{"id":2424,"date":"2009-07-09T06:40:50","date_gmt":"2009-07-09T13:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/osbornz.net\/amy\/?p=2424"},"modified":"2009-07-10T09:31:32","modified_gmt":"2009-07-10T16:31:32","slug":"our-adoption-story-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/osbornz.net\/amy\/?p=2424","title":{"rendered":"Our Adoption Story – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can read part 1 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A few things to correct – I pulled out our scrapbooks! lol<\/em> – it wasn’t April 1996.\u00c2\u00a0 It was May 17, 1996 that we got the phone call that we had been chosen for J1.\u00c2\u00a0 At least I had the Friday part right! lol (yes, I looked – I’m a bit of a geek!)<\/p>\n

The next Monday I’m sure we were calling Judy even as she walked in the door! lol<\/p>\n

Our first visit with J1 was at his foster home on May 22, 1996 – a Wednesday and the day before our 9th wedding anniversary.\u00c2\u00a0 J1 was 16 mos old and from the pictures it looks like he was really into chewing! LOL\u00c2\u00a0 We took him a small Sesame Street radio that he carried our whole visit.\u00c2\u00a0 To him we were just another set of adults visiting, but our whole life was changing.\u00c2\u00a0 It was hard to leave without him.\u00c2\u00a0 We went home and tried to prepare our home and our hearts.<\/p>\n

On May 24, 1996 we had another visit with J1.\u00c2\u00a0 We were able to take him out of the home so we drove him up to my Dad and step mom’s home in Battle Ground, WA.\u00c2\u00a0 My dad took some great pictures of the three of us!<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, May 28th, we brought J1 home.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember J1 walking through the house just checking everything out.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Four days later – on June 1st – our church threw us a baby shower.\u00c2\u00a0 Our friend, Debi Stinson, organized it and it was SO nice.\u00c2\u00a0 But I realize now I was a bit overwhelmed with everything and don’t remember much.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank goodness for photos!!<\/p>\n

Even though J1 was home with us, our adoption was not final.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a waiting period of 6 mos and then there is all the time that the courts take to finalize the adoption.\u00c2\u00a0 But just having him home was good enough for us!\u00c2\u00a0 That summer we took a couple of trips, had TONS of visits from our California family members and we worked on finalizing J1’s adoption.<\/p>\n

Even though we’d be a couple for 9 years, it really wasn’t all that hard for us to go from a couple to a family.<\/p>\n

Looking at my scrapbook, I see that in September, 1996 my mom came for a visit and we took a trip to my sister’s home in the Newport, OR area.\u00c2\u00a0 Grammy and J1 played in the sand for the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 Little did we know that J2 was born that month and destined to join our family!<\/p>\n

After your child is placed in your home, during the waiting period, you continue to see the caseworker once a month.\u00c2\u00a0 Some have resented these visits but we always enjoyed them.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a chance to share all the new things our child was doing and to talk about the transition.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember pretty early after we brought J1 home that we were asked if we would like to adopt again.\u00c2\u00a0 We told our caseworker that we would but we were in no rush.\u00c2\u00a0 We wanted to enjoy J1 for awhile.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe in a year or so.\u00c2\u00a0 So when we got a phone call in\u00c2\u00a0 September, 1996 asking us if we were interested in adopting again, we replied in the same way.\u00c2\u00a0 And, then anonymous-caseworker said “Well, J1 has a little brother.”<\/p>\n

I think you could have knocked us over with a feather!<\/p>\n

~~~to be continued~~~<\/a><\/p>\n

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