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Welcome to We Are the Hansens, where chaos meets courage
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and the beauty of motherhood shines through every challenge. I'm
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Maya Hanson, a mom navigating the wild, wonderful, and often
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overwhelming world of raising thirteen kids. Join me as I
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share the real, raw and relatable struggles of motherhood, from
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the sleepless nights to the joyful victories and everything in between.
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This is a space for every mom who feels like
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they are juggling a million hats and still searching for
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time to breathe. Because, let's face it, motherhood isn't always
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Pitcher perfect, but it's always worth it. This is We
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Are the Hansens. I'm the host, Maya Hansen, and I'm
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going to start off by giving you guys a little
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background from when I was young. When I was eighteen
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years old, I found out that I was pregnant. I
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was juggling too jobs, and I was scared. I was
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really scared. I didn't know what I was going to do.
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I made contact with the baby's dad and I let
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him know that he was going to be a father.
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In return, I was told by him that he didn't
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want no other children as he had children of his
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own already, and he tried to convince me to get
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an abortion, and that was not happening.
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I was not going through that.
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Later on down the road, I had a friend who
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I'd been friends with for quite some time. His name
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was Jeremy, and I was about six weeks pregnant with
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my baby. He reached out to me and asked me
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if I would like to go to dinner with him
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at his mom I was pretty scared. I was very nervous.
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I didn't want his family to think poorly of me
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because here I'm a new mom, I'm eighteen, I'm pregnant,
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and now I'm with another man going to dinner with him.
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We weren't even dating at that point. We were just friends,
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but I had a feeling that he kind of liked me,
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and I started having the feeling of liking him as well.
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I was starting to fall for him, as he was
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the person that I could talk to and tell things
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to and get advice from. It was not easy to
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let him know that I was going to have a baby,
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but he was that friend, the friend that I've really
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enjoyed having in my life.
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Well.
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Needless to say, I ended up taking him up on
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his offer of going to dinner at his mom's and
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we went to dinner, me being scared. I didn't want
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them to think bad of me. I didn't want them
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to think bad of him for seeing a girl. You know,
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he's just as a parent, you get those feelings like
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is my son or daughter going to be okay with
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having to deal with like my situation, a person that's
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going to have a baby, that's going to have to
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deal with the bio father and all of the chaos
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that comes along with it.
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And we ended up.
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He ended up eventually asking me out to date. I
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did accept and started dating him. We ended up about
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three years later. My daughter Morgan, we went through the
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court system because her bile father owned three liquor stores
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and never wanted to pay child support, even though it
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was court ordered that he pay.
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The court order.
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He would pay, but it wasn't the amount that he
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was ordered to pay. I got a check in the
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mail for ninety five cents, which wasn't even enough to
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cash the check for one But he was trying, is
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what the court said, so nothing was ever done about it. Well,
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one day he decided that he was going to take
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me back to court to reduce child support, even though
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he wasn't paying the amount he was ordered. We ended
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up going to court and while I'm at court, he
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served me with a court order to take me back
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to court for part custody of Morgan. At this point,
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I was upset because he hadn't been involved in her
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life at all. Three years of not being involved, barely
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helping at all with his ninety five cent check. I
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don't know how many parents can buy diapers with ninety
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five cents, but I know it's not not even close
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to enough to buy a pack of diapers, or shoes,
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or clothes or any needs she had. Jeremy was always
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the dad, always helped pay for anything she needed, always
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provided us with a stable roof over our heads, and
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made sure that we had food. Me and him put
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together everything we had. We were both working, we were
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both providing. We had other children to provide for as well.
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But at this time, I was like, you know, I'm
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not giving in to this court. I am not giving
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in to him. He has not been a part of
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our life. I mean, it was very rough at that time.
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We ended up I ended up going home from court
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that day, Me and Morgan and I told Jeremy that
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I was packing my things and I was leaving. He
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looked at me and he said, Maya, you can't run.
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You have to face it because you're going to get
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in trouble if you take off and not go to court.
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He said, get in the car. We're going to go
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see an attorney.
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So me, being who I am, I listened because he
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was always the advice giver that I looked up to,
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the one that I trusted, the one that I cared about.
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We ended up going to an attorney.
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And we walked in and mind you, we have other children,
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so it was not easy with money. Money was always
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tight for us. We went in and Jeremy had five
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hundred dollars in his pocket and the attorney said, it's
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going to be twenty five hundred to start this case.
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And I just started crying. I didn't know how I
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was going to come up with that money. Jeremy knew
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that I was struggling with sadness and depression. At that point,
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he said to the attorney, I have five hundred dollars.
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Will you take the five hundred dollars and start the
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case and in two weeks we'll bring back two thousand
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dollars and pay you.
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The attorney kind of you know.
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He hawed around and he said, I'll take it. My
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heart sank when he said that, because I thought, Wow,
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things are really starting to look up for us. Things
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are gonna We're gonna have an attorney, We're going to
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be able to get this figured out. I was not
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the parent that was going to let a man who
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had never been around my child, never met my child,
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take her for a full summer without not having any
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contact with me.
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That'd be like.
