IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 22-2102

Filed March 29, 2023

IN THE INTEREST OF A.S. and A.S.,

Minor Children,

C.C., Mother,

Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Carrie K. Bryner, 

District Associate Judge.

A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to her two children. 

AFFIRMED.

Eric S. Mail of Puryear Law P.C., Davenport, for appellant mother.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Diane Murphy Smith, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee State.

Dana A. Judas of Nazette, Marner, Nathanson & Shea, LLP, Cedar Rapids, 

attorney and guardian ad litem for minor children.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Badding and Buller, JJ.
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BADDING, Judge.

A mother in the throes of her bipolar disorder appeals the termination of her 

parental rights to her two children, born in 2014 and 2018, under Iowa Code 

section 232.116(1)(e) and (f) (2022). The mother claims that if she is given more 

time, she can “overcome the[] hurdles” that led to her children’s removal from her 

care in May 2021 “to reach a point where the children could be returned to her 

custody.” As a result, she contends it “was error for the trial court to conclude that 

the grounds for termination existed.” Our review is de novo. In re L.B., 970 

N.W.2d 311, 313 (Iowa 2022). 

Unpacking the mother’s claim, it is evident that she concedes the children 

could not have been returned to her care at the time of the termination hearing. 

See Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(f)(4) (requiring “clear and convincing evidence that 

at the present time the child cannot be returned to the custody of the child’s parents 

as provided in section 232.102”); see also In re D.W., 791 N.W.2d 703, 707 

(Iowa 2010) (interpreting the statutory language “at the present time” to mean “at 

the time of the termination hearing”). And for good reason. The mother, who 

described herself as a vagabond, did not have a home or job when the termination 

hearing was held. She was also resistant to any treatment for her substanceabuse issues or her mental health.

Both children were born with marijuana in their system. And when they 

were removed from the mother’s care and placed into their father’s, they both 

tested positive for ingestion of marijuana. The mother’s marijuana use has 

persisted throughout the case. All her drug tests were positive for marijuana, with 

several exceeding the maximum testing level. Though she was ordered to obtain 
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a substance-abuse evaluation in August when the children were adjudicated in 

need of the court’s assistance, she did not comply with that directive until May 

2022, shortly before the first day of the termination hearing in June. That 

evaluation diagnosed her with a “severe marijuana use disorder due to her chronic 

and heavy use of marijuana” and recommended treatment, which she did not 

pursue. See In re O.N., No. 17-0918, 2017 WL 3525324, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. 

Aug. 16, 2017) (affirming termination of parental rights of parent who had not 

resolved her issues with substance abuse). 

The mother blamed her marijuana use on her post-traumatic stress disorder 

and anxiety, which she said were worsened by the court’s involvement. But the 

mother took no steps to address her mental health until more than one year after 

the children were removed. She testified that she was diagnosed with bipolar 

disorder when she was twelve years old and hospitalized for a time. The mother 

stopped taking medication to treat that illness when she turned eighteen. When 

asked whether her mental health impacted her ability to care for the children, the 

mother responded: “The disability with bipolar actually makes me a more exciting 

parent, more fun, more involved.” The evidence showed the opposite.

The mother placed the oldest child in her parents’ guardianship in 2017. At 

trial, she claimed that was to keep the father from obtaining custody of her: “[H]e 

can’t take something from me that I don’t have.”1 But the order opening the 

1 The father petitioned the district court for custody of the children in June 2019. 

He did not learn about the guardianship until that November, which he later 

successfully terminated. After concurrent jurisdiction was granted by the juvenile 

court, the district court placed the children in the father’s physical care in June 

2021. 
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guardianship stated the mother could not care for the child. When the youngest 

child was born in 2018, the mother spent several days in the psychiatric inpatient 

ward because she was in a “full intensity [m]anic episode” and refusing any 

medications. The consulting psychiatrist observed the mother did not “have insight 

for the need for treatment and her judgment is impaired to make decisions for her 

treatment.”

The mother’s lack of insight continued after that court committal. A child 

protective worker with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services 

testified that fourteen assessments were completed on the family, with another 

twenty-four reports rejected for assessment. The worker testified that most of the 

assessments were “spurious,” often involving complaints about normal childhood 

bruises or scratches the youngest child got in the father’s care. These 

investigations, according to the worker, were invasive and traumatic for the 

children. Yet reports of child abuse continued to be made against the father right 

up until the afternoon before the last day of the termination hearing in July 2022. 

The evidence suggested the mother made many of these reports to try to 

get the children removed from the father. Her crusade against the father escalated 

so much that she posted videos of the children on her YouTube page, 

accompanied by commentary bashing the father and his girlfriend. Her vitriol 

extended to all of the professionals involved in the case, with websites dedicated 

to attacking the father’s attorney and the children’s guardian ad litem, along with

posts on social media claiming the child protective worker disseminated child 

pornography and a department supervisor “had possible alcohol delirium.” The 

mother would send relentless text messages and emails to everyone in the case, 
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personally attacking the professionals trying to help her. See In re J.M.A., 

No. 09-1228, 2009 WL 3380063, at *1–2 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 21, 2009) 

(considering the father’s hostility and threats to the department’s staff in finding 

additional time was not warranted).

This conduct, which spilled over to the mother’s supervised visitation with 

the children, led the juvenile court to suspend in-person visitation in September 

2021 and enter a detailed communication plan for the mother. From then until 

February 2022, the mother only had video visits with the children. But when she 

continued to send emails in violation of the plan, the court suspended even those 

video visits, which did not resume until shortly before the termination hearing. See 

In re M.W., 876 N.W.2d 212, 223–24 (Iowa 2016) (finding that the failure “to 

progress to either semi-supervised or unsupervised” visits supported termination).

The department’s caseworker testified the mother’s poor mental health 

“rubs off on the children,” making them feel anxious and unstable. When asked 

whether the mother’s mental health had improved over the course of the case, the 

caseworker testified “it, honestly, has gotten worse.” The juvenile court noted the 

same in its termination ruling, observing the mother’s testimony was rambling, 

delusional, and paranoid. 

While the mother made some half-hearted efforts to address these issues 

at the end of the case, that “is insufficient to preclude the termination of parental 

rights.” In re K.G., No. 17-0347, 2017 WL 2189768, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. 

May 17, 2017). In order to grant her more time, we would have to find that “the 

need for removal ‘will no longer exist at the end of the additional six-month period.’” 

In re W.T., 967 N.W.2d 315, 323 (Iowa 2021) (quoting Iowa Code § 232.104(2)(b)). 
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The record is clear that would not be the case given the mother’s unabated 

substance use and untreated bipolar disorder, which continued to impact her 

children’s well-being. See In re N.F., 579 N.W.2d 338, 341 (Iowa Ct. App. 1998) 

(“[A] good prediction of the future conduct of a parent is to look at the past 

conduct.”). “Children should not be forced to wait for their parent to be able to care 

for them,” especially when we have no reason to believe that circumstances will 

be different in six months. In re M.M., No. 15-0214, 2015 WL 1332330, at *2 (Iowa 

Ct. App. Mar. 25, 2015). 

We find the evidence sufficient to support termination under section 

232.116(1)(f) and conclude an extension of time is unwarranted. As a result, we 

affirm the termination of the mother’s parental rights.

AFFIRMED.