Today was a big, important day. One step closer to having Brooklyn's adoption finalized and one step closer to being an "official" real family, though we've been a "real" family since January 26th, in my eyes. We had our preliminary hearing at the courthouse today. That means that we took Brooklyn, went to court, met with our lawyer, talked to the judge, and the end result is that Brooklyn's biological parent's rights are now terminated. It was pretty uneventful... our lawyer asked us a bunch of questions in front of the judge, we answered them, the judge gave his schpeal, and declared her biological parent's rights terminated. As uneventful as it was, it was still an emotional, bittersweet moment. Bittersweet because we love Marie, and we know just how difficult this whole process was for her. It caught me by surprise... I wasn't expecting to feel the way I did at this hearing... the next one, maybe. That's the big one where we finalize. As this day approached, it was on my mind more and more. Actually, up until yesterday, I didn't even realize that Marie's rights hadn't officially been terminated. It makes sense now, but I didn't realize it because when she signed the papers three days after Brooklyn's birth, we knew she couldn't change her mind, that it was done. We knew it was a different story when it came to her Biological Father. His rights were not terminated, and he never signed a thing, so technically, he could have come around and we'd have had to fight for Brooklyn. We knew it was a risk, but the risk felt minimal and we rarely thought much about it. I never felt threatened by it, that I was aware of. As we got closer to today, and I realized it was on my mind and I was feeling some anxiety/excitement about it and wanting this day to hurry up and come, it hit me that I was worried about him being out there still, and I felt such relief today. Even though we haven't finalized yet, I feel a huge sense of relief and gratitude, that nobody can really take her away from us now. She is our daughter. Of course, that's technically not even true. Open Arms could find us unfit and could stop the adoption from happening, but we're in sort of tight with them, and that's not the vibe I'm getting! :)
Things have gone so smoothly with most everything that's happened in terms of Brooklyn and the adoption. We did have a little glitch yesterday with the lawyer. He'd sent a letter weeks ago, with all of the information about today and we were to be in court at 1:30. We therefore scheduled our third post-placement visit with Stefani for this morning, so we could do both in the same day. He (our lawyer) called yesterday to confirm, but told me that the time had been changed last week, from 1:30 to 9 AM. Excuse me?! What???? And we're just hearing this now? Our conversation went from bad to worse and ended with a very angry Mama here. I won't go into the details, but I wasn't happy with how he handled it and some of the things he said to me. Bottom line is that we had to change our day around (not the end of the world) and we were still able to do both things today. If this is the worse glitch we have in this whole adoption process, we're doing really, really well. I can't complain about it. We've had a beautiful experience in every other way, and I'd rather have a challenge like this one that's easily overcome than all of the millions of other things that could have happened or gone wrong. I'm feeling much more positive about it today than I was yesterday. If I'd posted yesterday, it would have been a very different read for you all.
Our meeting with Stefani was as always... great. It's such a joy to work with her, because it doesn't feel like work. She's always so helpful, so supportive, so encouraging. It's great fun to talk about Brooklyn and all that she's doing now, too. We can always count on Stefani and everyone from Open Arms, for that matter, to make us feel really special. We so appreciate them!
Overall, it was a great day, and we're flying high right now. We love you so much, Brooklyn Lily, and we're so happy that you're here to stay!
No comments:
Post a Comment