After Elias was born, we needed to have a handful of post-placement visits with our agency (per CA state law) before we could finalize. Those visits were a pleasure to do since we always enjoy seeing our friends at Nightlight. :) We completed that process back in November, and have since been waiting for all the necessary documentation on the adoption to get filed so that we could get a court date.
Even though Elias has been entrusted to us from day one, and the birth family's rights have already been terminated, the adoption finalization is when the judge legally declares us as Elias' parents. He will be issued a new birth certificate with our names on it, and we can move forward with any other legal documentation for him like getting a SSN, passport, etc. It officially marks the end of all the adoption stuff and we are sooooo excited to have it all done.
De-lurking to say Congrats on the court date and your pregnancy! My office manager has two children biologically and two through adoption. She likes to say "The paper work we have one file says two children are adopted and two are biologicaly, but I can't remember which ones are which!"
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