Any suggestions for talking an idiot into giving up her baby for adoption?

The BBQ Pit
61

My adoptive parent gut is different. This girl is walking heartbreak for adoptive parents. She won’t go through with it. She will be a “disrupted adoption” story. And those just delay finding a birthmother who does go through with the placement. If she does go through with it, she will be the flaky birthmother no one wants their kid exposed to. The one that threatens a legal fight. And then disappears for years. And then the kid goes on a birthparent search and oh-boy - she delivers the baggage “I didn’t really want to give you up, I was forced to. I tried to stay in contact, but your parents kept you from me.”

And then birthfather shows up on your doorstep, broke, and plays the “you don’t want your kid’s birthfather homeless” card.

She’s the reason we did an international adoption.

Oh, and buying babies is illegal. Some states allow you to cover reasonable birthparent expenses (for this girl, that will be alot, if Georgia is one, an apartment, food, medical care), but this is NOT a profit making enterprise.

62

You (or your friend) could always go the alternate route. Take her to some LaLeche League meetings. Sign her up for parenting courses. Introduce her to the websites where mothers hang out (mothering dot com would be a good start) (they’re au natural crunchy freakos, but with good intentions; i.e., at least their manifesto won’t kill you). Buy her Dr. Sears’ The Baby Book.

If she’s going to do this, show her how to do it well, or at least with intention. Either she’ll come to her senses (yeah, right), or she’ll learn something and possibly become capable of caring for a baby.

Skip Babies R Us, however; those cute clothes will suck anyone in.

63

Again, IANAL, but from what I learned, open adoption used to be illegal for the points you raised. Many states have changed their laws to permit it. And yes, prospective parents cannot have any appearance of “purchasing” the baby. Any compenstation given to the birth mother will be carefully analyzed by the placement agency. In NC, in fact, the prospective parents cannot even pay rent for the birth mother.

As far as the birth mother attempting to get custody, at least in my state, that cannot happen. We had the same fear. We felt that the birth mother would come for the children at a later date, but she would have no more right to custody than say, our mailman. Same thing for the father. If he showed up at my house asking for a place to stay, unless you are in the habit of taking in homeless people, you have no reason to do so. It will not affect the child if you call the cops when he shows up, or get a restraining order if you think he will be a problem.

Children will want to find their birth parents, but a child raised in a home with love and values will know where home really is.

64

I hope it’s not too depressing if I say that even if you persuade her to give up the baby for adoption, she’s likely to have another one.
Because:

  • she comes up with reasons why her men don’t have to use contraception
  • she seems to have a crummy life; once the baby came along people paid attention to her
  • she’s going to think the baby she gave away would have made her happy
    P.S. This made me laugh…
    “what can I do if my 13 year old wants to shack up with a 20 year old male hustler who’s on parole?” The answer “Call his probation officer” landed on deaf ears… :smiley:
65

Birthparents can still make a legal nuiscince of themselves. And if birthmom lies on the birthcertificate and doesn’t name the proper birthfather, the birthfather can spring up years later and cause problems (Minnesota has a birthfather registry, but its never been tested). There have been cases where the adoptive parents have taken out restraining orders against their birthmother. And you can say no, but what when birthfather approaches your kid while he is riding his bike? The people Sampiro has described have few boundries, a warped idea of what is right. And I’d think very carefully before taking them on as partners in an open adoption.

I think open adoption can be and usually is a wonderful thing. Most birthmothers don’t cause an issue once the placement happens - although disruptions are so frequent that I don’t think its fair to encourage adoption where disruption seems likely. Most follow the pattern described - some contact early on, they move on with their lives, and they disappear (a problem in and of itself as the timing often coincides with the child starting to get curious and wondering). I don’t think this is one of those cases. This is the open adoption birthmother I wouldn’t want. If this woman had picked us out of a book, we’d have turned HER down.

Moreover, not just from a selfish “I wouldn’t want this woman as my child’s birthmom” but from a more general perspective, I think its horrible that anyone should feel pressured to give up their child. Do I think its best here - yeah, this woman doesn’t seem capable of raising sea monkeys. At that same point, it has to be her decision. And in all reality, she’s not going to raise this child, the grandmother is, in itself a frightening thought, but not as scary as birthmom.

66

This started some wheels turning in my head…

Maybe T. E. could “gaslight” her into thinking that God Himself is telling her to put the kid up for adoption (the word “ADOPT” appearing in a grilled cheese sandwich, or a stain in the bottom of the litterbox with the adoption agency’s phone number might seem miraculous enough to be persuasive).

