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Finally Yours
When the Adoption Is Final By Jessica Gold
Like the Miglioris, my husband and I opted to do the paperwork ourselves you can too. You can also hire a lawyer to ensure that it goes through the courts system in a timely manner. The paperwork is essentially a big packet, and a lot of legal documents need to be filled out, filed, copied, notarized. Still, it was very manageable.
While manageable, the packet was time consuming and bulky to complete. In my case, the notary did not sign one form out of the 100 forms correctly, and the packet was initially rejected. I was lucky that I was told immediately upon filing about the problem, and it was fixed very quickly.
Some other things to keep in mind: You and your spouse need to have a repeat physical (different from your pre-adoption one). You need to have authentic copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, copies of all adoption decrees and other authorizations from the agency. (Get multiple copies of these documents when you start the adoption process to alleviate the stress of having to get them later.)
Adoption can be a stressful time. I had the experience of being pregnant for 38 weeks (with a very unhappy ending) and waiting to adopt for a comparable amount of time. Both experiences are incredible, but both were in a sense invasive, stressful experiences.
When you give birth, the child is yours no questions asked (unless you are dealing with paternity issues) but with adoption, you have that added stress of waiting until finalization occurs. Still, you can get through it and experience the exhilaration of complete parenthood on the other side.
I can sum up the experience by saying that even though that child was ours in our hearts the moment the baby was placed in our arms, the first tears were shed, the first spit-up was cleaned, the first diaper was changed, that child was truly