We are headed back into the mediation room; we have been hanging around town for the last two hours and the time has come to hear if the biological mother of our kids is going to relinquish her parental rights to Rebecca. If she says no to our offer which included quarterly updates, yearly picture and a video yearly than we are going to have to go to court to fight her for custody. I am ready to go to court if I have to but I would prefer she did what is best for Rebecca.
As I mentioned before she legally cannot request anything having to do with the boys but we figured including them in the offer was the right thing to do. When we walked into the room we were prepared to hear that she was refusing to relinquish her rights; we were totally surprised by what happened next. The biological mother shocked us by accepting our offer! I think she knew that it was this or nothing and she wanted something.
Because of the mothers history of disappearing we made a few rules to go along with the letters. We had the stipulation that if she moved she was to notify us within 30 days or the agreement was off. If more than two letters got returned to us the agreement would be off. Now I know you may be thinking this was a little harsh but if she wants to show that she wanted contact with the kids she would have to follow these guidelines. We told her we would set up a post office box for her to mail letters to that would then be forwarded to us. We did this so she would not know where we lived so she would not show up trying to see the kids.
She agreed to the conditions of the mediation agreement and we signed it. This was finally moving in the right direction. There would be one more visit for her and Rebecca; during this visit she would be able to make the video for the kids to watch when they got older. The next step was going to be for her to go to court to voluntarily relinquish her rights and then we could petition the court for legal custody and adoption of Rebecca. We could not wait for that day!