67

It’s been more than a year, but I’m bumping this because it’s relevant.

Okay, to resolve the old thread: it had a happy ending. “Dinah” miscarried towards the end of the first trimester. It may seem evil to call a miscarriage a happy ending, but in her case, it was.

Unfortunately, this is a family that every year on January 1 eats its black-eyed-peas and jowls and says “Here’s to 200_: things can only get better!” and then before August they’re nostalgic for the previous January. “Oh, life was so simple then…”

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES UPDATE:

As I said, Dinah miscarried. There were some health problems that followed but in a few weeks all was well again. She also moved in with her mom in Atlanta in an apartment that was actually in my friend’s name. He couldn’t really stop it because he was still a truckin’ at the time. (Since that time he’s quit trucking and… oh Jove and Quetzlcoatl on a gay blind date, I won’t even take the time to go into it, let’s just say that when “BUSINESS PLAN SO-FUCKING-STUPID-HELEN-KELLER-COULD-SEE-THE-HOLES-IN-IT NUMBER 17” proved an utter and utterly predictable no-go he ended up living with me and at least he’s out of Atlanta [not knocking Atlanta, but like most big cities {or most medium cities [[or most small cities]]} it’s a pretty fucking miserable place when you’re broke, which he usually is- brilliant guy, but a total idiot- I’m sure you know the type.)

Anyway, Dinah liked Atlanta. She got a job in a supermarket and then enrolled in graduate school. And that’s pretty good considering:

1- she was broke
2- she didn’t have a college degree
3- the reason she didn’t have a college degree is because she dropped out of high school

She does have a GED (or, as this family calls it, “Higher Education”).

So how did Dinah get into graduate school? Well suh, that’s a long story but I’ll synopsize it to a degree since it’s relevant.

When Dinah’s next attempt after the miscarriage to get pregnant again didn’t work (she wanted to get pregnant again because she wanted “someone to love” [HOW MUCH DAMAGE WILL GRACE SLICK DO BEFORE THE U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE ORDERS THOSE MASTER RECORDINGS DESTROYED!] and because she wanted a sign from God she wanted to apologize to God for having had two abortions [God’s sending her two miscarriages evidently not interpreted by her as “We Copacetic, byatch!”- that frigging lack of vowels in divine messages gets annoying after a while) she decided to go back to school. Specifically she wanted to study photography, for photography had been her life’s one true passion and purpose from the first moment she decided photography was her life’s one true passion and purpose, which was about the time she couldn’t get pregnant and decided to go back to school.

There were only two problems, the first being that she wanted to get the equivalent of a college degree in two years or less, and the second problem being that there were lots of other problems.

One of the lots of other problems confronting her was that she was continually broke (no savings, no credit) and continually on the verge of eviction. Another was that she didn’t own a camera.

To be continued (and to explain why I’ve bumped it)

68

The reason that Dinah was always on the verge of eviction (until recently) was where she lived. A few weeks after moving to Atlanta Dinah moved into an apartment with her brother.

I’m not talking about my ex-Lover & Current-Houseguest-the Gay-Idiot-Genius-Slacker-ex-Truckdriver-Who’s-Failed @ More-Get-Middleclass-Quick-Schemes Than-Most-People-Will-Ever-Misconceive-Of™ (CHGIGSeTWF@MGMCQStMPWEMCO) brother (and believe thou me I’m saying nothing I haven’t said to his face more times in any given month than Baskin Robbins has flavors- he’s like a brother to me except I love and like him and I think he would EXCEL in college but I also think we’ll see the Second Coming before his graduation and that’s really bad because I’m an atheist). I’m also not talking about the perpetual DUI committing criminally psychotic stepbrother who I mention here mainly to say that “His sorry ass is finally back in jail and prison bound for a long-long time”.

