Drive to Roseburg met at Foster Dad’s work in Eugene

Short drive home Let the maddness begin

Saturday

Sunday

Parking Fee

Unapologetic No train

No Petting zoo area

Hot

No feeding of Lairkets

Lunch cost more then admission to the park, not sure that has ever happened at Disney.

Equilibrium as defined by the dictionary is a state of balance due to the equal action of opposing forces or mental/emotional balance. We are dealing with the second kind. Finding the balance with now 3 kiddos is hard. It’s amazing how resilient they are while we are all trying to find our stride.

JJ

Big Sis

I was apprehensive of going back, older, fatter and with grey hair. I was also very worried that my very fond memories of that time of my life would somehow be blemished. But on August 30th 2014. 20 years after end of my Thorn reign ended I stepped back into time.

History

In the summer of 1992 Robert Johnston called my house with two important messages. First he was back in town. Second he was living downtown on the street.

I was on the next #15 bus to downtown, within a week I was at the City Nightclub and my whole life changed. By March of 1993 I was elected Thorn 17 and was “King of the Gay’s

Drugs

Lanny Swerdlow the owner of the City Nightclub use to take to the stage and promote his pro-marijuana agenda. As a 18 year old standing in a club were sex and drugs were common place

secretly pretending not to be the square I was.

But this time when he took to the stage and preached I heard his words through a very different filter. The filer of an adoptive father of three children all prenatally drug exposed.

Tuesday

Grandma, Aunt, Cousin and Uncle arrive

Jayme heads to first day of 4th grade

Joshua takes day off

Elijah has his weekly therapy meeting

Anthony spent’s 2 days making his Green Enchilada sauce, no one said anything so it might have been a bad batch.

Wednesday 

Prepares a large breakfast spread 3 types of bagels with cream cheese.

Gabriel has his Early Intervention appointment with his skills trainer.

Visiting family leaves and goes shopping for the day, back for dinner.

Pasta and bread, Olives,  Anthony goes shopping and kills his remaining food budget

Played Apples to Apples as a family

Thursday 

Both Jayme and Elijah off to school.

Return to expect a empty house but family still there. They leave Elijah and me and go on a boat cruise and then head to the Multnomah Falls.

They get home very late and we just have left.

Played Uno together as a family

Friday

Joshua takes day off. And everyone but Anthony and Jayme go to the beach.

Jayme has school Elijah did not, So Anthony stays behind to pick up Jayme from school

Family returns at 7:30pm and Grandma takes Jayme to CPK so they can have sometime together as he has hardly seen her all week.

Saturday Morning

Jayme’s First Soccer Game

Anthony reheated the leftover Hash-brown casserole, cooked bacon and pancakes.

Everyone says goodbye and

Anthony, Jayme and Gabriel fly out the door at 9:30am for a 10am game.

Joshua and Elijah wave good-bye to our guests and come out for the game an hour later.

With Anthony now a stay at home Dad, we one again are able to get Jayme into after school activities. So after a long time we are once again deep into team sports, this time Soccer. It’s been a weird experience for the Dad’s. Last time around it was T-Ball and we were very hands on. This time it’s Soccer and we are sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out what the Coach is doing.

We registered Jayme before the last school year ended but strangely he was placed at a different school for his home team. This didn’t matter much to Jayme as he LOVES soccer.

The practices  have been hard on our family. Two practices a week, Tuesdays and Thursday with games on the weekend. Practice would tend to run all the way to 7:00pm or later making 8:00pm bedtime hard. But the worse part was that while Jayme practiced the three of us tended to get bored and a bored toddler and 5 year old are not the most fun things in the world to be around.

But as we mentioned Jayme loves soccer, so the Dad’s discomfort was a back burner issue and Jayme’s needs came first.

