Adoption Stuff
Who would have thought that after all this time home with my two boys that I would be revisiting adoption paperwork. That would be because I am a slacker, but more on that in a minute.
Tuesday I took the kids with me to the county courthouse to pick up the forms I needed to fill out and submit to register their foreign births. I am determined to get this taken care of... since Marcus has ONLY been home with us for 2.5 years and Will has ONLY been home with us for 1.5 years. Last night I got everything together and everything filled out and today I hope to have enough time to drop it off. Yeah!
I had to go through a bunch of the kids' adoption paperwork last night to fill out the forms. It had been a while since I looked through it. Mostly it just made me sad. I was so focused on bringing a child into my life that although I was aware of the terrible loss my kids' birthfamilies had to endure, I was blinded too by my own happiness to get to parent them. And yes, Marcus and Will drive me completely mad sometimes, but every single day I am so glad that we are family. Reading through the reasons why their birthfamilies weren't able to parent them just breaks my heart. I was brought to tears when I read that Marcus's birthmom said she was willing to meet with us to assure us that her decision to not parent Marcus was voluntary and in the best interest of Marcus. I feel this almost empty feeling inside when I think about how I will never get the chance to let Marcus and Will's birthmoms know how loved their children are, how even though I make lots of mistakes I try so hard to raise these children in a way that would make their birthmoms proud. If only I could hug them and tell them gracias... and also how sorry I am that they had to make this decision.
Enough of that touchy-feely stuff. I want to defend myself as a slacker. See, we never bothered doing this final part of the paperwork with Marcus because we started the adoption of Will around the time Marcus came home. Our social worker said we should just hold off and do all the paperwork after Will came home to save us on attorney fees. Then Will came home and after two years of doing paperwork to make us a family of four, the last thing I wanted to do was more paperwork. I just wanted to settle in to being a family. About six months passed and finally I figured I would do something. So, I called an attorney last summer who sent us lots of paperwork. Shortly after receiving the paperwork, I got a letter from the attorney stating that laws had changed and as long as my kids were US citizens (which they are), we didn't even need an attorney. So I sat on my butt for a couple more months before finding out what I needed to do in order to do all the paperwork without an attorney. Finally Greg was sent on a mission to the courthouse (this was all before we moved so it was a different courthouse) to get the paperwork. I didn't understand some of it so I put off calling anyone to find out what it meant. Then I finally called and was told we had to do the name changes first, then we could go through the process to get the Pennsylvania birth certificates. Really, our adoptions are complete and final and all that good stuff and the only reason we were doing anything was to get our kids' names changed and get the PA birth certificates... so what was the hurry? I don't think the information was correct about needing the name changes first but we did go through that whole process at the end of last summer. I really hoped to finish the last part prior to moving but the moving thing ended up happening so fast that there was really no time. So, here we are in a new county which means we have to finish this process through a new county courthouse. Two friends ended up using an attorney to finish their paperwork for their adoptions so I gave that attorney a call thinking we should probably just use an attorney to get all this stuff over with. The attorney said that I didn't need her services at all and all I needed to do was call the Register of Wills at our courthouse. Did that last week, found out I needed to come in and get the forms, and here I am hoping to turn everything in FINALLY today. So see, I am not a total slacker. I did try - and procrastinate - for some time now to do all this.
Tuesday I took the kids with me to the county courthouse to pick up the forms I needed to fill out and submit to register their foreign births. I am determined to get this taken care of... since Marcus has ONLY been home with us for 2.5 years and Will has ONLY been home with us for 1.5 years. Last night I got everything together and everything filled out and today I hope to have enough time to drop it off. Yeah!
I had to go through a bunch of the kids' adoption paperwork last night to fill out the forms. It had been a while since I looked through it. Mostly it just made me sad. I was so focused on bringing a child into my life that although I was aware of the terrible loss my kids' birthfamilies had to endure, I was blinded too by my own happiness to get to parent them. And yes, Marcus and Will drive me completely mad sometimes, but every single day I am so glad that we are family. Reading through the reasons why their birthfamilies weren't able to parent them just breaks my heart. I was brought to tears when I read that Marcus's birthmom said she was willing to meet with us to assure us that her decision to not parent Marcus was voluntary and in the best interest of Marcus. I feel this almost empty feeling inside when I think about how I will never get the chance to let Marcus and Will's birthmoms know how loved their children are, how even though I make lots of mistakes I try so hard to raise these children in a way that would make their birthmoms proud. If only I could hug them and tell them gracias... and also how sorry I am that they had to make this decision.
Enough of that touchy-feely stuff. I want to defend myself as a slacker. See, we never bothered doing this final part of the paperwork with Marcus because we started the adoption of Will around the time Marcus came home. Our social worker said we should just hold off and do all the paperwork after Will came home to save us on attorney fees. Then Will came home and after two years of doing paperwork to make us a family of four, the last thing I wanted to do was more paperwork. I just wanted to settle in to being a family. About six months passed and finally I figured I would do something. So, I called an attorney last summer who sent us lots of paperwork. Shortly after receiving the paperwork, I got a letter from the attorney stating that laws had changed and as long as my kids were US citizens (which they are), we didn't even need an attorney. So I sat on my butt for a couple more months before finding out what I needed to do in order to do all the paperwork without an attorney. Finally Greg was sent on a mission to the courthouse (this was all before we moved so it was a different courthouse) to get the paperwork. I didn't understand some of it so I put off calling anyone to find out what it meant. Then I finally called and was told we had to do the name changes first, then we could go through the process to get the Pennsylvania birth certificates. Really, our adoptions are complete and final and all that good stuff and the only reason we were doing anything was to get our kids' names changed and get the PA birth certificates... so what was the hurry? I don't think the information was correct about needing the name changes first but we did go through that whole process at the end of last summer. I really hoped to finish the last part prior to moving but the moving thing ended up happening so fast that there was really no time. So, here we are in a new county which means we have to finish this process through a new county courthouse. Two friends ended up using an attorney to finish their paperwork for their adoptions so I gave that attorney a call thinking we should probably just use an attorney to get all this stuff over with. The attorney said that I didn't need her services at all and all I needed to do was call the Register of Wills at our courthouse. Did that last week, found out I needed to come in and get the forms, and here I am hoping to turn everything in FINALLY today. So see, I am not a total slacker. I did try - and procrastinate - for some time now to do all this.
posted by Annie and Greg @ 7:12 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Annie,
Just caught up on your blog! That is great news about the adoption "stuff". Lots easier for you.
I thought it was interesting that when Marcus was so sick - one doctor said it was pneumonia and one said it wasn't. That is exactly happened to Karla when she was in the hospital last November. I guess it may not be that unusual. Why don't people tell us this before we have to find out firsthand? :)
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