Today was a BIG day for us. Today we met our son for the first time.

We arrived at his school and headed to the office and signed in. Since we decided we wanted to be on time… we got there about 15 minutes early. So we had to wait… Waiting is very hard when nervous and anxious..This was a very nervous and anxious 15 minute wait. But soon his therapist came, collected us and we headed to his classroom. Along the way she told us how this first meeting would  work and how it had been planned out with Jayme. We stopped by her therapy playroom and picked up some toys that our son had asked for. He really wanted to show us how well he can play drums.

We got to his classroom, his therapist asked us to wait outside while she checked to see if the room was clear of the other kids. She walked in and we heard her say, to Jayme that Joshua and Anthony were here. About 3 nano-seconds later we heard a high pitch giggle and then saw his face dart out from behind the door to see us, before it  retreated back into the safety of the classroom. We waited until we got the all clear and headed in.

Jayme was all dressed up in a waterproof apron and was playing at the water table. He was a bit playful shy to start, but with some prompting assigned us both places to sit near him while he played.

He had gifts for us. First gift was a drawing he had done for us. It was a picture of hairy dinosaurs (see the above masterpiece), the second gift was 2 sponge dinosaurs pills. They are  little pellets that devolve in water to make small sponge dinosaurs. This of course meant he had to use them in the water table to make them for us. Anthony was presented with a green sponge dino and Joshua a blue one.

After we all finished with the water table and put it all away. It was music time. All four of us moved over to a carpeted area and sat down and played some music. Jayme likes to set up several different pieces and create a makeshift mini drum kit setup. He then bangs away.. Josh wasn’t prepared for his strength and almost lost the piece he was holding. We all had instruments, two guitars (0ne with only one string), one child’s xylophone and several drums. We sang a few songs with him and even perplexed him when we asked if we could sing Frere Jaques in french (he only seemed to know the english version). He seemed shock and asked “What’s french?” The thought of “Just wait until your grandparents & uncle get ahold of you, you will find out” did cross our minds.

After music time was over we watched a little video on Joshua’s iPad. The night before we took our camera and did a short 4 minute movie touring the house. He loved it, we watched it about 3 times before our time ran out. He had lots of questions about everything he saw.

As we all headed out into the hallway and started getting ready for the goodbyes. Jayme turned and asked us if he could refer to each of us as Dad. We both said that would be ok.

It was a great first visit.

We are still both still in a weird state of calm shock.

We found out officially at around 3:30pm Monday. Our adoption clinician called from her cell phone, a Boston area code, which confused Joshua, he let it go to voicemail rather than answer it, which is funny as he was trying to keep the phone line open for her call!  Once Joshua called her back we were able to do a quick conference call with all three of us; our adoption clinician in her car, Joshua at home and Anthony at work.

She told us the committee loved us and it was “a slam dunk”. They were very impressed with the prep we had done for our kid and loved that we had taken the 3 day FASCETS workshop. She also told us that she had big old stack of info for us that our son’s caseworker sent over for us and she would get it to us.

Once Anthony got home from work we had dinner. Anthony had cooked up a fresh back of beans the night before. We of course didn’t know if it would be good or bad news, so we figured a yummy easy comfort food dinner would be best. Homemade bean and cheese burritos with homemade guacamole, chips and salsa….. Super yummy!  OH and one bottle of chilled champagne!  Or as Anthony described as bubbly rotten grapes (he had Sprite). Before dinner was cleaned up we figured we should tell the world so we posted our “it’s a boy” blog.

After dinner our doorbell rang, it was our first adoption clinician; she lives nearby and volunteered to deliver the big old stack of paperwork to us. She was unable to come in and celebrate as her car broke down and she had to have her family come and rescue her. So a quick congratulations and we were alone again, but this time with 7 inches of double sided paperwork.

None of the paperwork was signing rights to us or anything like that. It was just a lot more detailed information on our kid. Everything we have seen up to this point was like the “readers digest” version; this was the full long form information. Some of what we got was revisiting of what we had already seen, with the exception that none of the names were blacked out.  We read through all of his hospital birth records with all the doctors’ notes and lab tests. Read about how he came in to custody of the state and learned more of his birth families back-story. We knew most of this information, at least the summary version of it. We were very lucky to have good people representing our son who were very forthright with information about him.

Now the funniest part of the paperwork happened this morning. After about 2 hours of reading Anthony headed up to bed, intending to finish in the morning before work, Joshua of course kept going and had some sort of OCD moment. When Anthony came down stairs in the early morning hours, what did he find? But all of the new paperwork with new handmade post-it tabs ordered in to chronological order and Marked with more post-its by chapter and subject heading. It was the funniest sight ever and also made Anthony cry, but in a good way.

For the next 7 days we are in a kind of  blackout period.  7 days for us to review the information and allow us to back out if we see something new that we are uncomfortable with or learn something big that we were not told. It also gives a small group of official’s time to appeal the committee’s decision if they feel the committee has made a error (Will not happen in our case). Also, our son will also not be told about us until the 7 days have lapsed.

