In the early hours of this morning, Baby Girl turned 2 days old. With this came the 48 hour minimum that allowed Anne to sign her TPR papers. The 48 hour mark would have been at just after 4:00 a.m., and Anne's appointment was scheduled for 10 a.m.. Here's how everything happened.
At some point yesterday, Anne's TPR appointment was scheduled. This meeting required Anne to have 2 witnesses present, along with a social worker and notary. They also conference called in a lawyer. Both our social worker and Anne let us know that the meeting had been scheduled. Everyone went up to Anne's hospital room, and they had the meeting in there. Anne was in very good spirits and we texted back and forth quite a bit in the morning before it was time for her to do her paperwork. She was asking about how Baby Girl was doing that morning, as well as telling me about how she was doing and her plans for going home later today. A few minutes before her meeting was supposed to begin, she mentioned that she was really tired and asked if we could bring a coffee up to her room, so my husband went down to the hospital coffee shop and took her a latte while I fed Baby Girl her second breakfast (she loves to eat!).
Shortly before 10, the social worker came into the nursery to introduce herself, let us know that she was about to go begin the meeting, and ask where she would be able to find us in about an hour. She explained that the TPR paperwork process normally takes about 45 minutes, depending on how many questions everyone may have.
About an hour later, Anne texted us to let us know it was our turn for paperwork and that the social worker was headed our direction. We had about 8 different forms that we had to sign, and raise our right hands to swear that we had not misrepresented ourselves, our personal information, or our intentions to follow-through with adopting Baby Girl at any point during this process. And that was it. Should there be any legal proceedings for anything non-adoption related between then and now, we would technically be considered Baby Girl's guardians, but for all intents and purposes we are now her parents! We have the legal and practical authority to make any medical decisions or other significant things of that nature that should need to be dealt with between now and the finalization of the adoption.
A couple of hours after the TPR process was done, Anne sent me a text message and asked if I would bring Baby Girl to her room for us to all spend some time together before she was discharged. We had a wonderful couple of hours together as a group-- we talked and laughed while exchanging funny family stories, and just had a great time with each other's company. It actually gave us a great deal of peace to see Anne in such good spirits, given the significance of what had just happened a couple of hours ago. She told us that she felt really good about everything, that she knew she had done the right thing, and that she loved us. She gave Baby Girl a kiss, and she and Ben got ready to leave. Since the baby will probably be in the hospital for a few more days, she asked if it would be okay if she came up tomorrow to bring a present that she had gotten for her. We said of course, and then they headed home. We heard them chatting about what they wanted to do for dinner as they headed down the hallway.
At this point, the next steps are to wait for Baby Girl to be discharged from the hospital so that we can begin the ICPC process.
No comments:
Post a Comment