IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 23

- 0209 Filed May 24, 2023

IN THE INTEREST OF R.W., L.W., A.W. and K.W., Minor Children, K.W., Mother, Appellant.

________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, Gary P. Strausser, District Associate Judge.

A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to four children

. AFFIRMED.

Esther J. Dean, Muscatine, for appellant mother. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Mary A. Triick, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State. Patricia A. Rolfstad, Davenport, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor children.

Consider ed by Vaitheswaran, P.J. , and Greer and Chicchelly, JJ.2

VAITHESWARAN , Presiding Judge

. A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights to four children, born in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2018. She contends the State failed to prove the grounds for termination cited by the district court and she should have been afforded addition al time to reunify with the children. We may affirm if we find clear and convincing evidence to support any of the grounds cited by the district court. See In re A.B. , 815 N.W.2d 764, 774 (Iowa 2017). We elect to focus on Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(f) and (h) (2022)

. The provision s apply to children of different ages , but both require proof the children cannot be returned to parental custody. The department of health an d human services intervened in October 2019 after the mother was observed to be “under the influence of methamphetamine as evidenced by her” dilated pupils, agitation, and slurred speech. The mother was parenting her four children at the time. The depart ment sought to have the children immediately removed from parental custody. The district court granted the request. The children were later adjudicated in need of assistance. The following summer, the mother entered a substance

- abuse treatment facility. The children were returned to her care at the facility . They were again removed after several months when it was discovered that the mother used methamphetamine. By this time, more than a year had elapsed since the first

remova l. Following the second removal, t he mother “ miss [ed] multiple drug tests, ” failed to schedule a psychological exam , and “struggle[ed] to supervise the3

children during visitation. ” Nonetheless, the district court gave her the benefit of the doubt and affo rded her an additional six months to work toward reunification.
T hree months before the termination hearing , the mother reinitiated drug
tests . She “provided 4 clean patches and a clean hair stat test ” but missed two
tests. She also began attending therapy appointments and enrolled in a Safe Care
program , attending five out of twelve sessions

. She worked at a fast

- food
restaurant , “maintained housing,” and “paid off her traffic fines and some of her criminal fines.” She visited her childr en “on a consistent basis” and did “a good job of acknowledging special events like birthdays and holidays.” That said, t he children remained out of the mother’s care for approximately seventeen months following the second removal and a total of twenty

- one of the twenty

- six months preceding the termination hearing. The department employee in charge of the case testified, “ There is history [of methamphetamine use] all the way back to 2012 and [it] shows that she does not maintain sobriety for any real length of time .” The employee added, “ There are more parts than just being sober. If we are looking at everything, she has not done everything that she has been asked to do. ” A service provider echoed this sentiment. She testified the mother

“ fail ed to internalize that in parenting, a lot of times you have to put your children ’ s needs ahead of your own personal needs.” Although the mother believed she could safely parent the children at the time of the termination hearing, the record establishes otherwise. On our de novo review, we are persuaded the children could not be returned to her custody. We turn to the mother’s request for six additional months to achieve reunification. See Iowa Code § 232.104(2)(b). As noted, the district court granted4

her one six

- month extension. The mother failed to make sufficient progress during that period. The district court summed up her efforts as follows: In the last six months the mother has sporadically dr ug tested. She has completed less than half the Safe Care sessions. She has not attended mental health therapy. The one therapy session that the mother attended, the provider picked up the phone and made the phone call to schedule the appointment for th e mother. The mother missed the psychological evaluation for the third time within the last six months. Given the mother’s lack of significant progress with in the first extension period , the district court appropriately denied her request for another six

- month extension. We affirm the order terminat ing the mother’s parental rights to the four
children.
AFFIRMED.