We matched!

Thats awesome news for you!!! Congrats!! I can't wait until we get that call. :)

Congrats on your match. Everything depends on what the workers think is best for the kids. Sometimes you have a few visits, an overnight visit, a weekend visit and then they move in. Sometimes it's 2 visits an overnight and then a move in. This is something you'll have to ask the worker when you go to the disclosure meeting. I hope everything works out.

Very exciting. Best wishes;)

Sometimes it's one meeting and they send you home with them. LOL Just thought I'd throw that out there. We were waiting for a low risk, pre-adoptive placement. We got a call one afternoon asking if we'd like to meet two girls. They asked if we could meet them that night because they were in a temporary home and the county wanted them in an adoptive home. We went and met the girls and called that night to say we would take them. Some paperwork and a few signatures and they came home with us the next day. No joke! We had to run around like crazy.

Any update on the kiddos?

Any update on your match? Did you decide to take placement?

Sorry for waiting so long to update! We had the disclosure meeting, where their caseworkers were there and we signed some paperwork, and then we met our little one later that night! He was so excited to know who his mommy and daddy were! Apparently, he had been disruptive in daycare because of the anxiety of not knowing. He has not had a problem since that night. We had to wait a couple of days before meeting our big boy. We had both boys over for dinner, and were astounded by the differences in their personalities! Little guy is very outgoing and bouncy, and Big guy is quiet and shy. Little guy basically moved in later that week. He didn't want to go back to his foster mom, although he still loves her very much. He was just so excited to have a new mommy and daddy. Big guy was a little slower on the move. We had a couple of dinner visits, then did a couple of overnights. Almost a month from the first visit, they were both legally moved in. We have definitely had our fair share of problems. Big guy has ADHD, ODD and PTSD. His PTSD is much better, but he still has a very high anxiety level, which is understandable! He has been in therapy for ODD, and has had great improvement. For the most part, he just seems a little headstrong. There are moments when the ODD shines through though! I will tell him to grab an ice pop and he will say no, and you will see him catch himself. His little eyes sort of squint like "Why did I say that?" He has a hard time at night, but we asked his doctor to put him back on Melatonin to help him sleep. That, plus slowly being more comfortable has really helped out. Little guy has some minor health issues that need to be addressed, and when he isn't feeling well, he is a crab and a half! He also tends to be a little bit of a bully to his big brother. He also has a hard time stopping whatever he is doing to go potty, so we have a couple daytime accidents a week, and he still needs pullups at bedtime. He has some sensory issues, and abuse usually happened after he was asleep, so if he falls asleep on a car ride, or anywhere that he is woken up, he sometimes doesn't fully wake up, and will be sort of in a daze and very very frightened. This has happened to us a couple of times, and he will kick and scream, and usually pee himself and be completely inconsolable. We have found that wrapping him in a blanket, almost like swaddling him, really helps. He also has a calm down tent, full of pillows, where he goes when he is feeling over stimulated. On June 26th, our 90 days will be up and we are hoping/wishing/praying for a July 1st court date. We let the boys pick their new names, so they have been practicing them since school got out. Honestly, the boys were the least difficult part of this process. Dealing with the system, at times, made us wonder if we would make it through. Big guy needs to have structure, and needs to know what is happening at all times. We could not get them to give us a date ahead of time set in stone as to when he would be moving in, so that he could mentally prepare. It was literally like I got a phone call, and the foster moms got phone calls one Friday, and then we picked them up, and that was that. It was partially Big guys foster mom, who seemed to want to keep him, and kept wavering back and forth. She would tell us he needed space (when his therapist thought he should be spending more time with us, and he was saying he needed more time with us) and one day I got a text from her saying she thought he needed a lot more time and it was moving too fast for him (which I frankly agreed with) and the next day she told me that she thought he would be ready the following weekend. On that experience, my advice to other adoptive parents is save every single email/text, and do not talk on the phone to them. Get it in writing, and forward it to the case worker. Make sure everyone sees every correspondance. When I called the caseworker to tell her I was concerned, I had the texts and emails to back it up. That problem got solved pretty quickly after that. The other issue I had was the adoption subsidy/board rate. First, I want to say that we would adopt these kids if we had to PAY money. The money is not that important. However, the boys were living with us since Good Friday, and we have only received subsidy money since May 22nd. I feel like that is the boys money that they are not receiving. We have a savings account set for each of them, so that that money can be used for emergencies, special things, college, or maybe for a down payment on a house when they grow up. Whatever. My advice to anyone regarding that is to just continually advocate for your kid. Call their caseworker 90 times a day, then call the G.A.L. then call the case supervisor. Whatever. These kids deserve every privilege you can get them. The bottom line is, we are ridiculously happy, and madly in love with these kids. It has been a crazy, frustrating process, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Congrats! 90 days? Wow, here it's 6 months before they'll start thinking about scheduling a court date. And Sheena: I just gotta say, I love it when you ask for updates!

That's such an exciting update! I love how it all worked out in the end. I completely agree that it's the system and not the children that make things difficult.

Thanks :) Keep everyone in mind..