Erica and Josh, my thoughts and prayers are with you! I am a bit older than the two of you but have a similar story. i am in my mid-30s and the oldest of 8 children. Both of our parents passed away in 2008. Our dad was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer and passed away after a very hard 3 1/2 month battle. Six months later, our mom was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and passed away a month and a half later. It was a devastating time for all of us and most especially, our youngest brother who was still in high school. Our grandmother had lived with our parents for a bit and fell ill in 2007 and passed away that spring - this was during my brother's sophomore year of high school. During his junior year, our dad got sick and passed away. This was an incredibly hard time for my brother because he's the only boy in the family so if our mom wasn't home to help our dad go to the bathroom at his bedside and my husband wasn't there, our dad would get my brother to help him. There were times when our dad would try to get up in the middle of the night and because he was so weak, he would fall on the floor and then our mom would need my brother and sister to help her pick him up and get him back into bed. It was devastating to see our parents deteriorate so quickly and especially hard on our brother to have to take on so many difficult adult responsibilities at such a young age. Our mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of the summer just before our brother started his senior year and then passed away a month a 2 weeks later. So our brother dealt with 3 major losses throughout his last 3 years of high school. As soon as my mom passed away, i immediately went to the court to get official custody of my brother. My mom and I had talked about me and my husband taking on a guardianship role. Because my brother was 17 at the time and would turn 18 a month and a half later, we got court appointed custody rather than full guardianship. Guardianship would have taken several months to put in place and go before a Judge and at that point, my brother would have been 18 which would make guardianship more difficult. With custody, it is me and my husband vs. my parents but because my parents are deceased, they cannot argue any of the guidelines of the custody agreement. We needed to have some form of official documentation stating our custodial responsibilities in order to get my brother under our health insurance and thankfully, this worked. Erica, it is wonderful that your father set up a trust to help you with school! I wish I could say the same about our parents. Unfortunately, they were not at all prepared for what might happen if they passed away. There were no Wills, no education trusts, nothing to help out with any of the costs to help raise the younger siblings who needed help and guidance, both financial and otherwise. One of my sisters and I are administering the estates (my grandmother, mom, and dad's estates) and our lawyers made it very clear that no estate money could be used to help with education because even though my brother was 17 at the time of their passing, our parents had every right and opportunity to designate money to be left to help with education costs. It was incredibly frustrating and left me in tears many times as I tried to work step by step to figure out how we were going to manage everything financially. Both my husband and I were still paying back our own student loans and I had been laid off from my job shortly after returning back to work after my mom's funeral. I think that changing the dynamics of switching roles from sibling to a parental role can be quite a challenge in many ways. It can also make you feel very isolated from others, even from your family and other siblings sometimes because there can always be those who question how much control you should have, among many other things. Most of my friends have babies or small children so it was hard to find someone I could relate to who could at least understand what it's like to have a child in high school who would soon embark on all of the excitement of senior year - senior trip, prom, graduation. I can remember heading to the bookstore shortly after my mom passed away, pouring through the shelves, looking for any books that would help explain how to handle the transition from sibling to parent... how to raise your teenage brother. There was nothing. The best I could do was buy a book about raising teenage boys and even that wasn't much help because my brother wasn't just an average teenager but one who had been through an enormous amount of trauma and loss. I found that working through the school was a good place to start. His guidance counselor recommended an excellent therapist that some of the other parents had also recommended. This therapist has been wonderful and I am so glad that I thought to ask for resources rather than just trying to wing it on my own. My brother has gone through issues with depression, substance abuse, and thoughts of harming himself. Just recently, he reached a very low point and we were able to find a wonderful treatment program for him and he's already sounding like his once happy, comfortable self. I am so thankful that this program has been so helpful to him and has been teaching him the coping skills he needs to help him get through the rough times which tend to fall around holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries of their passings. The 2nd anniversary of our mom's passing was earlier this week in fact. In spite of the difficulties, my brother graduated from high school and went on to start college, then realized after his first semester at that school that he wanted to transfer to a school where he could follow his passion. He is an incredibly talented musician and wanted to study recording arts. Once he was settled in a new school, learning and studying in a subject matter that he loves, he really began to excel. There have been bumps in the road as he and the rest of us try to pull together as a family and create our "new normal" but there have also been wonderful milestones accomplished and experienced too. In spite of everything we've lost, we are still very blessed! My thoughts and prayers are with you both Erica and Josh. I am so glad that you found one another! I too come online to try to find other people who have experienced a similar situation because it always feels good to find others who you can relate with. Take care and may God Bless you and your families!!

