Adoption Update

I love this picture of the boys...it is from last summer. This is one of the first times that they played together. They have become such good friends. Jonathan (although he is younger) is the one who takes charge and has Mikey do whatever he is doing. I am really enjoying watching their personalities as they continue to develop.

So now for the Adoption Update. We had a court hearing last week to re-instate the termination of parental rights. Just to bring everyone up to date with everything...originally parental rights were terminated last August. The mom had 70 days to contest it and on day 70 the mom's lawyer submitted papers to the court to contest the termination of parental rights. The grounds for this was the mom insists that Jonathan's birth father belongs to a Native American Tribe. Because of our very disorganized social worker who could not find all the letters that were submitted to the tribes to show that Jonathan's "supposed" father did not belong to a tribe...they did a reversal of termination of parental rights in February. So new letters were sent out to all the tribes. Our social worker (this is a "new" organized one) called the beginning of May to let us know that he received the letters back from the tribes and none of them had Jonathan's father registered as a member of their tribe. Also he received a letter from Sacramento stating that the information that has been received has been sufficient to go forward with the termination of parental rights. Sooo that leads me to the e-mail we received from our social worker today with the court update....
"The mother reported to the judge that she has essential information verifying their American Indian heritage. The mother was ordered to provide it to me today, I have not yet received. Court is continued until 08/03/2009."

I am trying to not let this get me down. When the boys were placed in our home almost 2 1/2 years ago and we were told it would be 6 months before the adoption would be finalized I never thought we would be where we are at today. I know we have been so blessed over the past couple of years. Just the fact that the courts gave us permission to leave the state of California before parental rights were even terminated was a blessing we are so greatful for. It is looking like the adoption will finalize in 2010 (3 years after placement).

This is one of the times that I wish I could see the "Lord's Big Plan" for our family. I am ready to have more children placed in our home to adopt but unfortunately because of our special circumstance adoption we can not have any more children placed in our home until the adoption is finalized. I know when the time is right everything will fall into place.

I know it is times like this that brings me closer to my Savior because I rely on him to bring me the comfort that I need...I need to have faith in Him and trust Him...
Ether 12:12 "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them..."