Adoption Eve

Tonight is Steven's last night to be considered a "ward of the state," as tomorrow we will be heading to court with our attorney to appear before Judge Henderson, who will ultimately deem Steven a Sines!  This date has been a long time coming!  But as I sit and look at the last 19 months, I see God's hand.

As with each of our adoptions, God has always been in control!  We had the normal roller coaster initially of whether or not Steven (that was before we even knew his name) was going to be placed with us or not.  See, what happened was this:

I received a phone call from our foster care worker about another matter.  When we finished discussing that, I asked her why we hadn't received any placement calls.  She told me about a baby and asked if we were interested.  We said we were.  She told me that she would submit our information and we would have to wait to find out.  Then we received a call from her that they had selected someone else.  Just a few minutes later, the phone rang again and it was our worker.  She told me that she was confused, they had actually selected us.  Now, at this time we had no thoughts that this placement would turn into an adoption possibility, since when children first come into custody there was always the intent that the children would return home to their biological parent.

Due to some issues during the birth, Steven was in the NICU and they wanted one of us to spend some time with him prior to discharge, so after we got all the other kids in bed, I headed to the hospital for a couple of hours.  When I arrived, I met the cutest little baby boy!  He was absolutely precious.

The next morning I headed back to the hospital and did some discharge education and waited until the agency received the necessary custody papers all while loving on that sweet baby boy!  The nurse then completed the discharge process and we headed home with a stop at the courthouse for some court ordered testing.

Caleb and Cassidy were thrilled to have a little baby in the house!  Steven has been an easy baby.  He's had lots of appointments, but we have managed and are will continue to get him all the necessary help and services as he needs for his developmental delays, just like everything we do for Caleb and Cassidy.

I thank God for bringing Steven into our lives and allowing us to parent him as a foster child, with the plan for us to be his forever, earthly parents!  I will be so glad when we walk into that courtroom tomorrow and sit with Judge Henderson as he signs the Decree of Adoption!!!!!