Now, the kid brother she moved in with has all of my ex-lover & CHGIGSeTWF@MGMCQStMPWEMCO’s practical sense combined with all of Dinah’s moral character and raw intelligence. This is a kid (I say kid- he’s actually about 23- some of my favorite and most-responsible friends have had kids of their own by that age) who “borrows” $500 from his mom, KNOWING that she cannot afford it and that it’s every penny she has and she only has it due to an IRS refund and a lot of doing without, so that he can use it as a downpayment on a car that he can use to help himself and help her to better themselves, and instead uses it to buy some pot, some DVD boxed sets, and two tattoos for his back that allegedly read “HONOR” and “PRIDE” in Chinese (a language that, much like post-5th-grade-reading-level-English, he can’t read, so he probably has General Tso’s Chicken- $4.45- Egg Roll $1.25 Extra. Add Two Sides and Medium Drink for $1.50 and Fucking American Stoners Will Pay $150 For Anything Halfway Exotic [and How Exotic is Chinese When There Are More than 1 Billion Native Speakers Including Thousands and Thousands in Atlanta? Fucking Oxygen Thief Douchebag] on his bony shoulders.

Anyway, their apartment is quite nice. Very nice. It’s in a “transitional” neighborhood (transitional being the Latin word for “renovated duplex between a MARTA stop and a crackhouse”) and about 1,400 square feet, 3 BR, convenient to… well, nothing, but very spacious and nice and $975 per month. The only problem is that that’s about their complete income most months because one or the other is always losing their job. So they’re constantly having to mooch money off of anybody and everybody they can and, since they’ve a tendency to use money borrowed from parents and friends and others to pay their rent and then used it to buy Ipods or FAMILY GUY SEASON 5 DVDs they were until recently continually on the verge of eviction.

Anyway, as said she didn’t want to take more than two years because “I can’t wait that long to get on with my career!” She wouldn’t hear of a Continuing Ed or community college (of which Atlanta has many) associate’s degree either- it has to be from a “world class degree issuing photography seminar”. Unfortunately she had no high school diploma, no experience as a photographer, and nothing but a portfolio thrown together on white printer paper at the last minute and made with a cheap digital camera and on which all of the shots (I wish I could link) are uniquely unimaginable and on par with Ma & Pa Snorkum’s shots of their trip to Rock City (“That there’s Ma from forehead down fallin’ off the swingin’ bridge… kind of blurry so you might not can tell them’s ducks peckin’ at her colostomy bag”). There’s not a whole lot of prestigious places willing to accept someone like this into their program.

But thank God and the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, there is one.

69

I won’t link to or identify it, but I’ll say the word “Portfolio” is in its name, it’s accredited as a graduate program by SACS or whatever other agency accredits art schools but it doesn’t require an undergraduate degree. (They award a completely different certificate or degree to students with no undergrad, but it’s exactly the same graduate level courses.) On their web-site they STRONGLY ENCOURAGE (bolding and emphasis theirs) *EITHER *an undergrad degree in photography or at least four years of experience as a photographer on a more-than-hobby level, though they state neither is absolutely required and “You could be the exception”. The school really genuinely does have a distinguished list of graduates and really does seem to be a very respected program.

However, the school is also proprietary (i.e. a “for profit” business). As with a lot of proprietary schools (including ones I’ve worked for) they receive no direct government funding but their students are qualified to receive federally subsidized or guaranteed student loan, so their governing motto is basically “We believe all students have the right to write us a big fat tuition check”. Dinah turned in her absolutely talentless portfolio and with a big fat tuition check paid for by your tax dollars and mine (because Dinah and the broke family member who cosigned will damned sure never pay it back thus the USDE will have to eat it) went to graduate school.

I tried explaining it to her- I was as nice and as un-condescending as I could be- “Dinah, I have been to graduate school- it’s hard work. It’s really late night assignments, it’s as demanding as any full time job, more than most. I have known many people who have been to all kinds of graduate schools in the arts and they’re at least as demanding. I have friends who are professional photographers and they both insist that THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA! To start by doing such adn afdaof aodu faldjnf aldjf lajd fla f” and what Dinah heard was “Liaodjf aod aofj aodjf aodjf adf GOOD IDEA! oaiudf aoidf aldf af!” Her mother, her brother, everybody tried to tell her this. Nope, no way but that she was gonna hurry up and jump right into her montage. Plucky kid from the streets goes to big fancy school (probably with panelled studies and stocky deans for good measure) and graduates to thunderous applause after a synthesizer montage and love affair with rich hunk who…

Or flunks out in the first quarter after squeezing every penny she can from every one she can. That, I am proud to say, did not include me. It did unfortunately include my ex-lover and CHGIGSeTWF@MGMCQStMPWEMCO, who gave her his laptop computer. The reason was that she was able to whine her dad and stepmother out of $1000 for a digital camera. But she didn’t have a computer to upload it on. He gave her his because, in the first place, she already had physical possession, in the second he didn’t want her to claim that flunking out was due to lack of a computer.

