Life At The Moment

One More

This is my absolute favorite picture from the ceremony yesterday. Priceless!!!!

Finally.....

After 7 different adoption workers, two home studies, 24 home visits, 2 trips to Klamath Falls, A goodbye visit with the birthmom, Lost Paperwork, Endless phone calls, More Paperwork, Sleepless Nights, Stress, Questions, Frustration, Good Memories and 2  1/2 Years later we have FINALIZED Chloee's Adoption. We are now her forever family.

Adoption Update- Finalization Date

We finally  have a finalization date for Chloee's Adoption. November 1. Woo Hoo. It will definatly be a day of celebration.

Adoption and Back to School

We signed the petition for the court to finalize Chloee's adoption yesterday. We now get to do what we have become so good at..... Waiting!!!!! The attorney said it should be about 3-4 weeks before we hear back from him and once we do  it will be to set the court date. We are looking at finalization at the end of September- first part of October.

I went back to school today for an all staff meeting. It lasted for 4 hours and then I spent an hour starting to get my classroom set up. I have not been very excited about coming back recently. However today got me motivated and thinking that this year is going to be better than the last one.

That is about it for news. Tony has a couple more weeks of busy season and then things should settle down and get back to the normal work week. Declin is getting excited to go back to school. He starts back in two weeks. Chloee will start school in January when she turns three. I can't believe it.

Adoption Update Part 2

Thursday I heard from our Attorney- they have received the papers. We have an appointment on Monday to go in and sign papers. Once these are signed they will be turned into the county and a court date will be set for the judge to sign the finalization papers. WOO HOO!!

Adoption Update

Chloee's adoption finalization has been in the pipeline for the past year. DHS was able to terminate the birth fathers's rights  in December. Once that was done then the paperwork was worked up for moving on to finalization.

In May we received the paperwork- signed it and sent it to the attorney. I called in June to see where we were in the process and the attorney told me that he had signed the paperwork and sent it back to DHS. He said that it was looking like we would not be finalizing for another 4-6 months. I talked to my adoption worker about this and she said she would do some checking, because that seemed like a long time. She could not imagine why it was taking so long- all we needed was a signature from someone. They call it consent to adopt.

In July I participated in the Citizen Review Board for Chloee. This is a meeting of a group of citizens of the county that review cases of children every six months. They are seperate from DHS-My adoption worker said that the paperwork was into the central office waiting for consent. She said that she had been told it would be 4-6 months. The Review Board thought this was ridiculous and that they would suggest that this be moved up to the front of the stack- as it should not have taken two years to finalize.

We are now in the middle of August and we have another new adoption worker. I called her to see if she could check status on our case and she told me the same thing- we are on schedule and that it would be a couple more months. I am not sure why it would take a couple of months to get a signature.

Tony and I have been patient with DHS for two years- we have struggled with having our paperwork lost twice, being shuffled through four different adoption workers. I have attended CBR meetings, constantly called to make sure we are on track and they seem to be dragging their feet. I have read several stories recently about adoptions that have taken less than a year- sometimes six months. I understand that every adoption is different, but this is getting ridiculous.

When we were in the process of adopting Declin we ran into some stumbling blocks with DHS. I was not getting anywhere with them so I did research and came across the Governor's Advocacy Program. This program is designed to help families and people that are having issues with DHS. I contacted them and they helped get things in perspective for us during Declin's adoption. They are able to get into the system and find information that is missing- which in turn answers our questions.

I decided to give the GAP a call again to see if they could find out what the hold up is with the signature. I was put in touch with a nice lady who was very helpful- she took my information down and said that the DHS Central office was located in her building and that she had a contact there. She told me it would be more than likely Friday or even Monday when she would have the info for me. She called me back about twenty minutes later and she told me that the paperwork had been signed the day before and that my attorney should be receiving it in the next couple of days.

I am glad that I called- it is one more thing that I had to add to my to-do list, but sometimes taking the extra time makes all the difference.

Chloee, School and The Boys

We received a call from the adoption worker yesterday. Chloee is finally legally free to be adopted. All of our paper work is in and now there are basically just two pieces of paper that need to meet up at the central office. They are saying that the adoption should be finalized by the end of June first part of July. It is amazing to me that it will be two years in May that we adopted Declin and two years in June for Chloee. Time does fly.

School seems like a chore these days. I guess because April was such a long month. I am ready for it to be summer. I am lacking the motivation to sit and plan a lesson, even though I know that it is something I have to do and needs to be done. I love my job, despite the high maintance parents and kids. I am just ready to let the routine slide for a bit and the summer days to take over.

Here are some pictures from the boys fishing trip a couple of weeks ago. Declin caught the first fish of the trip. It must have been the magic of the "Superman" fishing pole.

A Week of Finishes

This has been a another crazy busy week for us, but it has also been a week of finishes. Monday was the court case for Chloee to become legally free from the birth parents.  We are basically one final data imput away from the adoption to be finalized. The last step for Tony and I was to have physicals  and the medical form signed by our doctors. He had his signed a couple of weeks ago and I had mine yesterday. We are finished with all of our paperwork.

Today was the last day of school and now it is Spring Break. School finished up at 12:00 for me and I am not looking back. It was a tough day at school and I am ready for seven days of unplanned time.

Great News

Today our family received wonderful news about Chloee.   

The birthmom gave Chloee to DHS when she was two days old. She has seen her once since that day. A year ago this month we took Chloee down to Klamath Falls so "M" could say her goodbyes and meet us- that is the last time she has seen this little girl- a little girl that was just a baby the last time she held and talked to her.

"M" told us then that she would relinquish her rights to Chloee - because she wanted her to be with her brother. DHS told us at that time that they would get the paperwork together and have her sign off.  It is now a year later and things have moved very slowly and we have run into some obstacles since then. There was issues with the birth father- then we changed adoption workers three times.  The latest one we have is really good- she has been going over everything and fixing things that should have been done a long time ago so this process would not take so long.  All of her work has gotten the birthfather out of the picture.

Today we got the call that rocked our world. "M" was finally able to sign the final relinquishment papers.  She has given the state permission to place her baby with the only parents this little girl has ever known.  This means that Chloee is finally legally free for us to adopt her.  This is so huge for us- it has been a long hard journey to get to this point and we know how blessed we are to have this little girl in our life.

Tonight and Other News

It is finally here!- The Faith Hill / Tim MaGraw Concert.  I can't wait.  It is going to be nice to spend time with Tony- we haven't done anything for awhile. I am hoping to get some good pictures and I will post them soon.

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In Other News:

I spoke with the adoption worker yesterday she had information regarding Chloee's adoption. The state has been trying to get her birthmom to sign the final relinquishment papers for the past month. She tells them that she will be inthe next day when they call her, but she never shows up.  They have sent her letters and they are not answered- etc.   It seems that she has gotten into some trouble and now she is laying very low and has cut off all communication with DHS. Our AW says that the next step is to have a court date and they will terminate her rights- DHS has done enough to try to contact her and help her get services with no success.  It is just a paper trail now and a court date until finalization. 

I think about the birthmom and what she is doing these days and it makes me sad. I don't know her other than the paperwork that we have received and meeting her the one day, but she brought these two children into the world and I am grateful to her for that.  The phone call yesterday with the good news about Chloee made me happy, but it also made me sad to wonder where would these two kids be if she had not given them up? Would they be alone and in danger because she could not be responsible for them, let alone herself?  They deserve so much more than that.  Last night as I put them to bed- I gave them each a little longer hug than usual. I felt so lucky that I have them and to know that I can give them so much more.