Jayme’s team was interesting to watch. Each kid has his own special quirk

As part of our speed adoption

3.5 hour drive south again

2 hours with the boys

3.5 hours back north to pick up Jayme

Jayme tries to kill Joshua with a Golf club

Saturday May 24th 2014

Alarm up at 6:00am again, but this time the whole family is up and loading into our new Mini Van aka our Mormon assault vehicle. We sprung for a car with lots of bells and whistles. It even has two pull down electronic babysitters AKA video screens and 2 DVD players. And boy did we need it as we started another 3 1/2 hour drive to Roseburg.

We were all set; big new car, bags all packed, hotel booked. We only had one real problem, we had no idea where we were going. We knew we were to meet at the foster mothers house, but no one had given us the address. So at the last rest stop before Roseburg we started the phone calls and E-Mails to the caseworker and our own adoption clinician.

Unable to get the info, we decided to head to our hotel, a Best Western, while we waited for the address or a flare or something. Until then we would have to camp out at the hotel.

The hotel staff were super nice to us and let us check in 4 hours early.  The hotel itself was clean and the room was ok for the one night we planned to spend. But the staff were super great (did I mentioned 4 hours early?). We had only been in our room for about 20 mins when the front desk rang and told us the boys caseworker had called and left us the foster parents address. Seems we are not hard to reach at the only hotel in town.

We all piled back into the car and headed over to the Foster Families home. The home was only a 5 min drive from our hotel, heck everything in town was only a 5 min drive from our hotel. Before we knew it we were knocking on their front door.

Elijah was very excited to see us and Gabriel was asleep. We got to see their room and their trampoline, which Jayme and Elijah at once were jumping on together. This begin the short honeymoon period for the boys, where they seemed to love or at least like each other.

Then began the oddest family get to know you event we have ever been on. On advice from the powers that be, headed out to the Wildlife Safari. Which worked out to trapping 3 children in a van for 2 hours driving very slowly looking at bushes looking for animals. Oh and Gabe HATES being in his car seat. It was a huge out of the frying pan and into the fire moment for the Dads. It was also on this trip Joshua was given the glorious job of the first diaper change.

The visit to the zoo was mostly a flop. We turned the car north and headed back to the Foster families home and dropped Gabe off for a nap. We then took Elijah and Jayme back to the hotel to go swimming. This was much nicer and allowed for a lot more one on one time.

We dropped off Elijah and said our good nights and then headed back to our hotel for then night. We had two queen beds so Jayme had a huge bed to himself, he passed out within a few minutes of his head hitting his pillow.

The next morning we woke and tried out the hotel free breakfast. We just nibbled as our next stop was full breakfast at the foster families home. Their meal was was much nicer and we got to learn about the boy’s eating habits.

After a nice meal we loaded the boys stuff up into the van, because they where coming home with us for a 2 night sleep over. This was pretty hard on everyone involved. Hard on the foster family, hard on the kids (9 hours of car travel time before they could move in) and hard on our family who just wanted them to stay.

Before we headed home it was decided that we should have a meeting with the Boy’s older sister (she is about a year older then Jayme). She was not placed with the boys for reasons, but she still cares very much about them. It was felt saying goodbye would be helpful for her. The Dad’s didn’t think it was a good idea for Elijah as this weekend had enough heavy emotional stuff for him. But, we are not in charge. We just have to clean up the messes.

The drive was not a fun one. Elijah did great, he loved watching TV all the way up with Jayme. Gabe… hated this trip. The joke their Foster mom made was to give him a teddy gram cookie every 10 miles. The reality was more like every mile. Joshua and Anthony took turns siting in the back with Gabe trying to keep him calm. It was a long 3 1/2 hours.

Driving down with Jayme

Meeting at foster parents house

Trip to the Zoo

Back home to foster parents for Gabriel

Swimming with Elijah

Late night coffee and sleep

Breakfast at Foster Parents

Playdate with big sister in park

Joshua – with big sister moment

The long drive home

Pizza for dinner

Hard first night

House in Oceanside Oregon

One man and three babies

Tilimook Cheese Factory mad house

Kite flying

Lincoln City

Lunch at Pig and Pancake

Smores on our stove

So our family is comprised of 5 men types. But we all come from 4 different families, who at the time of our birth all made different choices for our private male parts.

