Saturday, January 23, 2010

Monday, January 4, 2010

Meet the newest NOW PERMANENT member of our family! She is officially OURS!!!

Vivi with John, our adoption agency director before our hearing





Our hysterical social worker Trina with our final adoption decree. She cracks us up! She handed us Vivi at the hospital, did all 7 of our post placement visits, and showed up today to witness our Finalization. We love her!



The FINAL COVETED paperwork!

Today was THE DAY! I was so nervous. This was new for us. Lucy's paperwork was pretty much all finalized at the US Consolute in Guangzhou. This was a BIT different.


We had to hire an attorney.


We had to be questioned under oath by said attorney.


We had to be questioned by the judge. A not joyous judge might I point out.


Although things seemed to be going okay until the judge cleared the room, DESPITE Mark and I saying it was okay for people to stay.....UH OH!


He proceeded to ask something along the lines of how we thought we could afford another child when Mark made THIS, and our debt was THIS. Were we charging all our groceries on credit cards he wondered? (I mean I knew things were tight, but we can afford to eat!)


Our jaws were on the floor.


The agency director and social workers jaws were on the floor.


I even think our attorneys jaw was on the floor.


I swear you could hear the crickets chirp!


The judge, in his attept to get us all to close our collective mouths, went on to start quoting numbers. Numbers that WERE NOT OURS. If they were, none of us could figure out how. We again stated out income/debt ratio which the agency verified, and it was time to move on. WHEW.


Our agency director spoke a bit how it was his recommendation the we have permanent placement of Vivi, and our attorney echoed his sentiments in the form of a request.


As the judge handed forth his fianl decree, I disolved into tears! She is ours!! Vivienne Grace is ours FOREVER!!


Our attorney proceeded to ask the judge if we could approach the bench for some pictures. He so "happily" obliged! If you could see the photos, I think you would have an inkling of what this was like. I may need to start an additional PRIVATE blog to share photos of our whole family that I am not comfortable sharing with people out there I don't "know"................


Thanks for all the amazing and wonderful comments on here and Facebook! We have enjoyed sharing our journey to Vivienne Grace with you!!