Six Months and a Hearing Date!!!

We have a hearing date!!! We got a call from our social worker today with the great news. But wait, it gets better, the hearing is July 10th. Yup...this Friday! I am so excited and relieved to finally be in the courts.

This is the 1st of a 3 part process that we need to go through. On Friday we have social workers working on our behalf who will represent us in court and present our documents, homestudy, and photo album with pictures of us, the boys, our house and where the baby will be sleeping (we used pictures of Jake's Nursery). Lauren's birth mother will at the hearing and she will state that she is in agreement with our adoption of Lauren. I cannot imagine how hard Friday will be for her. She has met with social workers and has made her wishes known but still must attend the hearing and state her intentions to the judge formally. My heart aches for her. Once the hearing occurs, the judge takes all of the information presented to him and will make a judgment. This judgment is called 1st ruling and and can take 1-3 months to occur. After the 1st ruling is issued there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period for all parties to reconsider. At this point it is just a formality. After the 10 days and when the judge gets around to it (possibly 10 days later or 1-3 months) the judge will issue his Final ruling which officially makes Lauren our daughter in the eyes of the law. At that point we will be invited to travel to Taiwan to bring Miss Lauren home. Let's hope that all our ducks are in a row and the judge moves our case swiftly through the court process.

Our Lauren turned 6 months old on Sunday. It feels like time is going by so slowly when we are waiting for her, yet it feels like she is growing up so fast. We are due for new updates soon. Maybe we will see her beautiful face this week.