Jayme who helps out changing Gabriel’s diapers and shares a room with his nudist brother Elijah has over the past year has noticed the differences between the three of them.

Anthony explained this difference to Jayme when his brothers moved in. Told him the story of Abraham and gave him a short explanation of the how this Jewish tradition became pretty normal here in America but is falling out of use.

We thought everything was going great until lunch the other day. While sitting in the Village Inn having lunch Gabriel took Joshua’s side of gravy and started dunking his french fries in it. We all had a good laugh as Joshua pretended to be upset. Anthony said, “Well it looks like we now know Gabriel’s ancestry, He’s Canadian!”  Then Joshua explained poutine to the boys.

Jayme without missing a beat chimes in. “Well, I’m Jewish.”

We all just gave him a blank look not understanding what he was talking about.

Noticing our looks, he pointed downwards and say’s “Because, you know. Down there.”

Birthday number two with our family and Elijah’s seventh. Once again Anthony made custom birthday invites and with Elijah’s blessing we booked JJ Jump again.

This year Elijah’s birthday landed on a Sunday and we had some special plans for that day (more on that later). This required us to go for a Saturday Birthday party. We sent out over 20 invites and when the big day came we only got one kid from Elijah’s class. Historically we have had just plain horrible luck with inviting kids from the boys school. Jayme’s 9th saw him with only one kid at his bowling party. Luckily we cast the net wide this year and invited more then just his class. In the end we had 6 kids. One sister, two brothers, one classmate, one cub scout and one second cousin. We also had a few adult friends who attended.

The kids all jumped for a good hour before the party started. Elijah got to play with all the kids who came and had a good visit with his sister who drove into town for the party. Unlike last year the dad’s skipped the noise makers so the party portion of the day was MUCH quieter.

We handed out cupcakes, apple juice and ice cream cups. After the feast the unwrapping of presents began. Last year Jayme had to help Elijah open his gifts (he was just overwhelmed), this year ALL of the kids crowded around and helped. It was very very cute.

Once the gifts were all opened and Elijah thanked everyone we said goodbye to all the kids and friends and headed home. Elijah’s second Aunt and second Cousin both came over to the house for a visit.

We ended our evening at Sweet Tomatoes for a healthy birthday feast.

After Elijah’s birthday dinner, both Dad’s and Jayme started to lie our pants off. For the rest of the world it was 5:30pm but we told Elijah it was 7:30pm his bedtime. But since it was his birthday he could stay up late for another hour.

With the boys in bed early, the Dad’s begin to pack. Joshua had been doing Laundry for the past 2 days and stacked in the Dad’s room was everyones clothes and all of our suitcases. By 10pm the packing was done and Anthony passed out in bed.

4:30am the alarm clock sounded and the Dad’s showered and finished loading the car.

4:45am we woke up Elijah and the boys. By 5:55am Elijah who had asked only days before for a trip to Disneyland like Gabriel got for his birthday and woken up enough to figure out he was getting a birthday trip to Disneyland as well.

We got to the airport in great time had plenty of time to get to the gate with Coffee, food and drink for the flight. Last time we were the last people on the plane. Same plane and airline as last time as well. Jet Blue non stop to Longbeach.

Once again all of the boys flew great, no crying for freak outs. Which must have come as a great relief for the panicked looks Anthony got as he carried Gabriel onboard.

We left Portland and it’s 34 degree weather and walked off our plane and onto the tarmac to 75 degrees, by noon it hit 88 degrees and Jayme was melting.