So Dinah decided to call it a “learning experience”. (What she learned other than she’s a worthless dumbass, which I could have told her for free, I’m not sure- in fact generally flunking out of a school means you* haven’t *learned, but…). She gets a job at another supermarket, she and her brother continue to be late on the rent every month for a while until they are absolutely on the verge of eviction.

Another word about that apartment: these two kids have a mother who is near indigent even though she works about 60 hours per week because she gives every spare dime to them. When her lease (actually in my ex’s name) was about to expire and she needed a place to stay her son [not my ex but the one with the General Tso’s Honor and Pride Buffet tattoo] told her, and said to others, “No way can she stay with me! I’m 23 years old! I don’t want to live with my mom!” (This is the same kid who had borrowed her last money to pay his lease a month or two before and then spent it on an Ipod.)

When they absolutely are on the verge of eviction- the landlord has started proceedings- their father [not a rich man- his fifth wife is middle class and the kids circle her like sharks, but all spare money goes to his younger two kids- quite a bad thing considering that he sometimes doesn’t pay his employees because he doesn’t have the cash] bails them out but assures them it is the last time and, furious over the way they refused to offer their mother, his ex-wife, a room, he tells them they’ll never get another penny of support from him even if they’re living on the street if they don’t get a roommate (they have 3 bedrooms and no furniture but wouldn’t get a roommate because “we need our space”). Realizing he was serious they finally got a roommate (other than the stray cats they don’t take care of and that are banned by the lease).

He’s a guy that Dinah met online.

He’s new to Atlanta.

He can’t afford to pay more than $100 per month because he’s only working parttime and most of his money goes to child support. (His kids are with their moms [plural] in another state or two.)

And he wants to move from where he’s living because the people he lives with are really self-righteous assholes.

That’s the problem so often with people who run halfway homes for recovering meth addicts.

She lets a meth addicted stranger she met online with no money and kids he doesn’t support move in with her when they’re already about two months behind on the rent.

Well on the plus side, he’s really cute. (Or was- he’s gone now.) So, again on the plus side, the baby might be cute as well.

Cause of course he knocked her up before leaving.

Consentually. She claims she wasn’t actually trying to get pregnant this time. “We only did it without a condom one time!” she asserts. (Not multiple times without condoms like she did with the other guys who have knocked her up.)
She decided to get an abortion. Unfortunately they won’t give you one immediately when you have a STD. Or, for that matter, two STDs.

Oy fucking vey.

But on the upside she’s no longer on the verge of eviction. She was evicted this weekend. In the midst of her constant calls to all and pleas for money, her brother (not my ex the etc etc etc but the Buffet tattoo wearer) called to “borrow $500 so I can go move in with my ex-girlfriend [the welfare mom] in Illinois til I get my shit together…”.

Meanwhile she’s using the latest unholy pregnancy as ultimate leverage, for she’s born again again (God miscarries her as often as she terminates her own pregnancies) and Papa Don’t Preach, I’m Keepin’ My Baby. So it’s fuckin’ deja fuckin’ vu all over again, but this time she’s further along in the pregnancy.

Goddamn the bitch.

It’s a hopeless situation.

UNLESS she’ll let it be adopted, which once again I’ve no idea how that will work, and this time it’s an even more desperate situation than before due to the thousands in debt from the school (speaking of which, fuck them- yeah she’s a dumbass idiot, but proprietary schools- even those that have genuinely good programs- PREY on fucking idiots whose hands can sign IOUs to the government, but that’s another pit thread) and she’s homeless. I sent through intermediaries (her brother my ex-L to his mother to Dinah) an offer of $1,000 cash as a gift, not a loan- IF (and after) she’ll sign a binding contract with an adoption agency but she returned through said intermediaries a sneer and “fuck you”, so she can starve for my part.
So, in the weirdest part of the story yet… an offer I never thought I’d make anybody.

I do not have kids. I do not want a child (I don’t and never have). I ended up having preliminary talks with Dinah’s mom about adopting/raising the kid myself and in a way that would allow Dinah to have (HIGHLY CONDITIONAL AND LEGALLY SPECIFIC) contact and visitation. Dinah’s own mother wouldn’t hear of it because “she’d probably never let you in the first place” (among other things the evil little bitch is homophobic) “and if she did I guarantee she’d make your life sheer hell and wouldn’t think twice of milking you dry over the rest of your life”.

