IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 15-1652

Filed November 25, 2015

IN THE INTEREST OF D.G.,

Minor Child,

A.G., Mother,

Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Ida County, Mary L. Timko, 

Associate Juvenile Judge.

A mother appeals from an order terminating her parental rights to her 

child. AFFIRMED.

Marvin W. Miller Jr. of Miller, Miller, Miller, P.C., Cherokee, for appellant 

mother.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kathrine S. Miller-Todd, Assistant 

Attorney General, for appellee State.

Lesley D. Rynell of the Iowa Public Defender, Sioux City, attorney and 

guardian ad litem for minor child.

Considered by Potterfield, P.J., and Doyle and Tabor, JJ.
2

POTTERFIELD, Presiding Judge.

A mother appeals from the termination of her parental rights. She 

contends grounds for termination were not proved and the juvenile court erred in 

not allowing her the full six-month extension it had granted in February 2015. We 

disagree and therefore affirm. 

Our review of termination decision is de novo. In re A.M., 843 N.W.2d 

100, 110 (Iowa 2014). 

After reviewing the record, we conclude grounds for termination exist 

under section 232.116(1)(h) (2015). Under that subsection, termination may be 

ordered when there is clear and convincing evidence a child age three or 

younger, who has been adjudicated in need of assistance and removed from the 

parent’s care for the last consecutive six months, cannot be returned to the 

parent’s custody at the time of the termination hearing. See Iowa Code 

§ 232.116(1)(h). The child was under the age of three at the time of the 

termination hearing. The child was adjudicated a child in need of assistance on 

October 22, 2013. The mother voluntarily placed the child with relatives in June 

2014,

1

and the child remained in the relatives’ care in 2015.2 The mother 

contends, however, that the juvenile court erred in finding the child could not be 

returned to her at present and in not granting her additional time to seek 

reunification. We find otherwise. 

 

1 Despite ongoing involvement with juvenile court and the Department of Human 

Services (DHS), the mother did not inform the court or DHS she had left the child with 

relatives until July 2014. 

2 The juvenile court modified custody in September 2014, placing the child with the DHS 

for relative placement. 
3

At a July 2014, family team meeting, the mother reported that she was 

involved with a man named Kyle. The father had made allegations of such an 

involvement throughout the case. Kyle had several prior criminal charges, and 

the mother was advised then that a relationship with Kyle was a barrier to 

reunification with the child. 

By February 2015, it appeared that the mother was adequately addressing 

the issues that led to the adjudication. As noted by the juvenile court in the later 

termination order:

[The mother] stated she had been working with [Counsel 

Against Abuse and Sexual Assault] CAASA. Her meetings with 

CAASA were in exchange for therapy. At the family team meeting, 

[the mother] had agreed to meet with CAASA at least two times a 

month. She reported she was working with Craig Bursell of Eckerd 

regularly. She reported they were working on budgeting,

relationships and parenting. 

[The mother] reported at the permanency hearing that she 

and [Kyle] were not together as a couple, but did have contact.

(This was not an accurate rendition of the situation at that time as 

Kyle testified at the termination of parental rights hearing that 

beginning in January of 2015 to the time of the termination of 

parental rights proceeding he had spent the evening with [the 

mother]. He had been with her quite a bit. He also had contact 

with [the child] when [the mother] had him on visits. He reportedly 

helped [the child] learn how to ride a bike, and he would take [the 

child] to the playground. He reported spending the evening with 

[the mother] while [the child] was there. He did indicate, however, 

that he was never left alone with [the child]. Again, none of this 

information was forthcoming from [the mother] at the time of the

permanency hearing.) The Court admonished [the mother] at the 

permanency hearing to be honest about any relationship she had 

so that it could be dealt with and worked through. Again, although 

[the mother] knew she was pregnant [by Kyle], she omitted telling

anyone.

The juvenile court granted the mother an additional six months because of her 

housing, her new employment, her report of work with the CAASA and the 

provider, and her lack of relationship with Kyle. The juvenile court ordered that 
4

the mother was not to allow contact between the father and child that was not 

preapproved by DHS, she was to cooperate consistently with CAASA, she was 

not to allow any persons around the child to care for him or to be able to 

establish a relationship with him that had not been preapproved by DHS and the 

guardian ad litem, and she was not to allow any persons to reside in her home or 

stay overnight without preapproval of DHS. It soon became evident the granted 

extension was based upon false premises.

On April 6, 2015, the State filed a motion to expedite modification of 

permanency order, which the court granted. 

