Over the last 8 months J has grown in so many ways. He has transitioned from bottle to sippy cup, mashed food and food fights at every meal to eating us out of house and home, walking to running. He climbs, jumps, kicks a ball and has a full vocabulary. He loves to sing and dance. His favorite songs are no more monkeys jumping on the bed and twinkle twinkle. He sings both over and over. He loves to scream "out" whenever I pull into a parking stall and is always ready for the next adventure. He loves to give kisses, and is excited to snuggle with his sisters, especially in the early morning with Katelyn who shares a room with him.
When J came home, he came to us as a legal risk placement. The form that was only supposed to take a few months to return, took 8 (we received word on Monday that it returned). Our worker could not move forward with the final adoption paperwork until this form was returned. I was reveiwing my previous posts today and was filled with joy that Edmonton said yes to us taking J as legal risk. If they had said no, or we did not agree with the legal risk placement, J would not have been placed with us until this week. I think of how much J has changed in just 8 months and how much harder his transistion would have been. J is now no longer legal risk and we can finish the adoption process and receive a legal birth certificate for J.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the Alberta government process for adoption, I will explain. There are several different scenarios under which a child can be placed in your home. In our situation we specifically applied for J. When the government agreed that we were a good match, J came home. If we had been "chosen" out of the system, a tranisiton process that usually takes 2 weeks would have happened. In both scenarios, once the child is officially in your home there is a 6 month observation period before documents are sent to court. If for any reason the adoption worker decides that the match was not a good one then the adoption would be terminated. In our situation, we were waiting for a form that let us know if there was any native heritage in J (all children that are wards of the Alberta government have to have this check done). We were all positive there wasn't but still had to agree to a legal risk placement. J still came home to us as our son. If this form came back and said he was native, then the band would have the final say if he stayed in our home. The observation period still continued while waiting for this form. Our worker has been ready for the last two months to submit the forms to the courts, however has not been able to. Now, she can!!!
So, what happens now? Next week we have our monthly meeting with our worker. She will interview two of our references and then finish up our adoption paper work. We had to get new criminal record checks done this week as all checks given to the government have to be less than 6 months old. In the last few months, finger printing for adoptions (in Airdrie) has become mandatory. So Steve and I were also fingerprinted. Once our worker has our completed criminal record checks in hand (about 3 weeks) she will hand in our paperwork to her manager. Then her manager, who is on holidays all of August, will review our paperwork. If everything is how it should be it will be submitted to the courts. Then, it sits until a judge is ready to look at it. The current wait time has been 3-4 months. Once the judge looks at our file, reads it and accepts it he will issue an order for a new birth certificate to be made for Jesiah. Once this happens, Jesiah is no longer a ward of the government, we can get a passport for him and we can leave the province without special permission. Jesiah will be on paper, officially, our son! Of course, in our minds and hearts he has been our son since November 10th, all the rest of the process is just paperwork. And so we continue to move forward finalizing our Son's paperwork.
I think of this process the same as waiting for a birth child's birth certificate. The day your child is born is the day you acknowledge them as your child. The day you recieve your child's birth certificate is the day you can apply for a passport. Either way, the child has been entrusted to you to love, hold, snuggle, guide, care for and raise, as long as God has intended.
And so today, we continue to walk this journey, anticipating August 13, the first birthday we get to celebrate with our son, the day J turns 2!!!
2 John 1:6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