Done! Thanks for all your suggestions - many of the ideas really helped. And we only needed to make one run to the store - for more bubble wrap. Unfortunately, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of volunteers and the craze that started when we all arrived that I did not give very good instructions to what to save or put aside. I am certain that some *treasures* were disposed of.... but I'm trying not to get too upset over it. After all, those tiny items would have probably just been transfered to a rubbermaid tote and stored (and forgotten about again) for years... I am the only relative - except for some far removed cousins. So, thankfully, there's no concerns about inheritances. And I did get all of her financial stuff out of the house a year ago when I accepted guardianship. Most of the papers left in her home were exceptionally old (some phone bills from 1972) and paperwork from school (as she was a teacher). I bet there were items with some personal info disposed of improperly (though I bought a shredder), but again - I'm trying not to worry about that. My volunteer friends probably were not as conscientious as I would have been - but without their help, I wouldn't have gotten through that day!!! We did finish in 5 hours - can you believe that? 9 people, 1 dumpster and $98 worth of breakfast! We did not clean a thing - just ridded the place of her personal belongings. The only things left are large peices of furniture. Everything else was either smoke/nicotine filled or in a state of disrepair (i.e. small appliances). And, being the only relative, I did not have the wherewithall to clean, box and transport much to charities. Between being a single mom and having a full time job, volunteer at the hospital, caring for foster pets and school, I have little time to get donations to appropriate places. My friends convinced me to reduce stress and toss the stuff. It was an emotional ordeal - sorry that my mom's life was reduced to a dumpster of stuff that was being rained upon as we departed. What a shame. She was in the Miss America pagent, was very talented and educated. Unfortuantely there was *something* wrong and she got into drugs and alcohol. She was befriended (or whatever) by addicts that took advantage of her in every possible way and she ended up with brain damage and friendless by the time she retired. I don't know how she kept it going for as long as she did.... Poster child for the devistation of alcohol.... But thanks again for all your suggestions - some I didn't get until too late. sigh. Now I'm going to start cleaning out my own closets & cabinets!!!

Luth, I think it's that we, as parents, are more educated now and that our society is more open to Learning Disabilities. When I was growing up, you never heard of Ritalin, Adderal or any of the other meds out there. (I've talked to my own mom about this & my siblings and I were all probably ADD/ADHD.) Actually my nephew is ADD & his psychiatrist told my sis that she was ADHD, just by watching her behavior! I remember my sister having problems concentrating during school (K or 1st grade) because it was boring to her (she later skipped a grade). When our little bro's IQ was tested, it was just a few points from genius. But he's killed all his brain cells now with illegal drug use. Maybe if the resources available now had been available 30 years ago, things would have been different for him. (He did & still does fit into almost every category for ADHD.) I'm the parent of two tween girls. My oldest was diagnosed as being ADHD when she was 4 months into Kindergarten. She had severe behavior problems at school (climbing on the tables, under the tables, talking over the teacher, much more). After she began treatment for ADHD, there was an apparent difference. We (her doctor, her teacher & I) had a very good relationship though it all. She had dealt beautifully with her ADHD for several years & then WAM! Puberty! Actually her teachers last year didn't even know that she was ADHD until I mentioned it. (She's not currently on a 504 plan.) She's always had an extremely large vocabulary. By the time she was in 2nd grade she was reading on at least 5th grade level. She's now in 7th grade & is reading on 11-12 grade level. She's always been exposed to as much as I can expose her to. She's been taking music for the past 4-5 years. (She started on piano, but also taking clarinet & is 2nd chair on her Junior High band.) They both have picked up some foreign language too. (I took German a few years ago & they practiced with me. I've also had to purchase French tapes for them.) Now, my little one (age 10) is quietier than her big sis, but she's also got a HUGE vocabulary. Her school tests reading comp every 6 weeks & hers was 1026 on the Lexile table this past week. She's been reading above 9th grade for the past 2 years. Her teachers last year told me that she would have been in the Gifted/Talented program except that she's TOO quiet! She's taken violin since she was 5 & decided this summer that she wanted to learn flute too. Good luck with your soon-to-be little one.

