Opinion
No. 2-710 / 02-1126.
Filed August 28, 2002.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Duane E. Hoffmeyer, Judge.
Mother appeals an order terminating her parental rights.
AFFIRMED.
Douglas L. Roehrich, Sioux City, for appellant.
Pat Parry, Sioux City, for father.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Tabitha Gardner, Assistant Attorney General, Thomas S. Mullen, County Attorney, and Marlene Loftus, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee-State.
Michelle Dreibelbis, Sioux City, for minor children.
Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Miller and Hecht, JJ.
Jill is the mother of C.N., born in September 2000, and D.R., born in November 2001. Jill's parental rights to C.N. and D.R. were terminated pursuant to Iowa Code sections 232.116 (1)(b), (d), (e), (g), (h), and (i) (Supp. 2001). Jill appeals. She does not claim the State failed to prove the grounds for termination under any one or more of the six separate statutory provisions. Rather, she contends only that termination was not in the children's best interest. We affirm.
"We review termination proceedings de novo. Although we are not bound by them, we give weight to the trial court's findings of fact, especially when considering the credibility of witnesses." In re C.B., 611 N.W.2d 489, 492 (Iowa 2000) (citations omitted). Even if statutory requirements for termination are met, the decision to terminate must still be in the children's best interests. In re M.S., 519 N.W.2d 398, 400 (Iowa 1994).
Upon our review of the record we find overwhelming evidence that termination of Jill's parental rights is in the children's best interest. C.N. and D.R. are Jill's third and fourth children. Her first child, I.N., was born in May 1998. Shortly thereafter Jill abandoned him and he was placed in the custody and guardianship of Jill's mother. Her second child, M.N., was born in July 1999. M.N. was adjudicated a child in need of assistance (CINA) based on abuse or neglect. Jill's parental rights to M.N. were terminated in August 2000, shortly before the September 2000 birth of C.N.
Jill has a lengthy history of illegal drug use, homelessness, lack of employment, and lack of any visible means of support. She has been extremely unstable in her relationships, having had four children by four different men, to none of whom she has been married, in a three and one-half year period. She has left M.N., and more recently C.N., with inappropriate caretakers. She has failed to tell persons in whose care she has left her children where she would be or how she could be contacted. She has refused most services offered by the State over her four years of involvement in CINA and termination proceedings, and has not cooperated with those few services that she has not refused.
Both C.N. and D.R. were removed from Jill's care very shortly after their respective births and have remained in foster care since removal. Jill has maintained only sporadic and intermittent contact with the Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS), and has moved numerous times without informing DHS of her whereabouts. In her limited contacts with the DHS she has not inquired about the children. The children have had essentially no contact with her, are not bonded with her, and do not know her. At the time of the June 7, 2002 termination hearing Jill had recently begun serving a sixty-day jail sentence for a probation violation.
C.N. and D.R. deserve a stable home and should not be required to wait any longer for Jill to become a responsible parent. See In re E.B.L., 501 N.W.2d 547, 551 (Iowa 1993) (noting that we cannot preserve in law a relationship which does not exist in fact, with the children committed indefinitely to the parentless limbo of foster care).
AFFIRMED.