(more) official

Last night (this morning?) at midnight we passed another big step in our journey towards becoming a forever family! Georgia has a 10 day 'wait period' after legal consent papers are signed wherein the birth mother can revoke the consents. The 10 days begins the day after the consents are signed. If at any point in those 10 days she decides that she regrets her decision and chooses to parent, all she has to do is say so and custody is returned to her. This is exactly what happened in November- we only made it to the second day of the wait period.

So while Camilla's birth and bringing her home were both incredibly exciting, we were all holding our breath as we knew we'd have to make it through the 10 days before we could really celebrate. And because we are super duper lucky, our 10 days were actually 12- the law also states that the final (10th) day canNOT be on a Saturday or Sunday. If it falls on one of those days, then the '10th' day gets moved to the following Monday. So our 10th day was actually Saturday, but couldn't be observed until yesterday, so...there ya go, two bonus days of fun. 

While I am ethically extremely supportive of Georgia's mandatory wait period (it differs by state; some states have NO wait period, some states are as long as a month)...that doesn't necessarily make it any easier to sweat it out. Fortunately, we have a strong relationship with J and knew that she was remaining confident and sure in her decision to place Camilla with us, so that helped a lot, as did her empathy for how nervous and worried we were. But we were still counting down the minutes until midnight last night. So were a lot of other people, as evidenced by the number of calls, texts, and emails I received at 12:01 a.m. :) 

In this case, no news is good news. Nothing about our legal standing has actually changed since yesterday or last week (we remain her legal guardians until the adoption is finalized in a few weeks), but we now move forward with a lot more confidence that this sweet baby will stay with us forever. It's like I can breathe again.

With this last major hurdle behind us, we even went 'public' on Facebook today. I mean, if it's official on Facebook, you KNOW it's real, right? Do we even still have to go to court??

I'd been wording and re-wording how to 'announce' it for days (in my head, while I'm busy not sleeping). How do you announce the most amazing thing that's ever happened to you with the proper excitement, but while remaining respectful to J and her family and any birth parents, adult adoptees, or adoptive families that may happen to read it? Not to mention the friends and acquaintances struggling with infertility or prolonged adoption experiences...how can I be joyful without rubbing salt in their wounds? These are among the things I ponder at night. I probably would have written and rewritten it a dozen more times, except that my sister couldn't contain her excitement and went ahead and 'outed' me with a post of her own. That forced my hand to get my own post up quickly, ha. God bless enthusiastic sisters, right?

So we're another step closer to forever. Another day more head-over-heels for our sweet girl. I am so incredibly thankful, I just don't know what to do with myself.