A Michigan couple said they'll keep fighting to retain custody of the child they've raised since birth, despite an appeals court order to return the 2-year-old girl to her biological parents in Iowa.
"Knowing that it's not over yet, you cannot describe the pain of having your heart torn out and knowing that your daughter may go away very soon," Jan DeBoer said Tuesday.The DeBoers' effort to adopt the girl they named Jessica snagged when the biological mother, who initially signed the child over for adoption, admitted she misidentified the father.
The father, Daniel Schmidt of Blairstown, Iowa, demanded custody after learning the truth. The biological parents later married.
The unanimous Michigan Court of Appeals ruling released Tuesday reversed a lower court judge who granted the DeBoers custody. They said they'll appeal to the state Supreme Court.
"In our minds, Jessica will always be our daughter, forever," DeBoers said.
The girl's biological mother was overjoyed at the ruling.
"We're just very, very thankful to God that she's finally going to be able to come home," Cara Schmidt said in a TV interview from Iowa.
The couple has asked to visit the child for the next three weekends in anticipation of the ruling.
Cara Schmidt, then unmarried, gave the child up for adoption 40 hours after the February 1991 birth. She had named another man as the father but later told Schmidt the truth, triggering the legal battle.