One Year Ago

Exactly one year ago today was the absolute worst day in our lives. Never had we felt so broken, helpless, and angry. One year ago Sawyer was ripped from our arms and taken from our home. We never thought we would recover from the loss of him. And now we are happy to say that one year later our life is nothing like we thought it would be. God has blessed us this last year in ways that we could've never imagined.

A few days ago marked the end of the 70 day wait period for an appeal from Sawyer's birth mom. After the judge terminated parental rights in September at Sawyer's .26 Hearing, we needed to wait 70 days to see if there would be an appeal. We assumed there wouldn't be an appeal because his birth mom had been MIA since we welcomed him back into our lives in March. To our surprise she reappeared in October, just a few days before we were set to finalize Lucas' adoption. She contacted Sawyer's social worker and told her that she wanted a visit with him. She hadn't seen him in 7 months and all of a sudden it was now convenient for her. Thankfully since her rights had been terminated she wasn't allowed to see Sawyer. She claimed that she was never notified of the .26 Hearing. She was reminded by our county social worker that she had been missing for months and that even her attorney couldn't find her. Birth mom was very upset and said that she would be contacting her attorney, which led us to believe that she would be filing an appeal. Based upon a recent chain of events that had occurred in her life, she all of a sudden thought she was super mom. We waited with nervous hearts for the 70 days wait period to be over and expected to get a phone call saying that she appealed. Every time the phone rang, my heart sunk. It's hard to not expect the worse with everything we have been through. An appeal  would've prolonged Sawyer's adoption by at least another year. A year may not sound like its that big of a deal, but it is. We are tired of the monthly home visits by 2 different social workers, we hate hearing his 'legal name', we hate that we have to ask permission every time we want to go out of town, it's frustrating that we can't leave him with family or friends if they aren't certified caregivers, and I hate that I have to take him to medi-cal offices for pediatrician appointments. It's hard to feel like a real family when there are so many rules that have to be followed and are living in constant fear that he could be taken away again through no fault of our own.

We are happy to announce that an appeal was never filed and that Sawyer can officially be adopted in January 2015!

Until next time...