We are still in limbo with little to update.
The follow up meeting with the administrators and adoption team happened. The supervisor who was condescending and obviously against us moving forward with our adoption in the last meeting sent a list of questions to our marriage counselor before we met. The response she got back was blunt (and hilarious, but I'm sure only to me); the agency is outside their scope by pushing into issues that do not impact the well being of our children. I was nervous walking into the meeting knowing that exchange had occurred. I was pleasantly surprised when we were met with smiling faces and supportive accolades from the team. The meeting was short and sweet. None of that means anything, though.
On St. Patrick's Day, we had the fair hearing to overturn the indication on Brandon from the investigation back in August. The indication is still the thing holding up our adoption process. We really need it to be overturned. We hired a lawyer who is as confident as we are that the evidence in the CPS investigation does not support any theory that Brandon neglected or abused Baby 12. Further, when he obtained the CPS file, it was clear that CPS doesn't have a theory at all. He said the report is the equivalent of saying, "The sky was blue on Thursday. You were outside on Thursday. You made the sky blue.". I was still sick to my stomach walking into the court building, though. The CPS investigator, county attorney, our attorney, and us were the only people there. I could not go in because I am a witness and could not hear the investigator's testimony. I waited in the lobby for 3 hours. Occasionally I heard our lawyer raise his voice. It seemed pretty intense. They were not done questioning the investigator before the judge said we had run out of time and had to come back for a continuation. We had waited all this time, and nothing happened. Again. Brandon and our lawyer were both pleased with how it went. I guess that's something.
Then we went back to waiting.