We used Super Shuttle again and arrived at our hotel the Anaheim Fairfield Inn. The Dad’s had stayed here a few times before, but never with the kids. With our room not ready, we bag checked our luggage and everyone changed into shorts in the lobby restroom. Then walked across the street to the Disneyland Resort.

Everything online had warned us that the crowd level would be very high. But we really were not prepared for it. The boys both wanted to do all of the new Star Wars rides in Tomorrowland. The more crowded place in the mornings. We normally turn left into Adventureland as 90% of everyone else turns right. But for the boys we turned right.

Hyperspace Mountain was a 120 minute wait and all of the fastpasses where GONE for the day. Star tours was also over 100 minutes but Anthony was able to get fastpasses for that evening. Overwhelmed by the crowds and no rides to get on we wandered back to our normal battle plan and Adventureland. The crowd was so bad they had cast members directing traffic. When we got to the Haunted Mansion we found it also had long wait time 90 mins. So after walking the whole park without getting on any rides we decided that we would just have lunch.

Feeling a bit defeated and still tired from our early morning flight we popped into the Rancho del Zocalo Restaurante aka Mexican food for white people. But it as safe and filling food and helped lift our spirits a bit. We then all walked over as a family to Splash Mt and Gabriel and Anthony headed our to wait.

Thankfully both groups found some Disney magic. Joshua and the boys came off Splash Mt with big smiles and a little wet. Anthony and Gabe enjoyed a walk around the park together and rode Winnie the Pooh.

We then headed back to the hotel to finish the check in a get packed for the evening in the parks.

Dinner was at the Blue Bayou with the Fantasmic dining package. The food was ok, the service was horrible. Waitress actually walked way, mid sentence while we were ordering, then came back with only 3 drinks. Anthony without missing a beat said “AND to complete our drink order we would like…” Sadly his distain was lost on her. At some point she must have known we were unhappy with her lack of service as she pawned us off on another server for the desert course.

Luckily the poor service was lost on the kids. Elijah even liked the frozen celery sticks he was served, Don’t worry the waitress made it better, she microwaved them (face-palm).

After a so so dinner was Fantasmic. We have now done the packages for this show 4 times. The first two times it was the now extinct desert package. This wonderful package came with a reserved chair, drinks and a huge box filled with tasty treats. The last two times have been with the dinner package. First time around we got front row seats and the food was very good. This last time has convinced us that this will really be our last time.

We where given different instructions on where to go before the show. We arrived at the spot 1 hour early only to find a mob of people and no cast members who seemed to know what was going on. Once the mob moved we found our line spot for Blue Bayou, but once we got to our spot we found the river belle diners had taken all of the front row spots in our area. The kids still had great views but the whole thing was a big mess. One of the perks of the dinner plan is only having to arrive 15 mins before the event to get a great seat. Even an hour early we got second row.

After the show we headed back to our hotel. Elijah got the pullout sofa. Anthony and Gabriel got one queen bed and Joshua slept with Jayme’s knees in his back in the other.

DAY TWO

6:30am and Anthony was pushing everyone out out of bed. We arrived at the parks at 7:30 for a 8:00am rope drop. But we hit a HUGE line. Not a line to get into the park but a line to get into the bag check prior to the maingate lines. It only took about 30 mins, but the effect really worried us that the crowds were going to ruin our trip. But then Elijah’s birthday trip luck kicked in.

After getting fastpasses for Sorin, we made a beeline for Carslands and the normal 250 minute wait for radiator springs racers only to find the ride broken and closed. Again, we picked food to change the groups mood. Anthony plopped the family at a table outside of Flows Diner and returned with a huge breakfast for everyone. Then Elijah’s new super power kicked in. As we started to finish Anthony saw that the cars were running in test mode. So we walked up to the attraction only for the ride to open. It was a walk on. A walk on an hour after park opening! Once we exited the ride the wait time was up over 90 mins. We laughed all the way to Sorin for another walk on with our fastpasses.

