The rest is still unwritten..

So our foster baby girl, who is now 16 months old, just recently had her permanency planning hearing (to talk about what all is going to happen during her trial on Aug. 31st).

It went different than I expected, and I was actually not allowed in the room (due to construction, and they had to fit about 20 people in a tiny room–including the Judge to discuss the case), and I kind of did not mind.

In the past month, CPS has chosen to fight for termination of parental rights for baby girls mom and dad, and want us (a non-relative) to adopt her. While this news alone sounds amazing, there is so much more that goes into a decision like that, and they only want what’s best for the baby.  Up until this point, they have wanted her to be placed back with biological parents.  When that didn’t work out, and they returned her 3 weeks later back to our house, they quickly changed their minds.

So as I was waiting anxiously to hear what the parents were going to do I was praying a lot.  Praying that God would place her where she needs to be, that He would allow the parents to see what a true blessing of a child they have and that they would want the best for her as well, and just praying over the everyone involved in this case.

Everyone started coming out into the open area (where I was sitting) and the lawyer for baby girls mom came up to me and asked if I/we would be open to communication with mom through letters, and pictures as baby girl was growing up, since she was thinking about relinquishing her rights over, knowing that her baby girl is safe and flourishing in our home right now.  So of course (without a doubt) I said yes, and I almost felt like crying in this moment (especially watching the biological mom cry) knowing that this must be the hardest thing in the world to do (give up your child for the sake of their future/success), and I admire her so much for wanting us to raise her child.

I was also waiting to hear that the Dad wanted to do, and he wasn’t sure at the time of the hearing that he wanted to relinquish his rights too, or if he wanted to go all the way with the trial and fight this case.

It wasn’t until 2 days ago that I got an e-mail from our caseworker stating that BOTH of the biological parents are wanting to relinquish their rights, meaning now there is NO trial in August, and once that goes through, we are going to start the process of ADOPTING our baby girl!!

We are so beyond thrilled to be given this news (because with our boys–we are still in the appeals process which is taking forever, so we thought adoption was so far away for our family) and we can’t wait to finally publicly show her pictures, announce her name, and call her a JOHNSON!

Though this process is long, a lot of paperwork, a LOT of sleepless nights worrying about if you are doing what’s best for these precious kids, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I loved baby girl like she was our own from the very first day I met her, and we can’t wait to make it official hopefully this year or early next year!

Thanks for reading and following along still (my life has been a bit chaotic and crazy lately but I was so happy I couldn’t wait to share the news with you all)!

©2017 Sheridan Johnson @Journey with the Johnsons. All rights reserved.