After twenty-six years in the Coast Guard and a hard-earned retirement in a Margaritaville-branded community in Daytona Beach, Florida, Emily thought her next chapter was set. Then she noticed her husband's niece had vanished from his brother's Facebook page. What followed was a discovery that the seven-month-old had been placed in Florida's foster care system, and the beginning of an eighteen month legal battle that included a three day custody trial, allegations of fraudulent adoption paperwork, and a fight against a state system that seemed determined to keep her with a foster caregiver rather than family.
Emily and her husband ultimately adopted both the niece and, months later, her newborn brother, becoming parents to two young children in their fifties after raising a son who is now thirty. Emily talks about the toll of the legal process, what she learned about family adoption cases in Florida, the isolation of feeling like her family was fighting the system alone, and what it has been like to parent toddlers as a retired Gen Xer, decades after raising her first child.
Reality Life with Kate Casey
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Ireland