Adoption involves lots of red tape, by all accounts. So imagine having all the Is finally dotted and the stars magically aligned, only to find the birth parent coming out of the woodwork and trying to stake their claim on the child given up for adoption? Yeah, that.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, a little girl with Cherokee heritage was set to be adopted by a South Carolina couple when the biological dad stepped forward and asked them to reconsider, claiming the girl's "emotional well-being" was at risk.
"Please, for Veronica's sake, just stop. Stop, and ask yourself if you really believe this is best for her," said birth father Dusten Brown.
This, after adoptive parents Matt and Melanie Capobianco had already been raising the girl for the first two years of her life when a court ruled that three-year-old Veronica was to live with her father due to his American Indian heritage.
To complicate matters further, the U.S. high court later overruled that decision, since Brown wasn't married to Veronica's birth mother, nor had he provided her with any support under the Indian Child Welfare Act.
The Capobiancos are now waiting for custody to be returned to them, though Brown is fighting back, concerned that the little girl will feel "fearful, scared, anxious and confused" under their care.
"[She] may cry herself to sleep," Brown said. "I will not voluntarily let my child go through that, no parent would."
(Interestingly, Veronica's mother approved of the adoption by the Capobiancos.)
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