Pre Adoptive and a chink in the armor

It’s official as of Monday afternoon, we are a pre-adoptive family. On Monday, both birth parents were given one last opportunity to choose to parent Quin. The birth mother showed up and gave up her right to do so, and the birth father did not answer the attempts to contact him. That’s an important step for us! That means that there shouldn’t be any bad Lifetime movies written about our situation any time soon. Now, we’re still not the official parents of Quin, still only the foster parents. The adoption agency is now the legal guardian of Quin and all major medical decisions and travel plans must now be arranged through them. We will also have three home visits from the agency to make sure things are going well. After Quin has been with us for 6 months, the agency will file for a court date in Waukesha to make the adoption official. At that time we will get a birth certificate and have the ability to apply for a social security number. As you can guess, we’re very happy about this step. It is a major one! We feel very fortunate given all that could have happened. Jenny was in contact with an adoptive family who had been selected only to have the birth parents change their minds just before the child was born. I’ve also heard stories recently about people who were going through the legal risk period only to have the birth grandmother decide she was going to care for the child three days prior to the termination of parental rights hearing. She went through the trouble of having her daughter declared unfit to parent so she became the legal guardian. Needless to say, we feel very fortunate and blessed.

Quin himself is doing very well. He eats pretty much every 3.5 to 4 hours. He sleeps well at night… Well, he still gets up every 4 hours to eat, but as soon as he’s done eating it’s back to sleep for him. I’ve found the magic that is Netflix Watch Instantly to pass the late hours while Quin eats.

Ethan is doing well, too. He is a very good big brother, though he’s shown some recent signs of weakness. The other day, Jenny had to go out to the grocery store or something and Ethan wanted to play Spiderman: Friend or Foe, his favorite game on the Wii. It’s a game that he and I play together. So he went downstairs and got the game setup while I situated Quin. When I came down with Quin in a bouncy seat, he said, “Aww, don’t bring him down!” I asked him why, to which he replied, “when he cries, we have to quite playing.” I can’t blame him, infants are pretty inconvenient sometimes, and so far it’s the only chink in the armor we’ve been able to detect.

That’s it for now. I’m sure exciting posts are coming up as Easter in Neillsville is right around the corner, then it’s off to Orlando for a Disney vacation with Grandma and Grandpa Grady. Exciting times ahead.