Legal Stuff...

Ari was born on December 23rd, at 9:13pm. If she had even been born a few hours earlier, we would have been able to contact the court and have a judge on-call for Tuesday. But as it stands she has had a nice long hospital stay. We are grateful that it has not been medically warranted.
We met with our lawyer yesterday and are beginning to understand the process better. We will go to court tomorrow morning, where if everything goes well, we will be granted temporary custody of Arianna. We will then be able to go back to the hospital and have her discharged to us. The next steps depend largely on the birth father, who to this point has not consented to the adoption. If all goes well we will go back to court at the end of June to have the adoption finalized. At finalization we will receive a new birth certificate.
Advice to Adoptive parents:

• have your lawyers cell phone number, pressure him for it if you have to...
  
• have your bags packed early!
• have a good relationship with the birth mother and her family if possible
• make sure you keep all your paperwork and receipts for everything, you will never know when you need them (even though they will keep telling you, you don't need anything)
• know the court process for the county you will be filing in...each county is different, and each judge is different
• make sure you give the birth mother the space she needs after having the baby

  

We will have more advice and thoughts as we go through this process!

Hospital Stay

As I write this, we are sitting with Arianna in the hospital. The staff here has been so wonderful to us in this difficult situation. The birthmom was discharged from the hospital on Sunday, but Ari had to stay until we could go to court and get custody. We originally thought that the courts would be able to fit us in on Tuesday, but we found out yesterday that the judge is out of town and will not be back until Thursday. It has been a mes,s but we have truly been blessed throughout it...
Ari stays in the nursery at night and with us during the day. If there is a room available in the hospital, we are allowed to stay in it with Arianna during the day. If not, we are in a tiny room just bigger than a closet. Arianna is doing well. It is wonderful that we are able to spend time with her.

Adoption

We are starting this blog to help keep in touch with family, friends and the birth family. We also hope that this blog will be a help to other adoptive parents or birthmothers. We are happy to answer or explain anything you have questions on, just ask!
We are adopting with LDS Family Services. It is a service offered by our church. We started the paperwork in Oct. of 2010. We were approved to be candidates for adoption in Jan of 2011, and we were chosen by Lindsey, the birthmom, to care for her baby in Aug. of 2011. The baby was due Jan. 7 but she was born on Dec. 23. She was the most wonderful Christmas present we could have ever received. She is healthy and happy and we are in the middle of trying to get temporary custody. As long as there is a story I will try to keep this updated...