Now the crowds had not lessened, but for the rest of the day we seemed to just avoid them and hit rides with ease. One exception was the 40 min wait at Starbucks for Coffee that Anthony suffered so Joshua’s caffeine level stayed above “murder everyone” levels.

With the National Councils decision to stop excluding GLBT leaders and GLBT membership, we decided the time was right to get the boys involved.

Anthony had been a Pathfinder when he was a boy; the SDA rip off version of scouts. Joshua has an Army/ROTC background and 2 cousins who made Eagle Scout. So we felt that scouting would be good for the boys.

Anthony did the first reach out via the web looking for den to join. After a few weeks of failure and no replies, Joshua took over and started calling. He found a pack based out of the Happy Valley grade school which is right near our home.

Jayme had to miss a soccer practice to attend the first pack meeting, but he said it was worth it.

Jayme joined as a Webelos Cub Scout. There are 6 or so boys, all his age which will be great for building his social interaction skills. They played games and Jayme even won a few.

Elijah joined as a Tiger which is the first level of the Cub Scouts. Unfortunately on the night he joined, all of the other Tigers moved up to Wolves, leaving no Tigers. At this age, the parents must attend all functions with their child. Since Joshua was the only parent, he became the highest ranked parent and leader of the Tiger Den, a Tiger Den of one.

For the past week the boys have been learning the Scout oath and law and the whole family is in Scout mode. Anthony was in charge of sewing all of the patches on the boy’s new uniforms. Joshua has been taking hours of boy scout leadership online classes.

Speaking of uniforms, they are NOT cheap. But seem to be made really well. The lady who helped us get all the parts we needed for each uniform also suggested Joshua get a uniform as well, as Den Leader. She also let it slip that we were the first 2 dad family she had seen in the store. So once again we are boldly going forward (cause we can’t find reverse).

Welcome to part two of our ongoing series of the trials and tribulations of Gabriel.

So after our Chicken Pox scare over the summer, Anthony set up a wellness check with our normal Doctor. She has been out on Maternity leave and Anthony just wanted her to run her hands over Gabe to make sure he was ok.

When we got to the office, we found that our Doctor was still on leave and we would see the fill in Doctor. Anthony told her the story of the one day chicken pox and mentioned that at Gabe’s last SNAP checkup they said his iron was a bit low.

She did a full checkup and heard a heart murmur, which worried her… a lot. So it worried Anthony even more. She ordered some labs for Gabriel and since they could not do the tests in house at our clinic they sent us off to the big clinic in Oregon City.

Now Gabriel is a ward of the state and is covered via state insurance. After the adoption we will have the option to keep him on it until he is 18 or switch him to our own private insurance plan. At our drugstore and our home Doctor’s office we have NEVER had any issues. It’s only when we venture to new and larger sites the fact we are pre-adoptive parents shoots up red flags. Our run to the Oregon City clinic was not the exception.

First they wanted Anthony to prove family income. Then they said they needed DHS approval to see Gabriel. If you have read our other post about Elijah’s teeth you will know that Joshua nearly put his foot in someone’s tuckus the last time this happened. Anthony just kept repeating that the other clinic made the appointment, all forms should be on file, that his name is clearly listed as the foster parent on tab two of the computer files computer screen and refused to fill out anything. They relented and allowed us to have the blood drawn.

Now for Gabriel everything was great until the needle entered his arm. For the 2 mins it took to take 4 tubes of blood, he screamed and screamed and screamed. He has not forgiven anyone for this evil brought upon him.

It took two days for the same day results to come back. Gabe’s iron level was a bit low and some other parts of the results concerned the fill in Doctor as well. So she wanted to double check the results and asked for us to get a second lab done. Once again Gabe was fine until the needle entered his body, this time in the other arm.

Once home from the lab the clinic called and the Doctor wanted to see us. She did not have the labs back but wanted to hear his heart again. The nurse tried 3 times to take Gabes blood pressure, but each time he would scream (my thoughts, he thought he was getting another needle in the arm). With all the screaming, for some reason, his blood pressure was VERY high. This worried the Doctor even more. She made us wait as she called a cardiologist for a referral.