I have no idea what can hapen or if you have any rights at all, but you're not the only one. This issue is one that worries me a lot too. I have bad dreams about it on a regular basis. I haven't told my whole story here yet, but here it goes... My BF, J__, has an eight year old son, A__. However, A__ is not actually J__'s biological child. J__ met and began dating BM when A__ was less than a month old. They were together for almost three years. A__ is the result of a very rebellious late-teen phase where BM was mixed up with a very unsavory crowd. The guy who provided the gametes (I can't bring myself to call him any derivative of 'father', much less 'dad') was in and out of jail, refused to acknowledge her pregnancy, and so on. Since he was such a swell guy, she decided to say "Father Unknown" on A__'s birth certificate. Gamete Guy's mother asked if she could spend some time with A__, and BM said ok. That kept up for a few years, but Gamete Guy has never met A__. J__ became involved with BM and took the father role for A__. A__ calls him Dad and J__ has always been there. BM stopped letting Gamete Guy's mother see A__ because he came home when he was about 4 or 5, sobbing and crying. She had told poor A__ that J__ didn't love him because he wasn't his dad (what an awful thing to do!)... J__ and BM never married, but talked about J__ adopting A__. The reason they decided not to: A__ is part Aboriginal and we are Canadian. Around the time that they were talking about it, a very similar case showed up in the news: Father was Aboriginal, Mother was Caucasian. Father had never met Child and wasn't on the birth certificate, but knew of Child's existence. Adoptive Father came along. Mother died, leaving custody with Adoptive Father. Father and his family sued for full custody AND child support from Adoptive Father, citing important cultural beliefs that Child should be with them, even though they couldn't afford it. They won. J__ and BM didn't want this to happen to J__. So they decided to leave A__'s guardianship with BM's mother and keep J__'s involvement a handshake deal. They didn't want J__ to wind up paying child support to a bunch of strangers if something ever happened to BM. They also thought BM's mother would have a better chance in court if it ever came to it, since she is genetically related to A__. GM would definitely let J__ have access to A__, but I doubt Gamete Guy's family would. This whole situation has both ups and downs for us. Ups: I have past precedent to show me that J__ doesn't walk away from his responsibilities. BM has no legal chain to yank J__ around by. J__ has no set child support for A__, he buys things as A__ needs them, and that gives him peace of mind that she's not sponging off of him. Downs: J__ has no legal custody of A__. If something happened to BM, he has no rights at all and that scares the crap out of me! BM has shown that she puts A__'s welfare above any petty differences with J__, but if she ever wanted to, she could take A__ away from us entirely, and that also scares me and leaves me feeling as if I'm walking on eggshells. AFAIK, A__ is aware that he has another father that he has never met, but I'm not sure if he really comprehends it all - I'm concerned that when he actually understands what that means, he'll be upset with J__ and resentful that J__ didn't adopt him, even though he has chosen to be his dad without the paperwork. So, I have no idea what you could do (if anything) but you're not alone in these fears!