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Even with a LOT of looking around I was unable to find any of the particulars of the FL case,just the NC one I quoted. So the legal arguments used are not a matter of public record. Lots of press though!
What I did learn was that FL allows a 3 business days to change your decision to birth mothers who relinquish when their child is 6 months or older; but none to the birth parents of infants to 6 months, unless it can be proven there was fraud or duress.
So whatever the particulars are in this or any case, no time to change your mind in a decision that effects a lot of lives is just nuts. It really, in the long run, is in nobody's best interest.
Even with a LOT of looking around I was unable to find any of the particulars of the FL case,just the NC one I quoted. So the legal arguments used are not a matter of public record. Lots of press though!
What I did learn was that FL allows a 3 business days to change your decision to birth mothers who relinquish when their child is 6 months or older; but none to the birth parents of infants to 6 months, unless it can be proven there was fraud or duress.
So whatever the particulars are in this or any case, no time to change your mind in a decision that effects a lot of lives is just nuts. It really, in the long run, is in nobody's best interest.
My opinion has already been summed up by others, so I haven't added mine (this while situation was wrong, basically).
But I do want to say that 6 months isn't a magical age. I think this law was made with money in mind. Foster adoptions are usually older children while agency and domestic adoptions are infants. I have zero proof, just pure speculation, of course, but making a law that states parents can't change their minds of the place a child under six months of age just seems fishy to me. I sense an adoption lobbyist had a hand in that particular law.
There are several important factors that shed light on this difficult story.
1. Everyone seems to be asking why Florida has the law that is so immediately final. The reason is that there is big money in adoption and babies can be hard to obtain. The very lawyer that brokered this adoption was connected with the changing of the law so that his practice could flourish. He is also the relative of some of the judges involved in allowing appeals of this case or not. There is a lot of corruption surrounding this case and other cases involved in Florida adoptions.
2. Allison, like many other victims of hyperemesis had isolated herself while ill from everyone who might have helped her, except the "boyfriend". He was actually an older man she had been acquainted with a decade before and he had an armload of problems himself. Both Allison and John came from dysfunctional families and had more demands than assistance from their family members. Allison was a member of a church full of people who would have immediately come to her aid, but she had never told anyone that she was going to go through this process and while she was so weak, she imagined people would judge her and so fear and embarrassment kept her in her isolation.
3. As the situation progressed, the boyfriend, became weary of the burden of stopping by to help Allison. He brought her medical supplies and prescriptions (she had a peg tube for feeding) and did other errands needed. Prior to the pregnancy, the shoe was on the other foot. Allison was giving food and shelter to his daughter and grand-daughter in their time of need for more than a year. The daughter was struggling with addiction and the grand-daughter was falling through the cracks. Allison wanted a child so badly, and taking them in was one way she could help a young child. Once Allison became pregnant and sick, the boyfriend became burdened with his daughter and grand-daughter again and he was highly motivated to be relieved of that. He knew that if Allison kept those twins she would never be able to care for his daughter and grand-daughter again. Allison is a very intelligent person, had a very good job that paid well, had been quite frugal and saved a small fortune over the years. She was his best hope to handle his family's problems.
4. The boyfriend heard about his cousins desire to adopt and so he thought that this would be a surefire way to talk Allison into giving up the twins. The cousins had a teenage daughter and had been unable to conceive after that. The wife worked in a fertility clinic as a counselor but never had the money to undergo the treatment herself. Allison was not demanding any money for the twins, she only wanted some medical expenses reimbursed so these babies were a jackpot for them. The boyfriend, John, had his cousins come down about 6 weeks before the twins were born to meet Allison and discuss the possibility of adoption at the coercion and insistence of John. Once that meeting took place, the cousins were relentless in their hounding of Allison pertaining to the adoption. Allison had only gained 10 pounds with a twin pregnancy and was a physical and emotional wreck. She did her best to avoid the potential adoptive parents as long as she had the strength to do so because she could see the nature of their insistence and she wanted her babies if she could possibly manage it.
5. When the babies were born by c-section, the last of Allison's strength was drained and a few days later when the doctor released her from the hospital in her condition to go home alone and care for the babies is where the first crime was committed. Allison clearly could not manage that. She was sick, quite advanced in age for a first time mother, and had no help to get groceries, care for the babies, or even manage her own healthcare and household duties. Again, she had isolated herself and in her PTSD felt embarrassed maybe even ashamed to call church members who definitely would have helped and this tragedy would never have occurred. Her sister, also childless, had gone to Africa a few years before and adopted a baby so she had her own hands full with work and the toddler. Allison's parents were in failing health and unable even to care for themselves. Allison had been traveling back and forth to NC to help them as much as she could with her time and her finances before she became pregnant. Allison's brother and his significant other (perhaps wife, I can't remember) were totally unwilling to help her mostly due to long standing family dysfunction common to many families.
