Strangers to the Blood

In a highly controversial and publicized custody case, Jean DeMartino and her husband Nick battled a birth mother who revoked her legal surrender to a prominent New York adoption agency. After personally delivering the child to foster care, the mother changed her mind after the infant girl was already with adoptive parents in a loving home. The birth mother apologized to the court for any trouble her flip-flop caused. The court's decision to return that baby began a legal struggle that traversed the New York then Florida courts and finally the United States Supreme Court. Jean DeMartino, Lenore's adoptive mother, relates heartaches and emotional upheavals a family endures when judges overlook "the best interests of the child."