finally.

NaBloPoMo Post #22: National Adoption Day

Today is National Adoption Day. In Ramsey County they are celebrating by finalizing the adoptions of 34 children  in 24 families.

I was going to post about this a little later but since it’sNational Adoption Day, I decided to post it a few days early.

So in honor of National Adoption Day, here’s a recap of how Milo joined our family.

August 10th, 2007 – we made the annoucement that we had decided to adopt. And at that point we really had no idea what that meant.

September 20-21, 2007 – we attended PAC (pre-adoption class) required by our agency. It was two very intensive days filled with an amazing amount of information regarding adoption.

November 2007 – We complete our home study, meet with social workers for interviews and complete our dossier.

December 21, 2007 – we are put on the official waiting list, approved to adopt a child up to 18 months old. And we begin to wait.

April 26-27, 2008 – we held a rummage sale of monsterous proprotions. It was windy, rainy, snowing, sleeting. Pretty much the complete opposite of a good day for a rummage sale. We moved the entire thing into our front porch, kitchen, living room and gararge. And in two days made close to $2100 to put towards our adoption.

June 15, 2008 – Kevin offers to shave his head if we get $2000 towards the adoption costs. We got close to $4000.

Then there is a very long stretch of just waiting. We kept ourselves busy by getting the room ready, organizing the house, work, and answering the question “Have you heard anything yet?” about a million times.

November, 2008 – we are now around #10 on the “unofficial” waiting list. I’ve started checking my cell phone obsesively. I printed out the list and was crossing off names as the referrals came in.

December 2, 2008 – we had an appointment to meet with our social worker. Our homestudy was about to expire and we needed to get it updated. At 10:20 my cell phone rang. I let it go to voice mail because I was at work but checked it when I saw the number was our adoption agency. It was our social worker telling me to call her before our appointment that evening. My first thought was that she needed to cancel the appointment. When she answered the phone she was chatty and after what seemed like forever said, “well, I have a referral for you. It’s a boy.” And then continued to chat with me. I had to cut her off and ask for the details quickly because I had to pick my class from computers. I had about 6 minutes left to get the details, call Kevin and pick up my class. I picked up my class, returned to the classroom and told them to color while I downloaded his referral information and looked at pictures.

February 19, 2009 – we recieved a social report. An update on Milo about his eating habits, sleeping, daily routine, health and about 12 new pictures of him.

February 20, 2009 – court date in Ethiopia. We passed. Milo was officially ours and we were his.

February 25, 2009 – we recieved Milo’s Ethiopian birth certificate but better than that, we recieved a travel date.

Packing, planning, and to-do lists went into full swing.

March 19, 2009 – we boarded a plane to Ethiopia.

March 20, 2009 – we walked up 4 flights of stairs and met our son.

March 29, 2009 – we landed in Minnesota and met Lexi at the airport. Our family was finally together.

October 22, 2009 – our re-adoption hearing. It was a formality to finalize Milo’s adoption.

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