The worst fear of every parent who adopts domestically is that a birth parent will decide he or she wants the child back. That’s exactly what happened in two custody battles that culminated in two very different outcomes.

The first case involved a Florida boy, now 4 ½, whose birth mother placed him for adoption in May 2001, when he was two days old. A month before the adoption was supposed to be finalized, the boy’s biological father filed a motion demanding custody. At that time, the judge informed the adoptive parents that the birth father would likely gain custody.

The birth mother supported the adoption until it appeared the court might grant the birth father’s request for custody. In late December 2004, the birth mother was awarded custody (she lives in Illinois, is married to someone else and has an infant daughter) and the birth father was given liberal visitation rights. The adoptive parents appealed the ruling but the court took no action, so today, the little boy went to live with his biological mother.

The second case mirrors the first one: a birth mother made an adoption plan and placed her son with a Colorado couple when he was 3 days old.

Somewhere along the line (I don’t have the details but I assume it must have been fairly soon after the boy was born), the birthmother changed her mind and won rulings from judges in Missouri (her home state) and Colorado that her son be returned to her. The Colorado Supreme Court intervened and said that a District judge needed to decide what was in the “best interests” of the child in determining custody.

Wonder of wonders, the birth mother and adoptive parents agreed privately that the boy’s adoptive parents should continue their role as parents and his birth mother will move to Colorado to be near him and involved in critical decisions as he grows up. “He has three people who absolutely love him so much that they’d be willing to do anything,” said the boy’s biological mother.