It's Final

Our little and now official family with our attorney and the judge.



All of our family at the hearing.

Last Wednesday afternoon we had our adoption finalization hearing for Emma. Many people have mentioned about how fast things have gone this time. It feels fast to us too. When we received Owen, the state required 6 post placement visits by our caseworker before we could finalize. So Owen was 6 months old when we finalized his adoption.

A couple years ago they changed the requirement for non-special need adoptions. We had one visit by our caseworker and then he gave us the go ahead to get our attorney. Just prior to finalization we had just one more visit.

Despite having gone through an adoption hearing before, I was nervous. Of course I wasn't on trial for some crime but I did know there would be a judge, bailiff, and court reporter and we would be both give testimony concerning our petition to adopt, being capable parents, and if the adoption was in Emma's best interests.

Obviously the hearing went well and our petition was granted. As solumn as the atmosphere was there were some exciting and memorable parts. Owen insisted he had to sit with us so the judge decided to ask him a couple questions about being a big brother. His last question was whether Owen had anything else to say about Emma. Owen said that he loved Emma and he also loved his Angry Bird toys. That made all of us including the judge laugh.

Then at the very end of the hearing, the court reporter's computer shut down on its own. She wasn't sure how much of the hearing it recorded so we might need to redo some parts. While we were waiting for her to listen through the recording the judge started up a conversation with Owen. He asked what Owen like to do and then said, "Oh wait, you like playing Angry Birds." To that Owen said, "Whatever!" That made the judge laugh (good thing he's a grandpa as well as a judge). What an attitude! Anyway, we gave a huge sigh of relief when the court reporter said it recorded the whole thing.

We feel overwhelmingly blessed to have Emma part of our family (officially). It was definitely a day to celebrate and we did with some late lunch at Gator Jacks and followed by some yummy Gs Dairy ice cream.