So Allison arrived home to an exhausting and untenable situation a few days post-ceasarian with two small hungry crying babies. She got no sleep. All of her own strength was going to nursing and caring for the babies. The boyfriend wanted her to give up the babies so he offered very little help. The future adoptive parents hounded her. I heard about this situation a couple of weeks later from a mutual friend who had wondered what happened to Allison and visited her. I live many states away and was up to my ears with a family of 5 children in high school and college and a husband with health issues. My oldest son was getting married in a month and I could not drop everything and go to Florida to assist. I did offer to fly there and do one of two things--bring Allison and her babies back to stay with us, or bring one baby back to care for and leave her with just one so she could get her strength back and then I would return the child to her when she felt better.
Allison had a culture of frugality and self reliance and she was frankly afraid to leave Florida and her lucrative job, afraid to give up her independence and live with others, and fearing that if her best option was this close family tie open adoption, she would lose that opportunity if she waited too long and the children weren't newborns. She had not come this far to lose all custody and ties to them. I kept in touch with her as best I could to encourage her that she needed help. I urged her to hire nannies so she could get some sleep and relief and recuperation. But people in this situation are so nutritionally and emotionally weakened they can't make any decisions much less a good one. Ultimately she did nothing. The cousins or perspective adoptive parents were getting nervous. The PAMother's sister lived in Florida while they lived in NC. The PAM's sister researched the most aggressive and successful adoption lawyer in the state and found him in Jacksonville, FL. They retained him to perform the legal work required to adopt and set up a date. As the date loomed Allison became more convinced than ever that she did not want to give the babies up. She really loved them but was critically ill at the same time. Again, I remind the readers that the medical community completely failed her in this area. I urged Allison to call the PAPs and decline to attend the meeting and let them know she no longer wanted to go through with the adoption. The boyfriend, cousin of the PAPs, was stopping by daily to remind her he would not help her and she absolutely had to give these children up. Allison told me that she felt she owed the PAPs a personal meeting in Jacksonville to tell them. I told her she would was in no condition for such a trying situation and it could only end in disaster. The 911 call that you heard on the show is the one I told her to make after she called me hysterically from the lawyer's office because they had separated her from her twins and kept her in a negotiating room for 8 hours with no food or drink and waved papers at her insisting she sign now. I told her to hang up from me and call 911 and explain that she needed immediate assistance. Naturally when she did that everyone backed off, handed her back her babies and the boyfriend drove her home. He dumped the two car seats of crying infants on her living room floor and told her never to call him again. Already a PTSD victim, Allison spent 3 more days trying on her own to manage the twins with no outside support and finally called John, basically to say "uncle" and that she feared death if she did not give them up. I believe that was a real possibility. Knowing what I know now, I realize that my offer of help was too theoretical. I needed to have just boarded the plane and gone to help her, not waited for her to choose that option. She was incapable of choosing options and the only option she went with was forced on her. John put the ball back in motion and drove her to Jacksonville to the lawyer's office again. The PAPs had returned to NC and rather than wait for them to return to FL, the PAMs sister rushed to the lawyer's office to take custody of the twins. As soon as the papers were signed and the children handed over, John began to drive Allison rapidly out of FL for a "rest." He was headed to Savannah. Ten minutes after she signed, reality hit her and Allison knew she could not give up her children. She begged John to return her to the lawyer's office and retrieve her children. After all, the adoptive parents wouldn't arrive in the state until the following day to pick the babies up. John refused. He had accomplished his goal and he could now get Allison back to health and she would once again be able to care for his very problematic daughter and raise his grand-daughter.
Allison called me again in desperation from the car. I advised her to ask to go to the bathroom and then get out of the car and run for help. She was in no condition to do that. We've all read about perfectly healthy captives who can't muster the gumption to do that. And if she was in enough distress to sign her babies away, she was certainly not capable of escaping this situation. She began calling the PAPs and told them not to travel to FL that she had changed her mind and intended on returning to get her babies. They told her that she had no right to do that and they would not relinquish their rights.
Then the story goes on with court battles and custody difficulties and lawyers and enormous fees and Allison trying to recover and return to work. She had to fly to NC to have visits with the babies, she rented a townhouse and outfitted it with everything they needed. She took a friend with her to be witness and help with the twins each time. She did everything according to the law and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Time was passing and no resolution was coming. The PAPs were gaining the advantage of the "best interest of the children" because of the length of time they had been in their household. The PAPs began to be no-shows when they were supposed to bring the children to her and there was no agency to enforce the arrangement on them. Allison became desperate. She only wanted to take the children to a safe place that would give them asylum until the legal situation could be resolved and prevent the courts from placing the children with the PAPs simply because of the length of time they had been in their household. The problem was she didn't run far enough. Canada was not willing to give them asylum. She should have gone to France.
