The big day was finally here. After over 3 years of waiting for Jayme to arrive and over a year waiting after he did; we still found ourselves not prepared for finalization.
First the cute suit we picked up for Jayme last year for Shiloh’s wedding was way too small for him. This became a bit of crisis as we headed back down to the Burlington Coat Factory, where Jayme’s first suit came from, but they had nothing. This became a theme as everywhere we looked we couldn’t find anything in Jayme’s size. Right now he is too small for boys’ suits but too big for the little boy suit sets. We spent the day in Clackamas Town Center looking and then had to go out again Monday. The solution? Why the softer side of Sears of course! We found him a nice black suit shirt and cute tie.
The night before the big day Joshua washed and ironed all of our shirts, then he steamed each suit. When Jayme woke all exited the next day he found a fresh suit and a special breakfast waiting.
After breakfast, each of us showered and dressed in our suits. The three of us looked AMAZING. Clearly, we clean up well! With our suit’s donned we climbed into the car and got ready for a long drive out to Hillsboro.
We have mentioned this before to friends, we all had signed off on the adoption emotionally a long time ago, Jayme especially. As the court day got closer and closer people would ask if we were excited or nervous and our answer would be “Not really.” which really got us some weird looks. When the day came only Anthony seemed to be worried, not about the adoption but that we would not have some sort of form ready. Anthony spent the night before pulling doc’s and creating a huge folder which he hid in the car. You know just in case the judge needed something.
Once we got the court house we walked through the medal detectors into a very small waiting room. We were the first’s to arrive but were quickly joined by Jayme’s caseworker and two close family friends Scott, Suzanne and our former adoption clinician who helped us find Jayme.
The court session itself was pretty quick. Jayme’s lawyer was still out on leave so a very nice substitute lawyer read a very nice letter from Jayme’s lawyer to the court. Jayme’s caseworker then spoke unscripted and said some nice things as well. Anthony spoke… Joshua did not as usual, and got a small ribbing from the Judge. He best moment of course was when Jayme spoke. “I LOVE MY DAD’S AND I CHOOSE THEM TO BE MY DAD’S!
We posed for photos with the Judge and then Jayme’s caseworker handed out cookies. Jayme clowned around and wanted to touch the gavel and talk in all the microphones. We in fact spent more time eating and playing with the judge then the official on the record session took.
The important thing is we left with the official paperwork stating Jayme was 100% ours and we 100% his. And that was a pretty great thing!
P.S. photos up on Shutterfly if you want to see!