The really good stuff....

Finally on here to share about our adoption weekend.

So November 7th, we picked up kiddo and her BFF from school at 2 pm, drove 3 1/2 hours to get to the county where the ceremony would be.

We took the girls to Melting Pot for our celebratory dinner. They had virgin daquiris. After as crazy as they were, we had to question if the bartender forgot and added the alcohol.

Crazy, fun girls in the hotel. Woke up the next morning and BFF fixed ALL our hair for us. The ceremony was amazing, despite baby sis not being able to attend. Camera's weren't allowed in the courthouse, but they did have a professional photographer on site (waiting for those pictures).

The judge spoke about us as a family. The attorney got up and spoke about how well we've done together and how just from looking at us, you could tell this was a "meant to be" story.  Kiddo kept leaning over to me and saying "Momma, don't you cry!!" I did pretty well avoiding the tears. I wanted our pictures to turn out nice, lol

We took the girls to Build A Bear afterwards to they could adopt a fuzzy child too. Then headed to VA Beach. Neither of the girls had ever been there.  They loved it and had an amazing time.  We'd definitely let BFF go with us travelling again.  They enjoyed each other and travelled well together with no meltdowns.

When we got home, less than an hour later, kiddo was missing her BFF.

Daddy took bubble gum it's a girl cigars and passed them out to everybody. Everybody thought that was really cute. I'd sent out homemade personalized adoption announcements with kiddo's picture on it that everybody loved, and personalized thank you notes for the gifts received that also had kiddo's picture on it, the adoption date and her full new name and yesterday I got this e-mail from kiddo's social worker that put us together:

I love the photo. Thank you for your kind words and I want you and Wayne to know that you’re been absolutely wonderful to work with. You have all the right instincts, and were so self-motivated to learn. And you were both just plain pleasant to talk with. And seeing you two and babygirl become a family was a special privilege for me. 

It's been 12 days since the adoption and it's still surreal that we have no more visits, no more checks, no more paperwork.

No morning sickness, but man, the paper cuts were terrible. It's over now and it was so worth it. Now, on to the next part of the journey.....enjoying each other as a forever family.

Really? Just really?

When kiddo first moved in and we finally found a counselor after much looking, the 2nd session, the counselor quit.

We got a new counselor.  Some pretty heavy issues related to her past trauma came up. She had a trigger and behaved very inappropriately via texting with her phone. We took the phone away, for good, and e-mailed her therapist so she'd be prepared for the session.

No response.

Went to therapy. Drove an hour to get there. The therapist quit. Nobody bothered to tell us.

GRRRRRRR!!!

I'm so disappointed that somebody in that type position could let their clients down and not even help with the transition or say goodbye. Fortunately, our baby is fine with changing to yet another therapist.  I wasn't nuts about that one anyway, I just didn't want to switch unless I could get the one I wanted her to have.

The one I really wanted her to have IS finally accepting new patients, unfortunately, we called about a week too late. Her baby sister got that therapist.

Well, I guess that's good since the baby sis needs a great therapist, but figures that we'd be a day late and a dollar short.

Here's hoping the next therapist is great and can get her thru this trauma so she can get comfortable knowing she's not going to experience the same trauma she has in the past and that we're now in the forever zone.

We e-mailed a professional we know that could help us with some therapist leads.  Her response:

1^st let me say “OH NO, I AM SO SORRY!”

I  really do feel the pain that this must be causing you and Kelly.

But then….we anticipated that she would up the ante as the adoption neared and afterwards. At one level it is a test of “Did you really mean it?”  I am sorry that she chose this form, but again, no big surprise.

.  It really is a counseling issue. Just don’t panic. Keep close watch. Love her in spite of her behavior- I know I don’t really have to say that, but unconditional love is essential here.

Totally agree with her and committed to doing what it takes to help her heal. We'd do anything for our baby but give her up.  :)

Love that child, just not her behaviors at that moment!  

It's Official!!

Yes, we finally finalized Friday.

A full weekend and lots to share, but so, so tired. I'll share our weekend later. Just wanted to share the good news that she's finally legally ours forever!!

Good grief, I love that kid!!

Tired Already!!

S is moving in with her new family today (foster only) and will not be able to attend our celebration.

We thought K wasn't going to be going either, her great grandma just passed away, but her mom said nope, she's looked forward to it too long, she was going to let K come celebrate with us.

Busy scrambling around packing, planning and getting things together for our weekend.  So excited. I can't believe this day is almost here.

