FINALIZATION COMPLETE!!!

I could not be happier to have this step complete! We finalized our adoption of Alesha on October 21st. There are few things I want to write down so I can remember how this all played out. I got a call from our lawyer on Tuesday, Oct. 19th stating that she had all the paperwork needed to move forward with a court date. Little side bar - This is our first experience with a lawyer...in Oregon we are not able to use the handy dandy do-it-yourself kits to complete the adoption, because we are only Alesha's legal guardians...this is how India works. By the way, I wish I would have spent some time while I was waiting for Alesha to come home investigating all the ins and outs (options, costs, etc) of finalization prior to having her come home.

Back to the story, she said that the only dates that were available were Dec. 2nd, Dec. 16th, and Dec. 30th. At this point I was thinking great we will take the Dec. 2nd and get it taken care of as soon as possible. Then she says the bad news it that I will be out the entire month of December and am only available for the Dec. 30th court date. YIKES!! Can you say cutting this WAY TOO CLOSE to have it completed by the end of the year. She said you can go to the hearing by yourself....I don't need to be there. This did not make me feel comfortable at all. Then she said I can call and see if they can fit us in sooner or if there is a cancellation we can take. I said that would be great, because I really want you there and I would love to have this taken care of ASAP. We will just pull the kids out of school and my husband will have to take the day off....we WILL make this happen. She totally understood. She said I will call you back and then said if I could get the day after tomorrow would that work. I said that would actually be FANTASTIC, because both boys don't have school that day. She said I will see what I can do.

Wednesday, Oct. 20th, marking 5 months since the first time I held Alesha in my arms, the phone rings and it is our lawyer. She says, guess what? Can you be at the court house by 8:00 a.m. TOMORROW? There was a cancellation and I booked us for this court date. I said YES!!!! and called my hubby to take tomorrow off. WOW! Isn't it like God to make this happen so quickly with the least amount of inconvenience. What a blessing!

I was smiling from ear to ear. To think that tomorrow we will finally be not just Alesha's legal guardians, but be legally known as her mommy and daddy!!! What a great feeling. All of my plans to have our parents there and have the perfect outfits for everybody quickly went to the wayside as there was simply no time and both sets of parents were sick. It all turned out fine. It was WAY quicker than I had anticipated. Basically we went to the judges chambers and she put her lovely signature on a Certificate of Adoption Finalization paper we took a few quick photos and that was that. The drive downtown took 4 times as long as the actual proceeding.

We went out to breakfast to celebrate and then to the pumpkin patch. I will post those pics soon. I am WAY behind on the blog, but this important step needed to be blogged about.

We are thrilled and feel SO blessed to have Alesha Mugdha Pfeiffer a part of our family. We feel honored to be called her parents. We love you so much baby girl and you bring SO much joy to our family.

The Pfeiffer family with the judge.

Our family with the judge and lawyer.