Today we finalized our adoption for Nathan. We finalized our adoption in China. So we need to do a post placement adoption in USA so that in future, we have proof of adoption for Nathan that is recognized by USA court.
Before we met the judge, there were other people there with their own case that the judge needed to process. Since these cases were public, we got to hear some of the cases. It felt like we were in Judge Judy show. Some of the cases had to deal with eviction and property issues. Since Nathan was making noises in the courtroom, I had to take him out and had Nelson get me when it was our turn to see the judge.
Since our adoption is considered confidential, the courtroom was cleared. After the judge looked over our paperwork, she said ‘Nelson and Suzette Siu are officially parents of Nathan Siu.’ At first, she was getting confused with Nelson and Nathan since both start with letter ‘N’. She thought our son’s name was Nelson. So she kept saying ‘you are here to finalize the adoption of Nelson…’ 🙂
Afterwards, the judge did a surprise for us. She actually baked us cupcakes and gave Nathan a teddy bear! I didn’t expect that to happen inside the court meeting.
The judge even offered to have our picture taken inside the courtroom.
The judge gave Nathan a cup of water. Not sure if Nathan drank any of it, but for some reason he decided to make a big wet mess in the courtroom. He purposely spilled some water onto the table! Then after I thought I had cleaned up most of the water and didn’t realized that there were still more water inside Nathan’s cup, Nathan decided to spill more water onto the table! :-0
Right now, we are waiting for Nathan’s Birth Certificate which I hear will take several months since this process has to go through the State.
Overall, I am glad we are done with most of the paperwork. This Post Placement Adoption took about a year because we had to do a post placement evaluation with our social worker which took a year. She visited us every few months and every few months she wrote a report. That report is one of the paperwork the judge needed to see. Our social worker told us that now there is a new regulation where the post placement evaluation will be 5 years instead of 1 year! Wow, that is a long time! That will cost a lot of money too!