Once at home with a referral in hand the phone ran. It was the clinic again. They told us to take Gabriel to the emergency room at once, that the clinic had called and they were expecting us.

PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC

Now with in moments of this call. Joshua was in route to home to get the boys. Sam was notified that he needed to babysit until Joshua’s arrival. 2.7 minutes from the call Anthony and Gabriel were in the van speeding across town to the Children’s Hospital.

Within a few moments of arrival we are walked into a posh emergency room and two nurses are probing Gabriel. Anthony mentions the two shots and how he thought it might be adding to his stress levels if they check his pressure on his arm. So they switched to his ankle.

Pulse – Normal         Pressure – Normal

45 mins later with 12+ stickers, Gabe was discharged from the hospital.

The Cardiologist

A week later we had our appointment with the cardiologist. The new Doctor listened to Gabe’s heart and they decided that he would do an ultrasound. Now this was a very emotional moment. They had Anthony lay down on a bed, lay back and then place Gabriel on his lap. On the wall was a big screen TV and they put Cars on for Gabe to watch.

They removed Gabe’s shirt and the Ultrasound tech placed a lubed up wand on Gabe’s chest. She worked a control panel right out of Star Wars, after a few moments and several buttons pushed, Gabe’s heart was on the screen above her control board.

As two adoptive parents of older children, seeing an ultrasound of our children is something we have never thought would happen. Nor the experience of hearing our unborn child’s heart beat. This was so very close to that experience, Anthony became very emotional on a whole new level other then worried about Gabe’s health.

After some beats and more clicks on the control board and about 5 mins of time the test was done. Gabriel’s heart is 100% normal. Kids get murmurs from time to time and there is nothing wrong.

The Results

Gabe is now on a low dose of Iron supplements and Anthony has lost about 10 years off his life due to the stress of it all. Grey hairs, check. Loss of sanity, check. Learning the in’s and outs of the Children’s Hospital, check. Still loving our children, check ++.

Elijah has had ongoing teeth problems. In earlier posts we have shared the horrible time we have had getting Elijah into see a dentist. Sadly the drama continues.

Elijah’s final treatment to treat his last few cavities came at last. Elijah’s dental office is backed up for months, so Elijah has to wait and wait between appointments.

Anthony and Elijah arrived at the office (on the second day of school) for their 7:00am appointment. Elijah was prepped for sedation, no food or water. We got into the office. Anthony had his ID and insurance card photocopied again (7th or 8th time, we have lost track). We then made it into the treatment room.

Here is where they BLEW IT, 100% BLEW IT.

The nurse said Elijah had a choice this time. Since the sedition medicine tastes so bad he can have a lollypop to suck on after or have the chocolate syrup with the bad tasting medicine. As soon has he heard bad tasting he was done. For 30 mins he refused to let them put it in his mouth.

40 mins after arriving we were walking out with a new treatment date 3 months out.

Our only other option was to try a hospital dental option. The dentist office gave us the referral but said it could be as late as January before the children’s hospital could see us.

In keeping with the Dentist office staff from hell’s track record – took a week for the children’s hospital to call and they could see him in another week. Anthony took the call and told Elijah’s foster care story, the issues we had in the past getting him seen because he is a pre-adopted kid and what was going on. Forms were sent to DHS for signing and all was well.

The appointment day came and Anthony and Elijah arrived at the dental office on time only to be visited by a old friend, a large stack of medial a consent forms, which Anthony can’t legally sign. The office then quickly told us that they would not see Elijah without them.

So last time Joshua lost it, well now Anthony had a controlled explosion. Anthony was quick to inform the staff that DHS had already signed forms! He quickly learned those were only for payment not for treatment. WHY?! WHY?! WHY would they only send payment consent forms but not consent forms to treat. Where they planing to just bill without ever seeing him?

