I promised to keep you updated on how our home study and adoption of Hannah is going.

We are in the home stretch. Our home study is completed and approved. We are now in the adoption subsidy process.

This is the point where an adoption subsidy is agreed upon. In a normal circumstance this would have been an ongoing process with the paperwork just needing to be signed, but our case is not normal.

In a normal dissolved adoption, the adoption subsidy does not transfer to the new adoptive parents, but Hannah’s state of birth is actually willing to work with us. I credit this to Hannah’s previous mom. I wouldn’t have even tried to get this, because I know this usually doesn’t go through, but she paved the way and started discussing this with previous state several months ago. I am so thankful for that.

Part of the issue is that we have three states involved, where there is normally only one, or possibly two if ICPC has come into play. Hannah was born in one state, adopted in a second state, and we are in a third state, so things get slightly more complicated. Since we have permanent guardianship the state is more willing to work with us.

Once we get this agreement ironed out, which should hopefully only take a few weeks, we will file the petition to adopt Hannah. The petition is a 5 – 10 minute process in court which is essentially requesting the court date. The agency will submit their paperwork saying we have been approved for adoption. We will show up in court, state our commitment to Hannah, she will probably be asked if she wants to be adopted, and a few more minutes of conversation before the adoption decree is issued.

The most interesting part of all this is that any judge we appear in front of for the adoption, we will have appeared before in regard to criminal activity with Sammy. In our county we don’t have a specific juvenile judge. It rotates between all the judges. We have appeared before every judge in the county at some point with Sammy. This means that the same judge may have sentenced my son to juvenile detention and then will grant us the adoption of our daughter. Just another day in my life.



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