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Adoption
amberfernandez
member
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OMG!! Everything is falling into place! (Long)
amberfernandez
member
in Adoption
I haven't talked much on here about the process with the State of CA and our attorney once we brought DD home in May, in regards to our path to finalization, but we will be clearing our final two hurdles this week on our way to finalizing before they end of the year and I'm just so happy I wanted to share!
We did independent adoption in CA, which means no homestudy until after placement. The State department to CPS does the homestudy. We received the packet from the state about 30-days after placement, and even though we had deadlines of 45-days, we got everything within 10-days, sent to the State, and had our homestudy visit less than two months after placement.
The social worker had everything we needed except three things:
-- A 2nd medical exam of the child no sooner than 5-months old
-- The marriage certificate of the BM and the legal father (They were married 15 years ago, never divorced, so the state considers him a party to the adoption)
-- TPR for the legal father.
We were responsible for the medical exam, which we took care of yesterday, ON her 5-month birthday, and our attorney was supposedly working on the other two.
We've had a terrible experience with our attorney, and our social worker has had the same experience. We found out last week from the social worker, that the attorney has done NOTHING on our case, except file the petition within 10-days of placement. I've left multiple messages with our attorney, and never get a response. In fact, we've never even received a monthly statement from the attorney showing the remaining balance of our $2,000 retainer.
So I told the social worker I'm going to try to find the marriage certificate for the BM and legal father, even though I tried before and had no luck due to the vague information we have.
Today I FOUND the marriage certificate, and it happens to be a public record (CA has cofidential marriages for an extra $20, which means the public cannot obtain copies), and my husband is in the car driving 3 1/2 hours to the County Clerk where the marriage took place to get a certified copy!!!
In addition, the Social Worker called last night as she was leaving work, and told me she found the legal father, and he is coming in on Thursday to sign TPR, which takes effect immediately!
To sum it all up,.......as of this coming Thursday, we will have EVERYTHING we need for the Social Worker to finalize her homestudy report, which should be done in just over a week, and get it filed with the court and to our attorney, and our attorney will be able to schedule a court date BEFORE the end of the year!
Our DD will be 7-months old just before Christmas, and this would be the most wonderful present ever!!! Not to mention being able to claim the entire adoption credit in 2010 so that I can pay back my father in full for loaning us the money we needed for the adoption.
I am on cloud 9 today, and actually thankful that today is a stupid furlough day for my husband so that he can make the drive and get the last piece we need!!!
Sorry so long, I just needed to get it all out, and you guys are always so supportive, in good times and bad!
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Re: OMG!! Everything is falling into place! (Long)
Congrats!!
If I were you, I'd give that lawyer a piece of my mind once everything is done, though...
I started to today once I finally got a hold of her after weeks of trying, but I stopped myself, said nevermind, and just looked forward. I didn't want anything to derail being able to finalize before the end of the year.
The most frustrating part about this attorney, is that our facilitator uses her ALL the time, and nobody has ever complained. Granted, most of these adoptions occur up near Chico, a very small area in Northern California, and we're probably the first down in Placer County near Sacramento, so maybe she's not used to the size of our court system and CPS, but jeez, don't drop the ball, and use better communication!!!
Hi Amber! I am so excited for you! What a wonderful yoear you and your family have and will continue to have!!!!
Hubs and I made our decision last week and we are using the same facilitator. Could you please send me an email about the attorney? (I think you shared a lot of the information here, but name and contact information would be great to have) I would like to keep this information in my records. Especially since we will be using the San Francisco Courts system! UGH!
Our attorney has been crappy, I would not recommend her. She was recommended by the facilitator, and is located locally in Chico. If she's having trouble with the Placer County courts, I would NEVER throw her into the SF courts!
Also, I received a mass email from Nikki the other day and she is leaving to apply to grad schools on the East Coast. It's too bad, cuz she's awesome! Mari is awesome as well, and I'm sure she'll find an assistant director that can fill Nikki's shoes!
Congrats on all the good news!!
You should ask your social worker if you can go to court on National Adoption Day (Nov 20th https://www.nationaladoptionday.org/)... If you haven't met the time requirement (child has to be in home for 6 months for us- but were in a different state and doing fost-adopt so maybe different) they can ask for an interlocutory order- basically they just ask the court for permission to go to court early.
Good luck!!