Update...and signing!

Updates......and more!

Well, I have truly been absent from the blogging scene over the past few months! I am still going to work my way from the past to the current. I will definitely bring everyone up to date from the past few months to the current month. I promise that I will. You all know that I have all of the pictures of him and events, however, I jut have not made time to share things up here weekly or as often as I would like to. So, get prepared for a parade of pictures soon and mass updating!

First, I wanted to share that we signed the papers today and we should have our finalization date very soon! Our case workers advised us that it will more than likely be this month. They felt as though the transition was great and they contacted us advised us that we can go ahead and move forward with signing the paper to get finalized instead of waiting until the 6 month period.
This was pretty quick and we are so thankful to God that this has been so sweet after all. We arrived to our agency this afternoon to go over the paperwork and sign and it was done within 30 minutes actually. We stayed much longer afterwards because a few of other caseworkers who knew my son or had heard of him/us stopped by during the visit to see him and were amazed at his growth in such a short time period. I can't figure out how so many people know that we are coming! We always seem to have a crowd! It is all good, because they are like a family there and they are happy to see the end result be positive. I still didn't get to two see my old caseworker who did our home study and her teaching partner who did the class. I am sure they are going to have a word for me being that they didn't know because they were on a different floor. I guess I will have to take him up there next week to see the others on the other floor who also played a major role. The head adoption administrator also came to the conference room for a minute to sit with us. My son's old caseworker actually sat and played with him while we signed papers and went through a few documents.

We are very pleased with our process. The fact that we are adopting an AA male that is no longer a number with AA babies that need to be adopted is a great feeling. AA males are high priority as well. I will also share some of the perks for the child as far as going the route that we did. We are encouraging other close friends to move forward as well and helping them through the process.

Meanwhile, I will have to update and share all of the things that we have been doing since my little one has arrived. I have so much to share. We traveled, are traveling more and preparing for his last and third baby shower and that a wonderful and dear friend is hosting locally for us. I will share the details of that event afterwards as well.

We have also been guest speakers with the agency to talk to a group of families completing the process. It was exciting and we felt good about coming and speaking to the families on a Friday night about our journey and giving them hope. Of course, they wanted us to bring our little one and he was the delight! It was amazing because we were just one of the families sitting in there back in September. I don't think we finished speaking to the group that night until about 9:30 or 10 pm. We really enjoyed giving others hopes and sharing our journey with 12 to 14 other families. There were people with cameras taking pictures and all. They were very excited and vocal families!

We were invited to come speak and told to arrive towards the end of their final segment. Therefore, we actually had a grand entrance since we had to walk in this big group and they had no idea of who was coming. The other wonderful parent who came was a dear friend of mine who has the little baby girls in her care. We met her back in September and held those precious twins and helped out with them after we finished the class and they still act like they know us! The families in the class heard from 2 perspectives, ours, as the new family and the other parent as a seasoned foster mom.

We told them that we did not mind coming to speak at all. So, I am sure that we will be guest speaking even more. The ladies who actually taught our class are the ones who held the class that we spoke to. One of the instructors was my actual home study caseworker and we are all like family now.

I will also be sharing how I had some "ghost" followers who had been following my journey for a long time and 2 of them emailed me personally and shared the joy with me and told me who they were and thanked me for being up front and honest on my blog about my feelings and experience going through the process. Both emails literally brought tears to my eyes when I read them because I just did not realize how many people were really following my story, but did not necessarily comment or have a blog themselves.

It was very touching to me and I am thankful to the wonderful emails from both ladies who I had never had discussions with prior to my son's placement. I guess it proves that this blog community is truly a positive resource for many. You know who you are, and I want to thank you for personally contacting me and silently and prayerfully cheering for me although I did not even know you existed! It means a lot. Little did I know, but both ladies who contacted me have roots as I do in my home state! That was the icing on the cake!

So, stay tuned! The pictures and updates are coming. I am on a more relaxed schedule and I hope to update weekly while I have this time.

( He is with 2 of caseworkers, an old original caseworker and the current one on the floor playing with him while we signed at the conference table with the administrators. I cropped the pictures to take them out and cropped some of my watermark. Yes, that is one of his cw's taking a picture of him with her camera because she is amazed at his growth and language in a short period.)