Pictures of you

It was Easter Sunday. Roy and Michelle Rodriguez were sitting at their dining room table, flipping through their foster daughter Nathaly's photo album: Nathaly, small and shriveled, shortly after birth; Nathaly dressed as a giraffe on her first Halloween; Nathaly on her first birthday, in pink and wearing a queen's crown and smiling infectiously.

"This book was on the table earlier today," said Roy Rodriguez, holding the photo album. "I knew it was her pictures, but I haven't looked at it in awhile. I was sitting here today looking at it from beginning to end and I started to tear up."

Forgive Roy Rodriguez if he seems sentimental. Soon, this photo album may be all he has to remind him of Nathaly.

Nathaly Sosa was born on Nov. 25, 2003. According to court papers, Nathaly and her mother Yesenia Sosa had amphetamine and methamphetamine in their systems. Nathaly was placed in the custody of the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, which began to investigate the case.

A few weeks later, the court papers showed, Clark County Child Protective Services contacted Nathaly's grandmother Maria Sosa. Sosa was already taking care of her daughter Yesenia's five other children. And while she wanted to keep the family together, the papers showed, she was unsure if she could care for another child. The caseworker, believing Sosa could not, recommended Nathaly be placed somewhere else.

In December 2003, Roy and Michelle Rodriguez became Nathaly's foster parents. About six months later, they decided to adopt Nathaly. That's when Maria Sosa resurfaced and said she wanted to care for her granddaughter.

The case was heard before District Court judge Gerald Hardcastle, who ruled in favor of the Rodriguezes.

"I looked at the bonding," said Hardcastle. "I thought by the time the case got to me, the child had been in that home for quite a while. If you want to look at what's fundamentally appropriate for the child, that has to be a consideration. What they said was that initial decision should be made without regard to bonding."

"They" are the justices of the Nevada Supreme Court. In March 2006, the court overturned Hardcastle's decision and gave Maria Sosa guardianship of Nathaly.

"It's a huge loss for us," said Michelle Rodriguez. "It's like losing your child, like your child has died. We're not going to be able to visit her. We're not going to be able to talk to her or look at her or anything. It's going to be hard. In the morning, I love to see her smile and wake up and hear her laugh. I'm not going to have that anymore."

Added Roy Rodriguez, "I'm heartbroken. When we first got the news, I broke down in tears right then and there at work. I just couldn't handle it. She is daddy's little girl. She comes to me all the time and I hold her. She wants me to play with her. You're talking about a baby we've had since she was 4 weeks old."

The Rodriguezes are in the process of "transitioning" Nathaly over to Sosa. This process includes therapy sessions for Nathaly and counseling for the Rodriguezes, who have to give Nathaly over to Sosa before the end of the month.

Barbara Buckley, who argued Sosa's appeal before the Supreme Court, said "there are a lot of victims in this case." But, she said, the court made the right decision.

"What went horribly wrong in this case is the foster care system decided to give the child away to foster parents because of unfounded conjecture that a family of six was too big to keep together for a grandmother," said Buckley, executive director of Clark County Legal Services. "It's horrible that it took almost two and a half years to reverse it."

Buckley, a member of the state Assembly since 1995, has sponsored several bills related to the foster care system.

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, said the goal of her department is to keep children with their natural parents. If that's not possible, she said, the department looks for a relative who can care for the children. If that doesn't work, it looks for qualified foster parents.

Klein-Rothschild and Hardcastle said there's no clear time limit on when a relative can come forward and claim a child.

"It's a decision made by the court and we'll abide by the decision," said Klein-Rothschild. "But it does sadden me and others to see children and parents have to experience this kind of pain and loss. Whenever a child moves, they lose something that they had.

We don't want to see that happen.

We want to make the decisions up front, early, and ask people to make commitments early, so children don't have to experience additional moves and adults who care for them don't suffer a loss."

Matt O'Brien is CityLife's news editor. He can be reached at 871-6780 ext. 350 or mobrien@lvcitylife.com.