Adoption Day

Today's hearing was actually the easiest part of the entire process. The judge, much to our surprise, was quite nice, and interrupted herself multiple times to comment on how cute Natalie is, or to laugh at something she was doing. She made sure that everyone was clear that the adoption would mean that Jen and I have equal legal ties to Natalie (um, yeah, that's the point), and then read some stuff and declared it done. We took pictures, and she had us pick out a children's book from a little bookshelf in the courtroom, which she inscribed for Natalie. That was it. No drama, no more hoops. Most importantly, it's done. Our girl has two legal parents, and now we can go back to living our lives without worries about social workers or other fun intrusions.

And now for the pictures.

Natalie shares her opinions and questions during the hearing


The happy family post-hearing