She was arrested and her fragile emotional state was challenged to nearly it's breaking point. She spent the rest of her savings and the proceeds from the sale of her house on her legal case. By now, she had a bit of a following of others who had suffered from similar adoption nightmares, Hyperemesis survivors, and finally her sister, myself, and former neighbor. With communication by phone risky and difficult, she tried to communicate with her lawyers and us. Some members of the team felt that the NC lawyers weren't aggressive or high profile enough to win the case. A TV personality, high profile lawyer was retained. The end result was that Allison had to plead guilty to get out of jail and take over her own case to avoid a long jail term.
The babies remain with the PAPs, now the APs and Allison has put together a life without her twins. She will never stop trying to be there for her children. She loves them dearly. She had more fertilized eggs and could have gone through another pregnancy if this story was just about getting babies, but it is not. First of all that carried severe health risks and secondly she is the twin's mother and will never abandon them. Someday, the children will read the stories and look at their APs and shudder. The story will slowly eat away at their souls and they will be tortured by the circumstances surrounding their adoption. The lies, deception, and graft involved on every level will leave them with no one they feel they can trust, except hopefully, Allison. And I guarantee you, she will be waiting with open arms.
Just ask yourself if you sign a contract for a major service, or new car, or appliance over a certain amount of money - does your state have a consumer protection law that provides you with a cool-off period to revoke the contract? Most states do. Because sometimes people get caught up in the heat of the moment from pressure and regret the decision. If that is a given, why isn't it a given in something so monumental as surrendering your parental rights within hours after birth?
It depends on the state. My state doesn't give a revocation time for the vast majority of contracts. An exception would be a contract made with a door-to-door salesman. You get a three day period to revoke that agreement. You don't get that period of revocation here with virtually any other agreement you make.
The counter view to what is being said here is that a birth mother has nine months to make up her mind what she wants to do. Granted, the experience of delivering a child and the medications given a mother can affect judgment in some instances. Every state I am aware of requires that the mother wait at least one day (and generally more) before giving a written relinquishment.
I personally wouldn't object to requiring somewhere in the neighborhood of a 15-30 period--post delivery-- to give a relinquishment. However, I think once given that it should be irrevocable.
Saw this on a Dr. Phil re-run. Wow. Why would these "adoptive" parents want to take custody of children that clearly the mom wanted "back"? Just because they could--legally. The biological mom's illness debilitated her body, mind and judgments clearly, without question you can see that, how horrible the hyperemesis is and what it does to a person. It's just an unbelievable story of injustice to me. I wonder how these "parents" justify what they did to her. I can't imagine doing that to someone.
The issue seems to be that the situation was handled poorly by everyone involved. The birthmother and birthfather took our son home for 10 days. They were making an adoption plan but when the baby was born with Down syndrome, they rethought the plan fearing that the baby would be hard to place. The agency told us that they had both birthparents sign the relinquishment in front of the judge since the baby had been with them and in that case, there was a greater chance that they might change their minds. It just seems all of these adoption "tragedies" happen when everyone isn't using due diligence.
We can all look at the legal issues here but there eventually be only 2 opinions that count...baby girl and baby boy adopted as the review their history and sort through the documentation. I am a firm believer in the end ... When the children find out there will be 2 parents that will regret what they did. They will become meaningless to the children they raised.
Best wishes to Allison and HER children.
This is very, very, very sad. How sad also when these children are old enough to look up and find out that their birth mother wanted them so very much and was denied that by the adoptive parents and every court decision. Seems funny that the boyfriend was so coersive in this situation to have her give her babies to his family member. Wrong in so many ways.
My sister was very sick during her first pregnancy and had to be hospitalized twice to re-hydrate her. She lost 25+ lbs. After about 5 months it got better though still feeling sick the rest of the term. My niece was born a very healthy baby, weighing in at 8.2 lbs. I do feel just a bit sad (not too much) for Allison Quet. I don't agree with all the support she's gotten. She was 47 years old, mature enough to know if she truly wanted to nurture her babies, also, had them for 6 weeks before she made her decision to sign the adoption agreement. She was informed of all the contract terms and conditions. She then felt guilty (as she should have), and wanted them back... you don't get to change your mind about children after you've made a conscious decision. Someone compared this to buying a car, or a major appliance... She then blamed everyone that she was pressured into signing, then wanted to sue everyone involved for an enormous amount of money (not a good move). She was thinking only of herself during her pregnancy and she was thinking of herself after those babies were born for 6 weeks. She was thinking only of herself when she took those babies to Canada, not caring how those babies were feeling being away from the "parents" that loved them and their home. She has to pay the consequences for the bad decision(s) she made just as we all do.
PS--In the US dying from the sickness she had during her pregnancy is very, very rare.
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