Baby makes Three....Forever

After all was settled with the courts regarding parental rights.  Jacob was now legally in our custody.....but not adopted.  The process was not over.  Now, it was up to the agency to handle the court business and for us it was a waiting game.  We fell right in to the daily life as parents.  Everyday was a new experience with Jacob.  We were living in a bit of a peaceful state, compared to our previous 5 or 6 years.  Daily life with an infant is busy to say the least.  I had a ball.  We were so proud of our little boy.  His presence was healing my heart everyday.  I joined Gymboree with him.  I met some amazing women and their babies.  Some of whom, I am still very close to.  When meeting new people, I struggled with whether to be open about Jacob being adopted right away, or to keep it to myself until I felt comfortable.  I found that right away, I had to make a decision about sharing our story, because, the natural question that would arise among new mothers, was "how was your labor"?  How much weight did you gain?  What hospital did you deliver in?  That is what new mothers talked about.  I have NO CLUE about labor, so I couldn't even fake it.  In the beginning if I was not comfortable with the person asking, I would just say, "nothing out of the ordinary".  As I got closer to the women in my social group, it felt weird to NOT tell them.  Especially, when they would say, "Jacob has beautiful blue eyes, does he get that from your husband?"..It got tricky dodging the questions.  The adoption was not even final yet, so, I was scared to say too much.  I had always planned on being open with everything, but I didn't realize how complicated it would be.  As the year went by, I got better at it.  You would not believe some of the questions that I would get.  And the comments....well, let's just say, that some people are uncomfortable with topic of adoption in conversation and they don't know what to say or ask.  I feel like I could write a book on what Not to say.  LOL.   

So, when Jacob was about 8 months old, the agency called and said that everything was in order and the adoption is final, the judge sign it today.  We are just waiting for a court date.   The courts were backed up and we were going to have to wait about 2 months for a date.    This court date was just a formality, it no legal bearing on the adoption.  Jerry and I wanted this thing FINAL.  We wanted him to be OURS!!!   Legally!  So, I asked them if we had to go to court or can we just pick the papers up??? 
Two Hours later, Jerry and I were standing in the court offices with our little boy picking up the papers.  It was done!  He is our son and nothing can change it now.   We were flying high.  We hopped in the car and went and celebrated.  Just the 3 of us.

Don't go away, because the story does not end here.  It is only the beginning........

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