Wednesday, May 28, 2008

It's Readoption Day!!

Today we went to court with Noah for his readoption and the judge decided that we get to keep him. Whew! Our attorney stood in front of the judge and asked us all kinds of questions. I think I got all of them right, although Phil had to help me when he asked me my birth date (which I knew) and my age (which I had magically forgotten). He also asked me to tell him about my feelings for Noah. Noah was on my lap at that point and he must have completely understood what the judge was asking because before I could answer, Noah turned his head, looked directly up at my face, shrugged his shoulders and gave me his biggest Noah cheeser grin ever - the kind where his eyes shut and his face looks like it's going to split in two. We all laughed and I was saved from being all emotional in court. The judge just said, "Well, that pretty much says it all."

We had to swear to all of the same things that we did at Adam's finalization - basically that we understand that we are legally responsible for him and that we will care for him as if he were our naturally born child. As I sat in the court room I wondered (and really wanted to ask the judge, but I didn't) what in the heck he would have done if we said "Nah. We've changed our minds. Can we return him?" This adoption was finalized in Haiti over a year ago. This readoption thing is just a formality to satisfy US law, but if they didn't approve it for whatever reason, I really wonder what they would have done since the Haitian court already said we could keep him. It might have been fun to play with them a little, but I refrained. I personally think this readoption stuff is just one more way for our state government to collect another fee.

We walked into the courthouse behind some rather rough looking people who I'm sure were there for much less happy occasions than ours. Everybody that went in had to go through a metal detector and put their things through the scanner like they do at the airport. When it was our turn to go through, the guard asked if we were there for an adoption. We told him yes and he just waved us through. The scanner beeped like crazy on both of us, but the guy just told us to keep going. After we were through I turned to Phil and asked "I wonder what made him think that we were here for an adoption?" We decided that the best way to get contraband into a courthouse is to walk in with a black child when you clearly are not black yourself. Phil said that we should have told the guy that we were there to establish Phil's paternity.
Now that the readoption is complete, his name is officially changed and he will get a US birth certificate which will make our lives much easier in the future. We can also start working on getting his citizenship. If we can turn him into an American before October, we may even be able to get that extra Bush tax rebate for another 2007 dependent. That would pay for approximately 1% of his adoption. Cha-ching.

7 comments:

Kristi said...

Noah is so cute! Congrats that he is legally yours...again :o)

I agree with Phil you should have told them you were there to establish paternity. So funny!

Kelly Hill said...

I'm so MAD!!!!

Oh, actually.... YEA! He's yours! I'm so happy that it's all taken care of. What beautiful pictures!

Okay, I'm so MAD!!!! Why didn't you let me come? I wanted to be there so badly. Jerk!

Again, congratulations! What have you decided for his name? Is it Noah Nedi? I'm so happy he's officially ours again!

Julie said...

I was a little worried that I might be in trouble. In my defense, we weren't notified by our attorney until the day before that we had a court date. They called and said "Um, you guys need to show up at the courthouse a little early to sign some papers." What? We didn't know we had a court date to show up early for. Anyway, I called and left a message with Jake on Tuesday night but he said that you were in SLC. I didn't have my cell phone and I don't know your cell # so I couldn't call you that way. It really was just a formality since the adoption was already done so don't feel bad. The fun stuff is still to come - blessing, temple, etc.

His name is Noah Nedi. I don't love the sound of those together, but we really didn't want to take his name away from him completely.

Kelly Hill said...

Btw, AWESOME TIE, Pho!

A couple of things:

1) DON'T leave messages with Jake if you can help it!

B) My life consists of hardly nothing, so a few hours notice is really all I'll ever need!

Any idea when the blessing will be?

Michelle said...

Awesome! Congrats Julie! I'm so happy for you all. That's so cool. Was Adam there? Reading your story makes me want to pull out Joseph's video from our court date. Anyway, so happy for you guys.

Anonymous said...

Contgratulations to all of you !! Bet you're glad that's over.

BTW...Cute pictures

Kelsen Family said...

Congratulations!!!