Then I posed another solution. My sister speaks periodically of having a kid because she and her husband are very rich and they have no heir. Now, I do not think my sister would be a great mom- I don’t and never have- but I do think she’s a basically decent person who would never willfully hurt a child. I have legions time legions of philosophical and personal issues with her, the kid would have financial security and love, and I pity Dinah if she tried to make my sister’s life hell as “Dinah ain’t seen nasty til she sees my sister pissed”- what she lacks by way of our mother’s absolute insanity-when-angered she makes up for with a private fortune and lawyers.

But ultimately I and Dinah’s mother decided again, no, she wouldn’t go for it and we’d just be dragging in my sister. (Still, I told her to at least give a depth charge, but even on the eve of eviction she wouldn’t consider giving up the baby.)

So depressingly and infuriatingly there is an unborn child who would be better off being miscarried by than born to this impoverished evil self absorbed reservoir of loser-cum and unwarranted self perservation.

So once again… I’m not asking advice, just pitting, because there’s no advice to be had. She won’t consider letting it be adopted. Currently she’s sleeping on a friend of a friend’s sofa while waiting for either her mom (who now has a roommate who says “NO-WAY! NO-HOW! is she coming here” [and I don’t blame her in the least]) or her dad to agree to let her move in and of course she’s making vaguely suicidal comments to try and guilt them. (If they’re sincerely suicidal I don’t think she realizes how little anybody much gives a damn anymore; I’d have slight sympathy for the baby but again, I honestly think it would be better “going down with the ship” that being raised by that sack of shit where best case scenario is the 9th live in crack addict boyfriend will buy it an ice cream cone before molesting it.)

So the point is, always wear your seat belt. Or something.

Oh wait, no it’s not, it’s that I fucking hate my ex-Lover & Current-Houseguest-the Gay-Idiot-Genius-Slacker-ex-Truckdriver-Who’s-Failed @ More-Get-Middleclass-Quick-Schemes Than-Most-People-Will-Ever-Misconceive-Of™’s cum-soaked sorry ass WhiteTrash to the 43rd Power sister.

70

And don’t do drugs.

71

Okay, you’ve written 3000+ words tonight, and I’ve been hanging on each one. This is like a Thomas Hardy novel, except that instead of making me want to kill myself, it makes me want to give input. As you said, of course, no advice is needed. Which is good, because I ain’t got any. But observations:

*You don’t mention any other drugs besides pot, but Dinah’s behavior suggests to me heavy drug use. She didn’t want any other roommates because she ‘needed space’? That seems like code for “I don’t want anyone to interfere with my pot smoking.” Plus the constant need for more money. And the spending on entertainment-related stuff. (I mean, what stoner can get by without a boxed set of Family Guy?) If she’s, in fact, heavily into drugs, I wonder if some kind of rehab might be in order? (Not advice: just musing)

*IANAD. Or a psychiatrist. Or a social worker. Or even a woman. But all these miscarriages seem incredibly convenient for her. Is she using them as just another attention-getting device? That’s just awful if true. I feel dirty even suggesting it.

*Don’t you fucking dare get involved in any future offspring from her. I don’t even know you, but I know you deserve better. In that vein, I don’t see any adoption working in which Dinah has access to the adoptive parents. What would that relationship be like?

72

Don’t. They are a bit “convenient” and I’ve wondered if some aren’t abortions or false pregnancies (though I lean more towards abortion). I’ve told her, and a doctor friend I asked about it agrees, that if they are really miscarriages then she really needs to see a gynecologist because something could be seriously wrong; while I know that most pregnancies result in miscarriage (usually, if I’m not mistaken, without the mother ever realizing she was pregnant) it’s unusual for a healthy 20 something woman to have that many several weeks into the first trimester [she’s usually ‘miscarried’ around the 3 month mark].

As for drug use, pot’s the only one I know about but absolutely nothing would surprise me. I’m absolutely convinced her brother (not my ex but the one she lives with) does or has done meth because he’s gone from a cute twink to skin & bone and has what looks a lot like the sores meth addicts have. He’s also a total horndog who I’m surprised doesn’t already have 8 kids [or he might and they just know the uselessness of expecting him to do anything]).

