Trigger Warning: This post contains descriptions of child abuse, which my be a trigger for some abuse survivors.
I've never spent much time in or near family court. Even when Parker's adoption was finalized, D.C. family court was having an "adoption day," where almost nothing was on the docket but adoption finalizations. Our attorney told us that the judges really loved "adoption day, " because it was such a welcome change from what they saw on a daily basis. But that day, we were so happy that we didn't give much thought to what the family court judges see all day. After all, we hadn't seen it.
But yesterday was different. We were among four families finalizing adoptions yesterd[...]