Right now we are in the final stages of Jayme’s adoption. With the State adoption assistance done promptly (note the heavy use of sarcasm), we are hoping to cross the finish line by March… But we are not holding our breath.
The big hold up was thanks to Oregon State adoption assistance taking forever to get back to us. Our caseworker described it as sending paperwork into a blackhole, one that no one knows what is inside. We happen to firmly agree with that idea.
The junior Mr Popplewick is not permitted to expect ANYONE!
Anthony called about once or twice a week for 3 months leaving polite messages and asking for a call back. But as we got closer and closer to the end of the year, he called daily, leaving some not so nice messages before giving up and calling around looking for someone to complain to. He found junior assistant undersecretary, who promised a call back the next day, which really came 2 days later. The whole phone conversation (which covered negotiating continued support for Jayme) took 7 minutes. Four months of waiting, 7 minutes on the phone, part of the conversation also covered the fact they had parts of Jayme’s info wrong. The whole process reminded Anthony of an old Doctor Who episode where the Doctor is lost in repeating loop of very important and very pointless bureaucracy.
But we now have a signed contract with the State that covers the money side of the adoption. So we are just waiting on Salem to send our attorney all of the boring paperwork. A process that our attorney as told us could take months, but most likely should be back by Mid-March.
We also have started the process to legally change our names to DeSoren. Since that is the last name that Jayme will have once we finalize. We feel a common last name will help us over come a lot of potential future issues as Jayme grows up and as we work our way through the school and medical systems. We have already had to explain several times why we all have different names: The funny thing is no one has even commented on the 2 dad issue. But the different last names always raises eyebrows.
We also have completed mediation with Jayme’s birth family. We chose not to meet directly with them but rather to have a mediator do the face to face interactions. Neither of us felt we could handle meeting the birth family.
So much like it was as when we started this process, it is all about the hurry up and wait.