Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Adoption Day!!!! (super duper late post)

I have been itching to get this blog post written and published FOR-EVER! But, with this many kids in our home….writing is soooo the last thing on my to-do list!

"DS" is, as of 11/21/14 a Santana!!!! His new name is Joshua Adam. :)

Since it's been SO long since I've updated, I'm going to attempt writing our saga in order over the course of the next few days and get y'all caught up.


Adoption day:

Although the day was a long-anticipated one, it felt strangely normal getting up, getting everyone dressed and out of the door. I mean, we don't pack up all four kids and head to the courthouse on any given "normal" day….but you know what I mean.

I had already cried some that morning, though. While getting ready and thinking about where the past four months with Joshua have brought us, his biological family, his new family, his past, his future…all of "this" becoming official. No one could ever take him away. A caseworker wasn't going to show up out of the blue and tell us his former placement got him back. No other woman could come and claim him as her son. He is mine. Well, not really. None of my kids are "mine", they're the Lord's. But again, you know what I mean.

I got upset in the car because I realized I brought my normal mascara, not the water-proof one. Ugh. I was sure my makeup was going to be horrendous after the ceremony.

We parked in the parking garage, unloaded everyone, got out the double stroller, and walked to the courthouse. Once through security (where we had to unload everything from said double stroller, carry the kids through the metal detectors, and re-load everything onto/into the stroller again…that's always fun) we headed up to the courtroom. We were so blessed to have family attending. Everyone was so excited. The ceremony was less than 10 minutes, and I don't remember a ton. I remember the lawyer asking us a bunch of questions like "Are you adopting him because you love him?" (um…duh?), "Does the child own any property?" (this one just cracked me up…he's not even 2 years old) and "Do you promise to treat him and provide for him as you would your own biological children?" (that one was my favorite because that's totally my goal - that my children see no difference as to whether I physically gave birth to them or not, they are equally my children).

After we finished in the court room (where two other families were adopting….one sibling set got a forever home, and a teenage girl was adopted by her uncle, both were bawling and I think everyone in the room was, too. SO COOL!), we were interviewed by the 4 local news stations about the proceedings. Honestly, hubby did most of the talking (I'm totally ok with that - I'll stick to writing! Ha!) and he did a phenomenal job. It was such a great witnessing opportunity and literally every other sentence had something to do with "Gospel", "Jesus", "God", "our calling", etc. My favorite question though was "How do you feel bringing Joshua home today?" Um…the same as every other day since July? ;) In all seriousness, I thought it would feel so different, like a huge switch would go off and everything would just magically change. But it didn't - it was a normal day with our four kiddos, our family, celebrating something amazing, sure, but he had already become a part of our family long before that day. A signature and an oath didn't change anything except the legal status of our newest child.

Watch the News Segment here :)

No comments:

Post a Comment