Finalized Adoption!

We finally had our adoption finalized on December 27, 2012.  One year and one week after the kids officially moved into our home.  We found out in late October that the parents' appeal of the termination was basically denied, but that there was one remaining issue that needed to go to hearing.  Since the issue was regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (which, if it's found that the kids are eligible to be members of a Native American tribe, can literally stop proceedings and tribes can remove kids from a placement-they have jurisdiction over a case at that point) I was pretty nervous that something would go wrong.  Once I discovered it was really more of a paperwork issue and not a tribe choosing to intervene in the case, I was much more comfortable and excited things were actually going to go through!  However, in typical fashion with this entire thing, it was chaos leading up to it.  Our original caseworker had said that there was an attorney that was working on the adoption paperwork for us and that she had access to all the case files/paperwork because she was the kids' GAL (an attorney that represents their best interests in the court proceedings).  Then, that caseworker randomly quit and the attorney wouldn't call me back.  Eventually I called the attorney and told her that if she didn't call back that day, I was finding someone else to do it.  She called back, but then said she was too busy to file the paperwork and she hadn't been working on it.  So, we called another attorney that does adoptions through DHS frequently, and he was amazing!  He got everything rolling and worked super hard to get things into the last December court date, which we really wanted for some logistical reasons.  So our court date rolled around, and we woke the kids up super early, drove the two hours to the courthouse, and then it was done!  Officially ours.  We hadn't told anyone we were going to court that day, so on our way home we texted everyone and let them know.  When we got back home, we met my grandparents, my parents, and my brother for lunch at Nordy's to celebrate.  As the kids would say, Best Day Ever!!