Thank you all so much! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your words of support! To answer a couple of questions.
The other times the judge didn't actually ORDER the mediation, he just suggested it. At each following court date when the subject of mediation came up, the people who have control over the process always gave different excuses. Once was a last min right before court date try. Court was scheduled for a Monday and they had three months to try to get something scheduled. They started calling everyone on Thursday for a meeting on Friday. Of course, several people couldn't attend because their schedule had already been filled. The second attempt was after the judge again suggested (stronger this time) for mediation, but the father told Child Welfare that he wasn't open to mediation. His attorney never even had the chance to explain to him what mediation was or was not. The third time we went back to court and the father's attorney wasn't there, because he had had open heart surgery. A colleague of his showed up to represent the attorney's office, but since the case was set to go to a jury trial, the stand in refused to take the case. That was when the judge asked him if he'd step in for the father's attorney if he was unable to make it to mediation and he indicated that he would. That is when the judge gave a court order for the mediation.
The case is set to go for a jury trial 12-10, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I just wanted the mediation to work out so Sam wouldn't have the possibility of having to testify before a jury and her father. I don't think that she'd be able to do it, and if she does, it'll make her feel really bad. I told my DH this morning that really, the only person that had a right to not comply with the court order was the father since a mediation is only voluntary. I wanted to be mad at him, but it's his attorney that I'm mad at. We also suspect that the father has lost his house and another reason that this didn't happen was because his attorney couldn't locate him, but just didn't want to let the rest of us know that he no longer has a house AGAIN.
Now to answer the other question, Sam has no idea that this was going on. She knows that she wants to be adopted, and she knows that we are trying to get thru all the red tape. She asked her case worker last week , "How much longer is it going to take to get thru all of the red tape?" Bless her heart, I'm not really sure she understands what that means exactly, she just knows it has to be finished before she can be adopted and she can change her name.
So please, let's keep the delay a "secret" between us friends. You can refer to the adoption, just smile when she mentions the red tape
Gerri
