The Inbetween

While we believe and feel that Levi is 100% ours, legally, he is not. When the TRP was signed, the parental rights were given to the attorney/agency. Legally he belongs to our attorney/agency, but since Ashley selected us as the adoptive family, Levi has been placed into our custody. Per our contract with the agency, he is essentially ours meaning that we have full custody and all the responsibilities of any parent - providing any and every need - as if he'd come from my womb. (This is how the vast majority of domestic adoptions work.)

So what must take place in order for him to become legally ours and when will that happen?

In Levi's birth state, there is a waiting period of 90 days before we can go before the judge for the finalization (when all legal paperwork is done and signed off on by the judge). In that time, we must have a series of post-placement visits. These are visits with a social worker somewhat similar but on a much smaller scale than the home study visits. Our first visit has already taken place. Our SW came to our home to visit with us and Levi. She asked lots of questions about how we learned of Levi, his stay in the NICU, his current health, how he fits into our family, about his personality, the adoption process so far, what we know about his birth family, etc. She also had to see his room which I was happy to show even though it's not quite finished.

We will have at least one more visit. Our next visit is scheduled for mid-November, and we're meeting her at a local mall. It's just a quick causal visit to be sure he still 'fits' into our family and we still seem like decent people worthy of being legally named Levi's parents.

Reports are drawn up after all these visits and submitted to the court. Once the visits are done, our attorney will talk to the judge and set a court date. Then we appear (or don't - we don't actually have to be physically present though we hope to be!!) in court on that date before the judge.

Levi is 100 days old.

In our case, this obviously has not all happened in the 90 days since Levi's birth. That 90 days is really just a minimum. There can be lots of things that hold up a finalization, and we have one of these circumstances. Ours is a circumstance that will not keep things from moving forward and is NOT something that concerns us. It's simply an annoying time delay and causes extra work on our attorney's part.

Our attorney is doing everything she can in order for Levi's finalization to be in December, and she believes she can make that happen.

Please pray with us that all that needs to happen for Levi's finalization to take place will happen soon. He has been our son from before we laid eyes on him, but we can't wait for it to be offical in the eyes of the law.

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