Sprout’s parents’ rights have been “terminated.” Her mother surrendered her rights, and her father’s rights were terminated recently and he didn’t appeal the decision.
That means Sprout gets a new adoption case worker. In this case, it’s a worker we know and love. She was Miss Kicks’s case worker, and while that situation ended in fire, we adored her case worker through all of it.
The case worker came to our house Friday and announced that she wants to have the adoption take place on National Adoption Day, which is November 18, 2023. That’s just two months and a mountain of paperwork away!!
Now, the case worker cautioned that things can always go wrong. But we have a good attorney, and when I contacted him on Saturday to tell him the good news and ask if he was on board with an adoption date that soon, he assured me he is, and that he’ll get the papers drafted this week.
We already have selected folks to be our references: the neighbors and friends and pastor we reached out to all immediately responded that they’d be honored to help. I passed their names and addresses to the case worker already, so we are officially on our way!
I have some mixed feelings about doing the adoption on National Adoption Day. I was expecting a quiet private ceremony with little fuss. We would then leave it up to Sprout to decide if she wants any kind of gathering and what that will look like.
National Adoption Day in our county, though, is a big fuss! It involves lots of judges, multiple counties, balloons, ceremony, and fun at the downtown convention center. It’s just not what I’d pictured. That doesn’t make it bad, just different. I suspect Sprout will be enthusiastic enough about adoption that she’ll love the fuss, but I can see it being a bit much for a kid who is on the fence about their adoption, like Sunny may possibly be if we get there.
Speaking of Sunny, it’s looking increasingly like adoption is where we are headed. We all have mixed feelings about it. Sprout sometimes wants to adopt Sunny and sometimes wants to send her home, depending on whether they’re getting along. And while Seth and I love Sunny tremendously and recognize that she’s in an excellent situation here academically and medically, we also recognize that her staying here means she’ll lose out on her culture a great deal, and will be sentenced to always missing her family.
In contrast, Sprout has been here since she was less than 2, desperately wants to stay forever, and can’t wait to get adopted by us. So I guess if one kid’s adoption was going to happen on National Adoption Day, it should be Sprout’s!
If it happens on November 18, Sprout will have been in foster care for 1311 days. Or 3 years, 7 months, and 2 days. Or 43 months and 2 days. That’s a damn long time. It is time this was wrapped up.
Fingers crossed, folks!
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