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Somebody taking your child away and putting them in a
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home where they don't know anybody there, they've never been
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around the person. I just at three years old, I
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three and a half years old.
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You know.
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I was not going to put my child through that.
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So regardless, we got the attorney and me and Jeremy
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left the office and went home.
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And it was probably an hour or two.
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Later the attorney contacted us and he said that he
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had gotten all the paperwork filed, that he was the
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attorney for us, and we just wait to see what happens.
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Well.
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Next court hearing came around and went to court and
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he entered his appearance, set the court hearing and pretty
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much said that we were going to be filing some
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other motions. I ended up having to do a counseling thing,
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like a mediation type deal with the bile father, and
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that did not work because he wanted to take her
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all summer, no contact with me, and then return her
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at the end of summer. And I just couldn't do
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that to my kid. I just could not do it.
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I knew she'd be scared, she wouldn't know anybody. Granted
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a lot of people say, well, she'd get to know him,
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but that just wasn't the case. She had never met
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this person. And I don't know about any of you,
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if you guys would put your child through that, but
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I just I kind of look back and thought if
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my parents did that to me, I'd be devastated.
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So mediation didn't work.
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My attorney asked me a week after mediation, after the
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mediator said that it just wasn't working, what I wanted
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to do next? Me and Jeremy met with him. Jeremy
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told him that he would like to adopt my daughter,
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Morgan through step parent adoption. So he wrote all the
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paperwork up and sent an email to my daughter's bio
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father and let him know that Jeremy has been Morgan's
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dad for all these years, has been providing for her,
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going to doctor's appointments with her, being there for her
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since she was born. Well, he said, we'll see how
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this goes. The attorney did, and we'll go from there
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while he received an email back a couple hours after
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he had sent the email to the bio dad, and
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the biodad said that he was willing to sign off
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his rights to Jeremy through step parent adoption if we
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dropped child support and we removed all the arrears from
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his name. When the attorney made contact with us, me
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and Jeremy said, let's do it. Let's just be done
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with it. So the attorney ended up putting in his
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motions and getting all the paperwork drawn up for step
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parent adoption. Obviously, when it comes to a child through
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step parent adoption, you have to go through the DFS,
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you have to go through a guardian at Lightham that
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represents the child, you have to go through the Department
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of Family Services, and all these hoops to jump, and
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we did it. We jumped through the hoops and the
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day finally came where we had to go to court
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to finalize the step parent adoption. I can tell you
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it was one of the happiest days of my life.
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I have never felt such relief, such happiness, and such
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emotion then I felt that day we walked into court.
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The bile father did not want to face us in court,
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so he did his voicing over the phone and we
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got in there in front of the judge and we
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realized that the judge in this adoption.
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Was my husband's.
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Children from his previous marriages, old Guardian at Lighthm. He
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was the his kids is Guardian at light him at
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one point before he became a judge. We walked into
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that courtroom with the Guardian at lightem me and my husband,
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our attorney and DFS social worker, and the judge called
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our case and it was almost like.
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He knew.
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He knew how we were, he knew what we were
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going through, and he looked at us said what he
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had to say. The Guardian at Lighthem had spoke for
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a brief moment on Morgan's behalf and made sure that
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she talked to the biofather and make sure that you
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know there was no threats made to him to force
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him into doing this, which nobody had to threaten him.
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It was just his way of getting out of it,
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if you know what I mean. The judge got up
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and pretty much looked at us and said, we have
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a well known, upstanding gentleman here that's willing to take
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on the responsibilities of a child that is not his,
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and we today are granting to finalize this step parent
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adoption to Jeremy Hansen. Of course, me who I am,
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wear my heart on my sleeves. A lot of the
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times broke down in tears, happy tears. For that, my husband,
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Jeremy broke down in happy tears. And that was the
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end of the adoption. I mean, it was over, It
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was done. We didn't have to deal with that anymore.
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It was amazing the feeling that we had. Well, that
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was the end of that. Jeremy was now my daughter
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Morgan's dad, and we ended up having two boys and
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another daughter, and then we ended up moving to Missouri
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where we ended up having another daughter, Torren, and our
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final edition, Anlin. That was kind of a train wreck
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going through that. I was told after torn that I
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would never be able to have children. My uterus was
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pretty bad and I had a major hemorrhage in my uterus.
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I ended up going.
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To the hospital because I was hemorrhaging, and they did
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blood tests and urine samples to see if I was pregnant.
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Both of those came negative. I was pretty scared at
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that point, since you know, they couldn't figure out why
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I was hemorrhaging.
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I didn't know what was going to happen.
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Well, the doctor came in and said he was ordering
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an ultrasound to see exactly where the hemorrhage was. The
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ultrasound tech came in about twenty minutes later, did my
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ultrasound and said, well, your pregnancy test came back negative,
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but I am detecting a heartbeat, so there's got to
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be a baby in there somewhere. The doctor came in
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and spoke to me. He told me and Jeremy that
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the hemorrhage was so big in my uterus that it
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was blocking the baby, so they could not see the fetus.
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I was nervous.
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I was scared, I was sad. Jeremy was scared and nervous.
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We couldn't believe that we were having another baby. Well,