Sad, sad story 😭...an effed-up cousin and his effed-up girlfriend are addicts. She used hard drugs during pregnancy 😭😭😭 and their baby was rightfully taken from them and placed with the baby's grandma, my aged aunt. The baby is now four months and the parents stopped coming around. The mom was found using again shortly thereafter, violated court orders and is onto serving multiple sentences. It will be years before she is out and she has lost all rights. Same for the dad, my cousin, who is just freaking useless. Good riddance, or in DH's words: parents like that should be left in a deep cave...

Unfortunately the whole thing is so hard on my aunt who has full custody and is hardly surviving the trials of raising an infant especially under these circumstances. The baby is healthy but has some mild effects of being born under the influence. Time will tell. My aunt is slowly coming to realize that she is struggling (she deals with bouts of depression) and has started to talk about putting the baby up for adoption, if she could remain a grandmother to the child. She lives in a rural area and isn't really aware of resources for this kind of thing and frankly I am to starting from scratch, too, to help her (from afar and with the help of my mom, her sister).

DH and I have talked about whether we could adopt the child as our own. Our DS is 8 months so the timing is difficult, among other challenges, but this little one is part of my extended family and deserves what my boy has -- boundless love forever and ever. It just pains me for this sweet innocent one. After several conversations, we arrive at the same conclusions: we just don't think we can do right by DS or this little one, with them being so close in age, having two in daycare, having two parents with demanding jobs, and generally already feeling the strains of one LO on our marriage. One is probably where we are going to stop...(insert my IF baggage here). There are other family members who are in better positions to step in, but no one has done so yet.

I know that there are amazing would-be parents that would walk through fire to adopt. I want so bad for them to find this little one. ❤️😭❤️
Any and all adoption insight and resources to provide my aunt are appreciated. And any further suggestions on doing what I can to advocate for this child from afar would be helpful too. Basically just anything helps, including generous thoughts and prayers for the child.