Couple Fight Red Tape to Adopt Fragile Girl They Love

Every day of Brianna Bird’s fragile life has been paid for by the taxpayers of California. And those who cherish the young girl with the soft brown eyes admit that this probably will not change for the rest of her life.

Still, after years of legal hassles--and even some legislative maneuvering--Tim and Lesly Birdare still struggling to formally adopt Brianna, who is getting close to 5.

Brianna’s story has been well documented by the local news media. Born three months prematurely and weighing only 3 pounds, the little girl must be hooked to an oxygen tank 24 hours a day and must be fed intravenously.

In all, counting nursing care and therapists, it costs about $27,000 a month to keep Brianna alive. From the beginning, her medical care has been paid by the state’s Medi-Cal program and the County of Orange.

So long as Brianna remains in foster care in the Birds’ Yorba Linda home, that arrangement will continue. However, for the past three years the Birds have been trying to adopt her--and that magnanimous effort has been the source of the Birds’ biggest frustration.

For all practical purposes Brianna belongs to Tim and Lesly Bird and always will. But under present law, if they adopt her, the child will no longer be a ward of the county. Thus, the county would no longer be responsible for the high monthly medical bills.

The state Department of Social Services has refused to pick up those expenses if she is adopted. The relief the Birds want, however, will come if a bill by Sen. Edward Royce (R-Anaheim) is approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor. The bill would cause the state to pay for the same medical costs for an adopted child that were being paid by a government agency while the child was in foster care.

The bill already has passed unanimously in the Senate and Royce is optimistic the Assembly will give its own wholehearted blessing before the current session ends in September.

While the bill has been undergoing the typically slow legislative scrutiny, the battle for Brianna has been waged on another front: a courtroom. In April, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that the state had to pay Brianna’s medical expenses if the Birds adopted her.

But the state Department of Social Services is still not budging and has appealed that decision.

Why?

“I must confess that I can’t fully understand the department’s opposition,” Royce said this past week.

Of course, the opposition by the social services department will not matter if Royce’s bill becomes law. Loren Suter, deputy director of the Department of Social Services, said the issue is a “a question of policy and what is an appropriate level of funding” for Brianna’s medical needs.

Suter, however, said that the department made a “considerable offer” to the Birds in which it would provide nursing care 16 hours a day six days a week and 24 hours on the seventh day.

“The Birds are painting a picture different from what was offered,” Suter said.

Tim Bird acknowledged that offer but said to accept something less than what Brianna has always received would “compromise her life.”

“In their eyes, they think it is a generous offer,” Bird said. “But then again, they’ve never done this before.”

The Birds also say that their fight is also on behalf of other prospective adoptive parents. Tim Bird said too often foster parents get frustrated with the system and finally adopt sick children without getting what they deserve.

“They get pressed from every angle and they give in,” he said. “The issue with us is not to compromise Brianna. Her life is worth something.”

Brianna, regardless of what fate Royce’s bill meets, could still win. In a courtroom in the eighth floor of the County Courthouse in Santa Ana, attorneys are taking on a supermarket company on her behalf.

The lawsuit claims that Brianna’s natural mother fell at one of the company’s Fullerton stores, partially causing her to give birth prematurely, which is the root of Brianna’s permanent pulmonary illness.

A jury could ultimately award Brianna a couple of million dollars.

“If she were to win, the money would go into a trust fund. I’m sure the state would take some for past medical costs. But that would be right,” Bird said.