Rebecca is officially free for adoption! We had already finalized Steve and George’s adoption they are officially ours. The time has come to make Rebecca ours as well. In our hearts and minds she was already a Woolard but on paper and legally she was a ward of the state.
The court date came pretty quick because we had already had her in our custody for the mandatory 6 months. The court procedures are pretty basic, you walk in with your lawyer and the judge asks if we want to adopt the child. If the child is old enough they may ask them also but ours were still too young for them to get a vote. He then says some legal things and signs his seal of approval and then it is official.
Our kids all know that they are adopted they have since day one. We did not want the idea of adoption to be something only spoken when the kids were not around. We did not want them to find out by accident that they were adopted and then have them feel like we lied to them. They all know they have the same tummy mommy different tummy daddy’s and then they have us their heart mom & heart dad.
We want the kids to be able to celebrate the fact they are adopted. We want them to be comfortable talking about it if anyone mentions it to them. For example everyone always says that Rebecca looks just like me; when she hears that she laughs and says how funny it is because she’s adopted.
We celebrate being a family every year in August we have our Family Day Celebration. We let the kids choose where we are going for dinner or an outing. They have already told us that for our ten year Family Anniversary we are going on a cruise.