Jen - I HEAR YA on the parental rights thing! I could rant for days...people who have no business having kids can pop them out all over the place, the system tries to reunify people who abuse or neglect their kids, but we need permission to raise our kids as our own.
Speaking of messed up situations, I just have to share this. I ran into an ex back in June at PRIDE. I was really suprised to see that she had a 2 year old boy. Carolyn was just pregnant so we bonded over the mommy thing & she told me to let her know when our baby was born. I emailed her last week to let her know & I asked her about the details of her kid. Get this: (I should add that I certainly knew how to pick them in the past!
She was my LAST bad girlfriend!) She first tried to do foster/adoption but DCF turned her down because she isn't stable so she decided to have a kid on her own. Smart. So she found a gay man through a friend at work who wanted to be a dad. She told him that she really wanted the experience of having a child but wanted to only be a part time mother. Less than shared custody - he would have full custody and but she would be in the child's life. They both got lawyers & put everything in writing. Then, when she got the positive pregnancy test she changed her mind and wanted FULL custody!! Can you believe it?!?! That poor man. It's an adoptive parents worst nightmare. As it turns out they spent about a year in court and now they have joint custody. It gets me so angry that she would do that to him. I understand her wanting to change her mind when the idea of a baby became a reality, but she had PLENTY of time to think about that during all of the meetings with lawyers to set up the arrangement. What a jerk!
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