Out of the Starting Gates

We had some terrific news yesterday. The supervisor at St. Lucy's has given us her official stamp of approval to go ahead and adopt Szu-Chuan. With this out of the way and his birthmother having already signed off on the paperwork, Laura went ahead and sent out the contracts. This will speed up our wait considerably since receiving them can sometimes add a couple of weeks to the process.

Once we've signed everything, had the papers authenticated at the New York City TECO office, and send them back, it will take approximately two more weeks for our case to get logged into the courts. I'm told from other parents that there are a few faster judges and one or two really, really slow ones. Please pray we don't wind up with "Judge Molasses" as one mom jokingly referred to him, that we can bring our little boy home quickly.

I wanted to get a picture of the FedEx man who delivered our contracts this afternoon. Photographing the FedEx delivery person is just one of those things you have to do as an adoptive parent (though this was probably more popular back in the time before referral details and photos were sent by email, when the FedEx guy used to play the "Stork.") Alas, the envelope already came before I got home, so you'll just have to settle for a picture of you know who, taken by Andrew.

Among the things included in the envelope are three original sets of the contract signed by the birthmother. I got chills just holding the papers, knowing she had also held them at some point, pondered over them, and written her name. Here we are, two mothers unknown to each other, both of us connected by a few sets of papers and one very special boy. I sincerely pray we'll have the opportunity to meet this young woman some day and to convey to her our heartfelt gratitude for such a precious gift.