It has occurred to me that I failed to follow up on this particular series. Hopefully it's okay that I do so now.
I left off in Part V with Theia's case in appeals court. Well, the short version of the story is that when the initial appeal was filed, the judge pretty much said they didn't have sufficient evidence to support it and the birth mom was required to submit supplemental evidence within 30 days. She failed to do so. Instead of the appeal taking 8 months, it was over in 31 days. WOOHOO! We got the call in October that since she had failed to provide that document, the judge automatically overruled the appeal and Theia was now free for adoption. So instead of adopting sometime in summer of '09 we were signing her adoption paperwork December 15th of '08.
At Claudia and Joe's finalization, Nov 6th, we already knew the appeal had been denied and were just waiting for some papers that allowed the social workers to move forward; but our attorney was able to talk to the judge and go ahead and schedule the finalization date, far enough out that the papers would come, we could sign her adoption papers, and get everything together by then. Miraculously nothing went wrong and that's exactly what happened. On January 15th 2009 Theia was finalized.
It was fantastic. Our family is fantastic.
I'm not going to try and fool anyone by saying it was easy or anything, because even though in the 'fostercare world' it was pretty smooth and relatively easy, it was still an emotional ride and was hard. I wouldn't trade our kids for anything, but there is still a small part of my heart that knows I only have them at the cost of not having our own. Yes, it's still worth it. With every door closed there is another that opens.
Every day we're working towards becoming better people, spouses, parents, and friends. Our kids have taught us a lot already, and mostly they just remind us that you can't ever stop learning, growing and exploring new things.
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