well as for others--if I fail now.

I just wish I knew where to turn--what to do next.  I am determined to find a way; there are just so many days where I'm just so scared that I won't be able to overcome the obstacles that still remain...  But I refuse to fail my girls.

Dr. Phil Segment About Peri (Transcript and Clip)

I just discovered a semi-transcript of the Dr. Phil segment about Peri starting here. There's a video clip from the segment available at the bottom of the text on this page (click on the camera next to "Dr Phil reads statements from the adoptive parents").

We have a trial date!

I went to San Jose this past Monday (December 7th) for the hearing on bifurcation and trial setting.  We finally have a trial date--March 22, 2010!  I ended up agreeing that bifurcation was appropriate, since the real issue is the fraud and, under the law, if my consent to the adoption was procured by fraud, then it’s invalid--and the adoption itself never legally happened.  Susan and Demyn’s lawyer has made clear they will still fight to keep her even if the fraud is proven, but under the law I would revert to being her legal parent if I prove fraud, and I believe I will be able to show the importance of her coming back to our home instead of continuing to be raised by the people who illegally obtained her and who delayed this case for so long (so that they could make the argument that she was too old to be removed from them).

I need to raise at least $50,000 by the time of trial (only three months away!) to pay my lawyer (Paul Thorndal).  I have to have an experienced lawyer because there’s no way I can successfully handle the trial on my own.

In other news, the Court granted my motion to have the handwritten note tested that I believe was likely fabricated by Susan and Demyn for the lawsuit (more details about that starting here).  If the note was actually fabricated, it would likely constitute perjury.

Peri's case will be discussed on the Dr. Phil show this Friday (December 11th) (see the description at the bottom of this page).  I am hoping this will help me raise money toward successfully resolving Peri's situation.

If anyone is willing and able to donate to helping me to regain custody of Peri, I would be immensely grateful--at this point, it's going to come down to finances. The donation page is here.

Thank you all so, so much for your support.  It means more than you know.

The Issue of Separating Fraud from Custody, Plus More Good News

Things are moving forward.  I received Mr. Somit's bifurcation motion and am working on my response to it.  He actually said that even if Susan and Demyn did in fact commit fraud to procure Peri's adoption, that they still plan to try to keep Peri based on the fact that they have raised her until now. 

On one of the internet forums discussing this case, someone had posted links to a couple of other contested adoption cases in which older children were returned to a biological parent.  In one of them, it turns out that the United States Supreme Court got involved.  According to an article about Baby Jessica, Justice John Paul Stevens considered the adoptive parents' request to block a court order that Jessica be returned to her biological parents.  He refused, saying that the adoptive parents' argument “rests, in part, on the relationship that they have been able to develop with the child after it became clear that they were not entitled to adopt her.”  Peri's case is actually worse that this.  Susan and Demyn overtly committed fraud to gain Peri's adoption--they were never truly “entitled” to adopt her, and they knew it the whole time.  Since we're essentially at the end of discovery in this case, it's now clear that they have no evidence to corroborate their original story to the Court either.  They filed a frivolous appeal based on a fabricated story and “free speech” arguments, and delayed the case as long as possible simply to be able to argue that they should get to continue raising her because she's bonded with them. 

If Susan and Demyn are successful in this argument, the precedent that this would set for adoption law is disturbing--it would mean that people could say or do virtually anything to get a baby, and then all they would have to do is to keep dragging the case out as long as possible.  It appears that the law does not support this argument, fortunately, but I'm going to be doing a huge amount of legal research to make sure I have the best possible response I can to this. 

There is no other scenario in which people can illegally obtain a child and then reasonably argue that bonding should allow them to keep her.  Other people have compared this case to Jaycee Dugard's situation (the girl who was recently rescued from her abductors at age 29 after being taken off the street by them when she was eleven years old).  The bond that Ms. Dugard established with her kidnappers has been discussed in a number of places; this is a really good article explaining how even children raised in extremely unhealthy situations end up bonding and consider the unhealthiness to be “normal.”  Yet no one would claim that, had Jaycee been found at age 16, her abductors should have been able to keep her since she had bonded with them.  The same is true of babies abducted at birth and discovered years later, even though their situation would fall under the same argument Susan and Demyn are making (they were raised from birth by the people who illegally obtained them).  How can it possibly be acceptable for an illegally-obtained adoption--especially when perpetrated by the people raising the child--to be exempt from this standard for who raises the child once the illegality is exposed?  I don't mean for this to sound argumentative--I've just become aware of so many other situations similar to (or even worse than) ours, and it's so frustrating how the system can be manipulated.

In other news, I now have a third expert to help with a transition and ongoing contact plan with Susan and Demyn (and other relatives/friends with whom Peri has developed a close relationship) if I regain custody of Peri.  He's based in California, close to where Peri lives now, and he's one of the top attachment experts in the country.  More on him soon.

The really big news is that I now have a lawyer to handle the trial!  I'll write more details about him soon, too, but I'm really happy about it; he's a fantastic attorney.  I'm going to handle the bifurcation motion myself (and the motion to have the handwritten note tested that I believe may have been fabricated), but I'll probably ask him to handle things soon after that point.  I do have to pay him, which is going to require significant funds--his fee is around $400/hour, and I still need to find the money.  But I don't have the knowledge of trial procedure to be able to do even a decent job in handling the trial on my own, and I know he'll do a great job.

We're getting there...