We sent an E-Mail to our new son’s caseworker this morning saying we had finished the paperwork and we did not see any reason to not move forward with him. What a great feeling to get back a one word response…. “YAY!!!!” We really have this great feeling that we are joining a great team of people all there for our son and us.

Thursday we are meeting that great team for the first time. We also get to see the school he is currently attending. We will also find out Thursday what the transition schedule is going to look like and get a better idea of when we will meet our son for the first time.

Overnight a literal flood of well wishes have hit both of our Facebook accounts, a ton of text messages from out of state friends and relatives, lots of personal E-Mails and more voicemail then we have had in a year. The love we are getting from everyone is staggering and overwhelming! Even more staggering is hearing how moved people have been, several mentioning being brought to tears at the news. We are so lucky to have such great people in our lives, we love you all! But of course, you all know this mean we know where to find you for babysitting duty.

Committee came back with a slam dunk approval.

WE HAVE A SON NAMED JAYME!!!!!

Thank you everyone for your

thoughts, prayers and support.

We will post more once we stop dancing!

At 1:00pm PST the committee starts

We are hoping to have the answer if we are selected by around 4:00pm.

A new rule allows the committee to think about it for 24 hours so we might not know until tomorrow.

We will post here and on Facebook the results either way.

Thank you everyone for your support and prayers.

(Content below reposted from www.lanecountyheartgallery.org)

The committee consists of three members who are usually DHS caseworkers, retired caseworkers, or social workers experienced in the adoption field.  The committee meets for three hours, usually 9-Noon or 1-4 p.m.  Occasionally it lasts longer, but not often.

Committee starts with a presentation of the child by the CW.  Sometimes the child’s foster parent, therapist, court appointed special advocate (CASA), or attorney, is also present and invited to tell about the child as well.  The CW usually brings pictures, or the child’s Life Book, so the committee can view photos.  The goal is for the committee to have a thorough understanding of the child’s identity, personality, and special needs.  The committee members may have questions during this time about the child based on what they hear, read, or otherwise observe.

Once the child has been presented, any representatives for the child, except the CW, are dismissed and the AWs for the families each have a turn telling the committee about the family they represent.  Again, the committee members may have questions for the AW based on what they hear or what they have read in the family’s home study.

The committee members then remark on or list the strengths they heard or read about each family and the concerns they have about each family.  Then they vote.  If the two junior members each vote for a different family, the chair must break the tie with a vote for one of those two families so that we leave committee with a decision.  We nearly always leave committee with a decision about who will adopt the child.

When committee ends, the families receive a call informing them whether or not they were selected by the committee.  The AW who represents each family takes notes throughout the committee, types them, and forwards them to the family, usually the next day.  If a family lives outside Oregon, then at this point our agency will step aside and the family’s AW will work directly with the child’s CW to proceed with the placement.

The CW comes to committee prepared with the child’s files, which are given or sent to the family’s AW.  There is a 7-day blackout period then to give the family an opportunity to review the files more thoroughly with physicians, psychologists, teachers, and whoever else can help the family be certain this is what it wants.  During this time, the CW and AW will work with the family to make a transition plan.

F.I.N.E.

Tuesday we attended our second and perhaps last Pre-Adoption support group, at least as a Pre-Adoptive family. The numbers were down from last time, just 4 families. But we did get a chance to show our hello book to the other families. The Boys and Girls Aid staff member who was running the meeting broke into our caseworker’s office to get it, which is the 2nd time someone has done that. But it was worth it as everyone really liked it, which was a great moral boost. We just hope the committee likes it and more importantly, that the kido loves it.

We did have one moment of dread when one of the support group members asked if we had done a video for the committee to watch as well. Turns out that video presentations are rare and generally not used or super recommended. But for a moment, we started to have a real fear that we had failed to do something.

This whole week has become very emotional. Joshua has become highly irritable and is hiding at work plus doing his best to avoid stressful people. Anthony has lost the ability to sleep, Advil PM has become his new friend. Even Sam is showing some signs of stress. The cats, of course, have no clue what might be about to be unleashed upon their little world, perhaps thats for the best.

We have finished our new video games and are now frantically looking for new things to distract us. The dreaded weekend is quickly approaching, we need to come up with a plan soon of what to do to keep busy. Joshua was going to go skiing but didn’t want to leave Anthony home alone, at least not on this weekend.

Last night the first of the 2011 Oscar movies arrived from Netflix, Toy Story 3. All we can say is WOW, the last threads of our manhood elapsed by the end of the movie. Both of us crying like little girls. In retrospect, probably not the best type of movie to watch when your emotionally on edge. Crying during Pixar movies aside, we really ARE holding up pretty well. No really…..

We completed the last possible thing we could do before the committee meeting last night. We called and spoke with the foster mom. It was a good conversation and we are looking forward to meeting her if all goes well.

We should add this call also gave us our closest contact with the kido that we have ever had, as we could hear him playing in the background during the call. In Oregon, the adoptive parents do not meet the child until after the committee has selected them. So just hearing him playing felt a bit like cheating. It also made it a bit hard to listen and comprehend what the foster mother was saying, while straining to hear anything we could from the kido.

Yes, we are pretty silly.