Finalizing our Adoption

Last week was busy and exciting, and this week, it seems to be just as busy.  Here is it Thursday and I don't really have time to write, but I figured if I didn't do it now, I wouldn't catch another free moment later.

In order to finalize our adoption we needed to go to court and receive legal custody.  Over the past 6 months we have had physical custody, but our agency retained legal custody for a period of 6 months.  We needed to get a lawyer and have him do some paperwork in order to complete the process.  So last week we were able to go to court to receive legal custody.  

We drove up to the court house, but on our way my husband asked if I had my wallet and ID.  Did I?  Of course not.  I had forgotten it, but told him I didn't think I needed it.  But he wanted me to have it just in case.  So we turned around, drove back and I retrieved it.  This put us arriving 30 min late to the courthouse. So I was a little nervous.  Who wants to be late to court?  Not me.  We were told that the judge would randomly call up the cases to be heard and when we were called we would go up.  When we arrived the room was quiet and pretty empty.  I was a little nervous.  Were we too late?  What had we missed?  The judge was nowhere to be seen

We saw our lawyer and sat on the bench with him and apologized for being late and explained what had happened.  He said, no problem.  I asked him where the judge was and if we had missed anything.  He told me that the judge hadn't arrived yet.  Thank Goodness.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  I still don't know what would've happened if he had called us up and we weren't there.  We settled in our bench to wait.  Five minutes later, the judge arrived, and guess who was called up first?  Yes, we were.  

Our little guy was asleep, but I wanted him to be awake for this occasion.  So I rustled his blankets a little and his eyes popped open.  So then I lifted him out of his stroller and held him for the few minutes it took for the judge to hear our case.  When the judge saw our little guy looking at him and listening he laughed.  Then the judge stated we were our child's legal parents, took a picture with us, and everything was finalized.  

It was great.  A very fun and adventurous morning.  Then we went out to breakfast to celebrate.  :)

Oh, and some of you might be wondering, did I need my ID?  Nope.  Nobody asked for it.  But, we did need a check, which we didn't have.  Who carries a checkbook around these days?  Well, we found out that my mother in law does.  So that worked out well.  We needed to write a check so we could get our little guy's birth certificate sent to us.  That reminds me, we never paid her back for that.  I guess I will have to get a check in the mail to her for that.  :)