Many of the stories on the website are happy stories. Some stories start out sad and finish happy. This is a sad story. The names of the people in the story have been changed because there are little children involved.

Suzanne is the youngest of a big family. When she was a little girl, she went away from her family for school. There was no school for her where her family lived. She went home on the weekends. She stayed with a foster family during the week.

Suzanne got married and had a son when she was 21. Her marriage was not a happy one. Her husband had a temper.

Gilbert moved into the town where Suzanne lives in 1997. They met at a social group and soon they were friends. One day Gilbert asked Suzanne what was going on. She told him she wanted to divorce her husband. Gilbert asked her 5 times if she was sure. Then he helped her get help from Legal Aide to get a divorce.

Suzanne and Gilbert moved in together. Suzanne’s 9-year old son and Gilbert’s 15 year-old daughter Mary lived with them. Mary had a baby when she was 16 years old. When Mary decided to keep the baby she moved out to be on her own.

Suzanne got pregnant with twins. Gilbert and Suzanne decided to send her son to his aunt in Drumheller until after the twins were born and everything was settled.

Gilbert and Suzanne’s twin girls were born in April 1999. They were born about 1 month early. The girls spent the first month of their lives in a hospital in Edmonton. After a while it was time for Suzanne and Gilbert to bring the girls home to northern Alberta. The hospital told Suzanne and Gilbert they could not take the girls home because they did not have the right car seats. They bought car seats for the girls but still they were not allowed to take the girls home.

A social worker told Suzanne and Gilbert to sign a paper so the girls could go into a foster home or there would be a court order. There were some people at the hospital ready to take the girls. Then Suzanne and Gilbert signed a paper saying that Suzanne’s brother and his wife would take care of the babies. Suzanne and Gilbert had no one to ask what to do, so they signed the paper. They thought they would be able to see their girls more if her brother had them because the girls would live closer to them.

Suzanne and Gilbert named their girls when they were in the hospital. Suzanne’s brother and his wife named them something else when they took them home. They are going to adopt Suzanne and Gilbert’s babies.

The Court said that Gilbert and Suzanne had the right to see the twins. They have to call first before they go there. Her brother or his wife had to be with them all the time they are with the girls. This arrangement worked okay for a while. Suddenly the girls were not there when they visited. The girls turned three years old in April 2002. In October 2002 Suzanne and Gilbert had seen the girls one time since their birthday.

Meanwhile, Suzanne’s older boy did not come back from his aunt’s home in Drumheller. Suzanne and Gilbert were not allowed to talk to him and Suzanne did not know if he was getting her letters. She was afraid he would think that she forgot him, or didn’t love him. Suzanne and Gilbert saw him once after a year. He and his aunt came to northern Alberta to see the family. Suzanne says that her son followed her everywhere and wanted to stay with her. He cried really hard when he had to leave.

Recently, Suzanne and Gilbert learned that her son is in foster care. He is not living with his aunt any more. They have a lawyer with funding from AACL (Alberta Association for Community Living) to help them get her son back living with them. They have to take parenting training before he can come to live with them. They had some bad experiences with the agency that gives the parenting training before Suzanne’s son went away. At that time Suzanne and Gilbert were not allowed to go anywhere without the worker. When the worker was there their friends would not come to their place.

Gilbert and Suzanne do not know what they want to do at this point. They want to know their children and they want to be parents to them. Suzanne misses her son. Suzanne and Gilbert think of the son and the girls all of the time.

They see a counsellor to help them deal with their feelings. They have a lawyer to help them with the law. Suzanne is taking computer courses to help her with secretarial skills and to learn about the Internet. Gilbert is almost finished his Business Plan and he is running his own business. The local agency provides them with lots of support through funding from PDD, so not everything is bad. Maybe soon they can see all three of the children more often.

P.S. Gilbert and Suzanne heard that the Court says it is okay for Suzanne and Gilbert to write and telephone her son. Things are looking up!