The long awaited day finally is approaching when the adoption case will be closed and you will have gained the rights that other mother and fathers are entitled to with their children. With the judge’s signature on the adoption decree, and the attorney taking the decree to be filed, it is finished!
There are countless ways to celebrate this special event. I’m going to just share a few.
Since our family adopted through Oregon’s state adoption program, we had the option to be present when the judged signed the adoption decree, free of charge but someone I know who had done a private adoption was charged $500 for a half hour use of the courtroom during the signing of the adoption decree.
Getting to be present for the signing of the decree held up our finalization a few days, but was well worth it! It gave us a wonderful photo opportunity for our kids to have photos taken with the judge, our attorney and our case worker. By having these photos, my hope is my children will see how official their adoption really was.
We chose not to celebrate in the court room due to the equipment in the room and a toddler running around. Our first son’s finalization happened the day of his second birthday! So, we went home with our party and celebrated there. My son was then able to get in his nap and there was no hurry for me to clean up a mess.
After our younger son’s finalization, we took our party to the local buffet since it was lunch time. After our lunch was complete, the party went home and our son took his nap.
There are some who opt not to attend court, rather have their attorney get the judge’s signature and file the adoption immediately. This makes it a bit easier to plan a celebration since often; there isn’t a whole lot of leeway in a judge’s schedule to plan a party being judges work business hours.
Please check out my related blogs:
Celebrating an Adoptive Placement
Melissa is a Families.com Christian Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/mj7/blog