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Two weeks have passed since the state Supreme Court heard arguments in the heartbreaking battle over who should raise a 3-year-old boy named, at least for now, Robbie.

It's an awful case, and it's one in which everyone stands to lose: the adopted parents who have raised and loved this little boy since he was three days old, the biological father who never got the chance to be a father and, most importantly, the child.

Two weeks ago. Can you even remember back that far?

Think about how long two weeks must seem to a toddler, how long three years is in the life of a little child, how long it will be before the notoriously unpredictable high court makes a ruling that could shift the case back to a lower court to mull it over some more.

Let's review the case:

Robbie is the end result of an ill-fated relationship between Mark Huddleston, then a chemicals salesman and divorced father of two, and a woman identified in court records as Helen G., an employee of the Albuquerque hotel where Huddleston made, uh, deliveries.

Their six-month fling (sans contraception, the courts add) ended in June 2003. By my calculations Helen G. would have been one month into her pregnancy.

Huddleston says he never knew she was pregnant. Theirs was a messy split, he says, and she had made it clear she wanted him gone.

But Helen G., according to testimony, says she told Huddleston twice about the pregnancy and that he had at least one opportunity to notice her baby bump. Her co-worker also testified that Huddleston knew of the pregnancy but did not know whether the child was his.

Robbie was born Feb. 14, 2004. Three days later, he was placed for adoption with Rosario and Bobby Romero, the people he now calls Mommy and Daddy.

Two months later, Huddleston says he learned he was a daddy when he received notice from Adoptions Plus, the Albuquerque agency handling Robbie's case, on April 19, 2004.

Huddleston, remarried by then, says he immediately tried to get his son back. He took a DNA test, hired an attorney, filed a paternity lawsuit.

Too little, too late, state District Judge John Pope ruled in Valencia County, terminating Huddleston's parental rights in April 2005.

Huddleston appealed. The state Court of Appeals sided with him - twice. The Romeros appealed the appeals - twice - all the way to the state Supreme Court, where oral arguments were heard April 11.

All the while, Robbie has remained with the Romeros, blissfully unaware of the storm swirling around him.

There's lots of legal issues here with wide-ranging implications - not only for this case but New Mexico adoptions in the future - but I haven't the space to go into them here (search "Huddleston" on our Web site).

You can argue that Adoptions Plus fumbled, perhaps even purposely, the adoption proceedings - as Huddleston is arguing in a separate civil lawsuit.

You can argue that Huddleston's rights as a father were trampled on - and the appellate court certainly concurs. It's hard not to feel bad for a man who tried to step up to the paternity plate, albeit late in the game.

But all that seems trumped by what's best for the child, and I have to wonder what lasting damage could be caused by yanking him from the arms of the only parents he has ever known, even if the yanking is being done on behalf of a fit and willing biological parent who has proven at the appellate court level that he has done nothing to deserve losing his parental rights.

"Some might think it a bit dramatic to say that a child who goes to a biological father who wants to love and care for him could suffer psychological consequences," writes Dr. Christopher Alexander, an Albuquerque child psychologist whom I greatly respect. "But I fail to see how anyone can believe a child would not be adversely affected if taken from the only family he has known since he was three days old."

Hal Atencio, attorney for the Romeros, says it's anyone's guess how long the state Supreme Court will take to make a decision.

Meanwhile, time is passing, bonds are deepening and the consequences of the court's decision either way seem even crueler the longer we wait.