We are Vernon and Rachel Maddry. We have been married for 12 years—we are raising 2 of our grand children and we adopted our daughter Jayde in December. Her bio mother is Vernon’s niece. She also gave birth to a little girl in June 2018. Baby J was placed in foster care at birth. The state of Florida initially asked us to consider taking her as well. After much prayer and many God moments we agreed. At the shelter hearing for baby J the state of Florida decided to place in foster care rather than us. We have continued to advocate over the last several months for the sisters to be placed together. Florida has continually disregarded policies that require siblings to be together and for family to be a priority placement. We attended a court hearing in February requesting a placement change to us and were notified at that time the foster parents had intervened to keep baby J. We still felt strongly the girls should be together and had the fathers support in this. We went back to Florida in April for another hearing specifically to address placement and were notified 10 minutes before court the mother had signed a private consent to adopt to the foster parents. This is a loop hole in the Florida system that is designed for parents that are in agreement to establish permanency for their child in the child welfare system. It is designed to be used early in a case, not at the time of the state filing for termination. Bio mom did not have the fathers consent and in turn he signed the same consent to us. The judge did award us placement at the hearing in April but the opposing attorneys requested a 3 week transition for baby J from foster care to us. Jayde and I ended up in Florida for an additional 3 weeks while Vernon flew back home to go to work and check on other kiddos left at home. During the transition time we were only allowed to visit every other day and no weekend visits. We had 2 overnights the week before we left with Baby J. The mothers attorney filed a stay asking we not take baby J to Texas while they appealed all decisions.The day before we were to leave the judge ordered a hearing the next morning. At the hearing the judge did deny the request for Baby J to stay and set a hearing to decide which party would be allowed to proceed with adoption. The judge did allow us to testify by phone for the hearing she scheduled in June, which was a blessing after already being gone for a month. What this private consent ultimately did was pull this case from the state to a private case, meaning Baby J would be a private adoption, resulting in Vernon and I being responsible for all legal costs and representation and Baby J would not be entitled to any adoption benefits from the state, primarily free college tuition.
The foster parents and the bio mom have appealed every single decision the judge has made, from placement to us testifying by phone. We have had to respond to each and every appeal. The hearing in June lasted more than 9 hours, at which time it was revealed that the supervisor for Baby J’s case was friends with the foster mothers. It was also disclosed that the foster mothers did not support family ties and they had been intentionally vindictive during the transition period by withholding information and things for Baby J. The judge denied the foster parents request for adoption and granted our request.
During this time we have had a wonderful team of lawyers who have worked diligently for Baby J. But legal fees have quickly surpassed the retainer we already paid. We still have to schedule a hearing for termination and a hearing for adoption. The attorneys have requested another $7000 to complete our case. We simply do not have this on our own. While we could eventually come up with this over time, we do not have time on this. Baby J is in limbo right now, between being in the states custody and not really in anybody’s custody right now.
We have prayed on this and have begun making payments ourselves. We have had a few friends encourage us to reach out for help. We did open up a fund request page and have asked friends to help with some fundraising. We are open for other suggestions if y’all have any!!!
Please continue to pray for Gods divine provision for us. This has been a very unexpected costly road for all of us. We have some big needs but are trusting God to provide. We have prayed for this Baby since before she was born and know God would not bring us this far to leave us hanging here.
This has been a learning journey these last months and God has taught our family so much. We have reached deeper toward God because we have nothing else we can do. We have struggled in so many ways and we have been blessed.
If you can help, we are so incredibly grateful. If you can pray please encourage us. If you can share our story to others who will pray or others who might help us financially please do. Please know this request is one of the hardest requests we can make because it is requiring us to lay down our pride and that is so hard. It requires us to lay down our self preservation