Put kiddo to bed last night and she got up 3 times within 20 minutes to say she couldn't sleep.  I told her that's because she hadn't laid down and tried to yet.  She snuggled in the bed with us instead, at the foot of the bed like the puppy.

Our bed does NOT have enough room for the 4 of us ;)  But so cute that she wanted to sleep with us the night before leaving on our adoption trip.

Tomorrow is the big day!!

Sunday we have a play date planned with S so they can have a celebration together and not totally be left out.

Busy weekend. I'm tired already.

It's Almost Here!!

still no news on S's move and when it'll happen and if she'll be at finalization.

Kiddo's BFF is coming with us though. Babygirl is so super happy that her BFF gets to go the beach with us after court and that they get to spend the weekend together.

I love seeing these normal tween moments.

It'll be interesting to see how travel goes with an extra girl. If they behave though, we may decide to occassionally let her come along on vacation and keep the monster entertained.

Her BFF and another friend came over to play yesterday. I think I have a little Tom Sawyer on my hands. Before you know it, they were asking for a broom and dustpan. BFF was cleaning babygirls room.  Babygirl is a messy, MESSY, beyond MESSY baby girl.  I felt sorry for the BFF.

I was also totally mortified.

But BFF's mother apparently told her to make herself useful and make it worth all the money we're spending to have her go with us on this trip and BFF says she finds cleaning fun.  Probably more likely that the messy room gave BFF OCD twitches.

School let out at noon today, off tomorrow, back Wednesday, we pick up the girls at 2 pm Thursday for travel and they're off Friday for finalization.

On another odd note, BFF is now dating our Godson, who kiddo has a big crush on.  She doesn't seem phased though. She said she guessed it'd be weird to date her Godbrother anyway.

Surprise!!

Last weekend I did the photos for a wedding.  I e-mailed my friend about Wednesday to let her know the disc was ready for her.  She said she'd come pick them up over the weekend.  Friday night, the husbster said they were talking on facebook and that she'd be at El Ranchito (my favorite restaurant) at 1 pm the next day having lunch and he suggested we just drop them off there and have lunch too.

I wasn't suspicious at all.

We pulled up at El Ranchito and I saw another friends car right up front. I said "oh cool, Linda is here too".

Still not suspicious.

Got out of the car and said "Is that Emma's car over there?"

Still not suspicious.

Walked into the restaurant and Lupe (the owner) said "they're in the back".  I actually was puzzled at how he knew who we were meeting.

Go figure.  Naive much? lol

It took seeing this sign to "get it".

The odd thing was I'd already figured out a surprise party was in the making. I was just so convinced it wasn't this weekend that I didn't see it coming.

I totally turned to mush, everybody was excited that I was surprised. Our baby was all smiles, enjoying this party especially for her.

Totally cried at the cake and one of the gifts.

Here's the cake.  The picture frame had our names, adoption date and "journey of our love" engraved on it.  A couple people said "OMG, we made her cry". Kiddo said "she's a big cry baby, don't worry about it".

What a nice day.

Oh, and the gift card on the left, it's enough for our celebration dinner Thursday at the Melting Pot.

My only complaint, nobody brought my camera for me because I didn't see it coming!! Boo!!

A great day!

Disruption

We finally broke the news to the baby about her baby sisters adoption disrupting. She is FURIOUS.  She has ranted and raved about that family giving up on her baby sister and how it's not good to keep moving her around like that and how she needs somebody to stick it out and be there for her always.

Then she has asked both me and daddy separately for us to adopt her sister after her adoption is final.

We were stressed out thinking the disruption may put an irrational fear that her adoption would get messed up at the last minute too, but obviously she sees us as sticking it out and showing her faith in us by thinking we're good for her sister too.  Although, it's cute that she wants to wait until after her adoption is final. I guess if it was her sisters "fault", she wanted to make sure she's good first. lol

We have to keep explaining why they were separated to begin with and that it wasn't our choice they be separated, but they both need undivided attention and love until they can move past their past.

On a positive note though, her sis will be 4 hours closer to us so they'll be able to have frequent visits together and probably some overnights as well (assuming they behave and don't trigger each other too badly for overnights).  We are excited about that. C is NOT happy that we don't know this family and can't vouch for them. She's afraid they'll give up on S too.

I told C that I'm bummed about the disruption too and sorely disappointed in the family giving up so easily, but that what we needed to remember was 1) there is a home that she's suppose to be in and 2) she deserves to be as loved and spoiled as C is and that there is a family that's been waiting and searching for S and we're going to have to hope and pray it doesn't take long for them to find each other.