By Mary Lolli
Butler County Probate Judge Randy Rogers stood in his office and raised his
arms in a sweeping gesture.
"Their hearts are bigger than this room," Rogers said. "Those are the kind of
people who come to my courtroom seeking to adopt children."
Adoptions, Rogers says, are the best part of his job.
"When people in adoption cases leave my courtroom, a family is made. That
gives me a feeling that is just incredibly hard describe."
In the seven years since Rogers began presiding over adoptions in Butler
County, he has watched about 1,200 new families walk out of his courtroom.
Each case offers its unique set of circumstances, from grandparents adopting
grandchildren, to couples adopting foreign children, to private adoptions
arranged through attorneys, and so on.
But the common denominator for the parties involved is that they want to be
together as a family.
When Rogers talks about adoptions, he doesn’t care to get bogged down in
legal terminology and procedural issues. He prefers to share stories about some
of the more memorable moments in his courtroom.
One such case, which Rogers says is his most memorable, involved a 4-year-old
girl. The girl had been born 10 weeks premature. She weighed less than 2 pounds
and had a host of medical problems which kept her hospitalized for the first 14
months of her life.
Because the baby’s biological mother had continuing drug abuse problems,
Children Services officials placed the baby with foster parents.
"When the foster parents took this little girl home from the hospital she had
a tracheotomy and was on a ventilator," Rogers said. "But they gave her so much
love and so much care and attention, and when they came into my courtroom a few
years later for an adoption hearing, that little girl who was so ill and had so
many problems at birth, literally danced in the courtroom."
"It was really something to witness," Rogers said.
In a more recent case, involving a private adoption, Rogers again found
himself profoundly moved by the attitude of the prospective adoptive parents.
The adoption procedure was begun prior to the baby’s birth. But when the baby
was born medical complications created the possibility that brain damage might
show itself later.
So Rogers asked the prospective parents if they still wanted to go through
with the adoption.
"I wanted to make sure they were aware of what might lie ahead in terms of
the care for this child," Rogers said. "I asked them if they were aware that
there was a possibility that there could come a time when they would not be able
to care for the child in their home."
To Rogers’ delight the prospective mother said that if it came to that, then
she and her husband would become fierce advocates to guarantee "their baby" got
the best care available.
Contrary to popular belief, Rogers said the actual adoption process doesn’t
take "forever." State law requires that prospective adoptive parents, who are
not blood relatives of the child, have the child living in their home for at
least six months prior to finalizing the adoption.
"There’s a common misconception that adoptions take years to go through the
process and that is just not the case," he said. "Most adoptions take between 60
and 90 days from the filing of the petition to the final hearing because the
child is already living with the prospective adoptive parents."
The only exceptions, generally, are those adoptions where there’s a contested
issue. "But that’s not really that common, at least not that I’ve seen in Butler
County," Rogers said.
While Rogers said all adoptions represent defining moments in the lives of
the families involved, in his courtroom toddler age and older children involved
leave with a very particular memory -- that of banging the gavel on their own
adoption.
At his bench, Rogers keeps three gavels of graduated sizes which he calls
"baby bear," "mama bear" and "papa bear."
At the conclusion of final adoption hearings, Rogers explains to the children
involved that nothing is final until the strike of the judge’s gavel. He then
invites the children to come up to the bench, pick up the gavel that’s
appropriate for their size and strike it.
"It empowers them to be part of finalizing their own adoption," Rogers said.
And when it's done, Rogers tells the children they are part of the family.
