Our day in court went swimmingly well–everything is signed ,sealed and delivered to the appropriate parties. Our day:
6am–L heads to work early
7:30am: I get up, bake celebratory brownies and begin the straighten to the house
10 am: We get the call from the Dr’s office that Baby kahuna’s chest x-ray is negative! No pnuemonia! Phew….
12noon: Grandma arrives, Baby Kahuna gets a bath
12:30pm: Grandpa arrives, I head upstairs to get dressed
1pm:We leave for court
1:30pm:We make it through the metal detectors, turns out baby’s carseat is NOT harboring weapons or any items forbidden in the courthouse
1:45pm: We meet Daddy upstairs, and hang out….the Judge isn’t back from lunch.
2pm: Our attorney and paralegal arrive–we finally meet the people we’ve talked to over the phone. Turns out our lawyer is 77 and loving life! Who knew?
2:15pm:Our day in court! The very nice judge invites us into the “big” court room. L takes the witness stand, then I do. We answer questions like how long we’ve been married, how we got the baby, have we met the “natural” parents. Our attorney found it strange that we’d met the “natural” parents–we were rather offhanded about it, but you could tell he was curious!
2:30pm: The Judge grants the adoption decree! I notice grandma dabbing her eyes. Baby Kahuna continues to eat/sleep blissfully in Grandpa’s arms. We wake her up for pictures with the Judge. She baptizes me as “MOM” with spit-up all over me….par for the course. We head out of the court room with our party of happiness–and meet in the waiting room the next families up–seven siblings being adopted between two families. They looked pretty happy too. 🙂
All told, it was painless and happy. Rather anti-climatic, but a bit of a relief. Found out we won’t get a birth certificate til after the first of the year, so her fortune will have to sit in our savings account for a bit longer. (no SS#, no banking!)
She is now peacefully sleeping on Daddy’s chest, as if to say,”Yup, I’m home!” Actually, I think she’s known it all along.
Congratulations!