A termination hearing was held on June 23 and July 28, 2015. By the time 

of the termination hearing, while the mother had been in an appropriate 

apartment for the last nine months and had held the same job for about three 

months, her participation in CAASA services were not as she had reported. She 

had only attended two sessions since May 2015 and had not attended CAASA 

services for several months prior to May (despite such services having been 

recommended since the beginning of the case in 2013). Moreover, the mother 

had only had her first mental health appointment the week before the first 

termination hearing, and she told the DHS worker in May 2015 that she would 

stop therapy if her parental rights were terminated. It was in March 2015 that the

mother told the DHS worker that she was pregnant with Kyle’s child. Although 

the mother reported this pregnancy, she also reported that she was not in a 

relationship with Kyle. She told the DHS worker she was considering moving to 

Missouri; she did not want to be around Kyle because she saw the same 

tendencies in him that she had seen in the child’s father. Then, in April 2015, 
5

DHS learned that the mother was allowing Kyle to be around the child during 

unsupervised visits. In June 2015, the DHS worker learned there had been an 

encounter between the mother and Kyle in May that raised concerns of domestic 

abuse. The DHS worker testified it was difficult to trust the mother, the worker 

did not believe the child could be returned to the care of the mother at the 

present time, and did not believe the mother could provide stability for the child in 

the next two months.

Kyle testified at the initial termination hearing that he was in a relationship 

with the mother. He acknowledged that he had had quite a bit of contact with the 

child in the past while he was visiting with the mother and that he had spent the 

night at the mother’s home when the child was present. He acknowledged 

having assaulted his former girlfriend, but claimed he was intoxicated at the time 

and an alcoholic, and he believed that she was cheating on him. He claimed to 

be a different person now, stating he had participated in a batterer’s education 

program, substance abuse treatment, and parenting classes. On cross 

examination, he stated he was not in AA meetings, he did not have a sponsor, 

and he did not work the twelve-step program. He could not give a sobriety date 

because he still drank beer on the weekends, he sometimes had a beer after 

work, and he was last drunk on his birthday in February 2015. He reported that 

the incident in May between the mother and him was because he thought she 

was cheating on him with a coworker. Kyle stated he and the mother had been 

in a relationship on and off since September 2013 and that the relationship 

became “pretty serious” in December 2014. Kyle did not know the mother had 

been denying being in a relationship with him. 
6

The mother testified on the second day of the termination hearing that she 

was ready for her child to come home and that she could provide a safe home for 

him and for the baby due in October. She stated she did not plan to live with 

Kyle in the near future even though she had been searching for a home with him 

in April 2015 and referring to him as her fiancé. She acknowledged that prior to 

the last three months, she had not always put her child first in her life, but she 

had made changes in her life. She had participated in three CAASA sessions 

and two therapy sessions since the last termination hearing. She admitted that 

at every family meeting CAASA services and individual counseling were 

discussed but she had delayed participating in them. The mother did not deny 

that she had lied to the DHS worker or that she should not have allowed so much 

unauthorized contact between Kyle and the child. She acknowledged that she 

and Kyle had broken up after the last termination hearing because of the 

testimony presented at that hearing. However, she believed they were now in a

stable relationship.

The mother has not adequately addressed issues of instability, codependency, and placing her own wants and needs before her child’s. We, like 

the juvenile court, conclude the child cannot be returned to the mother’s care at 

present. While the mother contends the court should have granted an extension,

the juvenile court wrote:

[The parents] wasted so much time—time that has translated 

into [the child] living in limbo much too long. The Court was more 

than willing to allow [the mother] the extra six months when it 

appeared that she may have fully gotten the message, even though 

her effort at that time was miniscule. But when it came to light that 

the reasons given for the extra six months were based on 

falsehoods, the Court could no longer ignore what was in the best 
7

interest of [the child]—that he be given the opportunity to establish 

permanency and stability in his life. [The child] can no longer afford 

to wait on the maturity of his parents. The waiting has already 

taken its toll on him.

Further time is not warranted. While the law requires a “full measure of 

patience with troubled parents who attempt to remedy a lack of parenting skills,” 

this patience has been built into the statutory scheme of chapter 232. See In re 

C.B., 611 N.W.2d 489, 494 (Iowa 2000). “Time is a critical element,” and parents 

simply “cannot wait until the eve of termination, after the statutory time periods 

for reunification have expired, to begin to express an interest in parenting.” See

id. at 495. The child is in need of permanency and should not have to wait any 

longer. 

AFFIRMED.