I love my ex- any romantic part of the relationship is long gone but he’s a genuinely good person who essentially raised himself and made a lot of truly unwise life decisions along the way (more than most have, to be honest). However he has an intellect and a compassion his siblings simply lack. (The intellect’s from his father who lacks compassion, the compassion’s from his mother who lacks intellect.) I think that with a stronger family to guide him he’d have already gone far, but I’ve become pretty much convinced he’s going to be wearing hair nets when he’s 45 (he’s currently 31), the only person at the Red Lobster night shift who can discuss Argentine architects, Shakespearean humanism, discuss in detail what happens when californium atoms are bonded with iron [if that’s possible- just making chemical references cause he’s very interested in chemistry], do dead on impressions of most 70s’ celebrities and point out every major logical flaw in the Nicomachean Ethics all while wrapping silverware and getting the next shift’s salad ready. Perhaps the kid will have somebody to drive him/her, but it ain’t lookin’ good.

73

Sampiro, I’m surprised at you. You seem so compassionate, and yet look how you talk about this poor poor woman. You really need to approach her, sit down, and really talk things out. Something like this:

"Dinah, I know you’ve had a miserable existence. I know you don’t have the brains God gave a grape. I know that you’re a homophobic twat. I know that your life is so pathetic that your only hope is to bring another person into it who is totally dependant on you, so you can look at its innocence and maybe, just maybe, feel like you’re not a huge stinking shitstain. I know that it’s like money in the bank for you to have a baby, and attention in the bank to lose one.

And I absolutely know that if you ever manage to squeeze a living being out of that drafty Mack-truck garage you call your cunt, I will personally make it my mission to get that kid as far away from you as I can, as early as I can. Hell, I was willing to make arrangements to raise your child for you; I can afford to bribe your family away from you. [Maybe you can’t really, but she’s Not That Bright.] I will have Child Services on you like white on rice. I’ll move your mom somewhere nice and have the cops at your apartment every time that child cries for over ten minutes.

And if you ever, ever ask your mother for money again, I will personally have you arrested for extortion."

I know, it’s impractical. But chicks like her really depress me. I know if she feels threatened she’ll just flee the state, but eventually she’ll burn everyone who’s not family out. There are only 50 states.

(FTR, I’m indulging in hyperbole, and not actually advocating coercion to get women to give up their kids for adoption. This is mostly silly, please spare the anger.)

74

(oops)

75

Gosh hey, turns out my post was relevant after all!

Is this nutso involved with any church-like organization, being born again again and all? If there is some kind of pastor and he’s got two functioning braincells that aren’t occupied figuring ways to milk the congregation (which I find unlikely, if the congregation is at the IQ level of Dinah), he may be able to herd this cow in the right direction.

Why am I insulting cows? Please cows forgive me!

76

One great thing about Sampiro’s threads: whenever I start to feel that my life is shitty and screwed up, all I have to do is read about his life and relations to realize, “Hey! My life is actually pretty fucking good!”

Sam, if I had even half the drama in my life that you have in yours, there’d be a lot of bodies in unmarked graves in remote locations, and several missing-presumed-dead police investigations centered around me.

You poor bastard. :frowning:

77

*Short and chubby and tattooed and stupid
The girl from Panama City Beach goes walking
And when she passes
Each one she passes goes meh

Ooh but he watches so sadly
How can he tell her he loathes her
Yes he would give his hide gladly
If she walked right into the sea
She looks ahead not at he*

Yes, this has possibilities. I will send it on to Harry Connick Jr.

Unfortunately, this is comparable to mentioning that your grandfather smoked five packs of cigarettes a day for 50 years* and lived to be 80. Sometimes people do foolish things and beat the odds.
*We actually had a patient the other day with this smoking history - count 'em - 250 pack-years. Her salivary gland tumor (a kind linked to smoking) was benign. The odds that any future tumors will be benign are not all that great.

78

I got a question, and I’m honestly not trying to be snarky here, but how are her problems your problems? Is it just that she’s the sister of a former SO and current friend? If so, you should be advising your friend to cut off or limit contact with her. If he won’t it’s not your problem. I’m just saying she seems several degrees too removed from you for you to be this invested in her life. Sadly, there are tons of people like her out there, of every race, ethnicity and income level. Unless she’s directly tied to you, she’s not worth worrying about.

Of course if you’re just posting this for our entertainment, carry on. But it seems you’ve got enough family drama of your own without taking on someone else’s.

79

My only recommendation is to alert Child Services or Dept of Children and Family or whatever group deals with abused children. If it can be proved she’s an unfit mother then she’ll lose her rights from the get go.

80

That is so wrong. They buy the kid ice cream after molesting it.