Again the answer rolls back to guy on the phone who called Anthony to setup the appointment. Seems he was new and did not work out so they fired him.  Really? REALLY? REALLY? Did they not think to check the guys work AFTER they fired him for not doing this work correctly? I mean it’s only health care related stuff, so nothing important right?

So we got a new appointment for 15 days out to give DHS time to work with the office and left defeated again.

For those of you keeping track, we are now up to 3 dental offices and 8 dentist appointments (with 4 failures to treat or see) in a 8 month time span for Elijah. Each time with him freaking out and getting upset about pain and the unknown. Mad does not even come close to what the Dad’s feelings on this issue are.

At the second appointment we got in with no issues. Met one on one with the Dentist and he took a new set of X-Rays. Elijah did great. The Dentist is meeting with the full team and they will have a group discussion on how to best proceed. Option one would be to try sedation again. Option two would be a full hospital visit with full sedition, the plus with that is they can do all of his procedures at once with very little pain or stress to Elijah.

First we should touch on what a Vogon is:

“They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders – signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.” Douglas Adams  – Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy

On January 15th 2016 we got notice from the boys attorney that after a month of waiting the final paperwork was about to be signed by the judge. With Jayme we did a full formal signing ceremony, photos with the judge and most importantly we walked out of the courtroom with paperwork proving that Jayme was ours.  For Elijah and Gabe it was a whole new experience.

It took several weeks for our attorney to receive anything from the courthouse. What was sent was the paperwork for Elijah’s and Gabe’s new birth certificate without any of the supporting documents the court was to supply. The biggest missing item was a signed copy of the judgement. By this point DHS was out of our lives and our children were undocumented people. Even with the correct paperwork; Gabriel’s birth certificate would take 4 months to process and Elijah’s 11months.

After a few weeks and several calls to the courthouse our attorney was able to an order in for 5 copies of the judgement. The next day Anthony and Gabriel left the house at 6am and drove 3 hours to the Roseburg Courthouse.

Once at the Courthouse they waited in line behind all the dead beat dads trying to pay as little as they could for child support. Again here security was very tight. Anthony had to show his ID and then they called him Joshua for the remainder of the visit. After about 20 mins they had the proof of the adoption and started the 3 hour trip back to Portland to drop the copies off at the attorneys office and drop off a additional check to expedite Gabriel’s birth certificate thru the Oregon System of Vogons.

The side story to all of this is dealing with the DHS Vogons. Elijah’s adoption assistance amount was wrong, something we missed before we signed. So a new agreement had to be draw up with them. Because it was their mistake too they rushed it. The second issue was there medical ID cards.

Now as much as we hated the Oregon State Vogons, the Federal ones are worse. With an upcoming international cruise coming up for the 2 Dad’s and Gabriel, all three of us needed passports.

One year ago my family was in full blown emergency mode.

A member of our family was no longer safe to be around. For the past 2 nights we had been camping out at a hotel trying to make the whole adventure fun for the kids while trying to not break down in front of them.

The call came in while Josh and I were at lunch with two of his work friends. Sam was dead.

The date was May 5th 2014, the adoption committee selected our family as a forever family for Elijah and Gabriel.

January 16th 2016 a “short” 620 day’s later the judge signed the adoption decree.

Which means their now 100% ours. No more DHS, no more having to get a third parties permission before taking them for a dental check up! No more monthly home visits! The boys signed off on the adoption a year ago. The Dad’s signed off on the adoption 620 days ago. Everyone in our family was ready for this process to be done.

We told the boys last night. Elijah was THRILLED. Moody Jayme was moody. Gabriel just clapped and was his normal happy self.

We took the boys out to dinner at their favorite place Sweet Tomato’s.

For our first official day as a family of all DeSoren’s we are going to go on a Cub Scout Field Trip.

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