| Verbal Agreement & Rights
What is the name of your state? I live in Texas, but the adoption in question took place in Arkansas.
Eleven years ago my first husband and I divorced and I was granted custody of our two children. Several months later, things were going very badly for me and I made the difficult decision to let the children live with him instead. The details of everything that happened aren't important, but I will note that the choice was in the best interest of the children.
We made a very amicable agreement with each other that I would still be able to see them whenever I wanted. The only thing that would change would be their primary place of residence. This agreement worked very well for us even after he remarried a couple of years later, and his new wife seemed amicable to the arrangement.
Everything continued to work well for another couple of years, which is why I never suspected a thing when they approached me to discuss a problem they were having with insurance for the kids. At the time my ex-husband was working as a farm hand so he didn't have company-sponsored health insurance. His wife, however, had a job that offered insurance, but they wouldn't let her put the kids on her plan because she wasn't their legal mother or guardian. (I am a self-employed writer and also don't have access to health coverage except through my spouse.)
When they asked me if his wife could adopt the kids in order to take care of the problem, I never suspected they might be setting me up. I mean, it's not like we were all great pals or anything (we don't even live in the same state), but our "system" had worked fine for all of us up to that point. After the adoption took place, things didn't immediately change, probably because they didn't want to tip their hand right away, but the situation did eventually start to sour.
For the past two or three years, it has become increasingly difficult to get their agreement to see my children. All their promises of "this is simply a logical, financial solution to an insurance problem" and "absolutely nothing will change about your ability to see your children" and "we would never try to keep you from them" have been thrown to the winds. I'm now aware that this is probably what they meant to do to me all along, and I freely admit that I am definitely the world's biggest fool.
Based on all the research that I've done, I'm already pretty confident that anyone who responds will tell me that my rights are completely gone. The only hope I have is that there might be something I can do because of the broken verbal agreements. According to those agreements, my ability to see my children would not change, regardless of who was "legally" designated as their mother. I know that sometimes verbal agreements can be binding, but I don't know exactly what the circumstances have to be. How binding would a verbal agreement be in a case like this?
I'm also curious about some bits and pieces of information I've read about adoption fraud. What exactly constitutes adoption fraud? Would lying through their teeth to me to get me to agree to the adoption constitute fraud? Or would they have had to coerce me in some illegal way such as threatening me? If any of these applied, would I be limited by time? It's been about five or six years since the adoption took place, but like I said, they didn't immediately start denying me access. I'm worried that could be because some kind of time limit is running out for me to accuse them of fraud.
As you can see, I'm confused on a lot of issues (and incredibly heartsick over my gullibility and stupidity). We haven't completely gotten to the point where they won't let me see them at all, but I have no doubt that's where they're headed. We'd probably already be there if my kids weren't on the other side insisting they want to see me. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! | 
07-26-2002, 06:18 AM
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