My good friend and bridesmaid Suzanne is about 21 weeks pregnant. I decided to make her a scrapbook to record the 9 months of her pregnancy. No baby book yet... not until the baby comes out at least. We know that she's having a girl and Suzanne loves flower pattern, so I made her first few pages in pink stripe and flowers. Now I want one for myself!! Well, I'm sure the minute I find out that Chris and I are pregnant I will run out to the scrapbook store and buy them out!
This Sunday is my bridal shower. I have been a bad bad girl and checking my registries often every day. Why? Because I'm excited. This is one of many things that remind me that I will get to marry the love of my life.
Today I did some research on how Chris can adopt Reese. I found the paperwork online and it's really easy to understand (as supposed to some of the more complicated situations I guess). I filled it all out and then what? I called the phone numbers to the courts of Santa Clara County and got transferred 4 times before someone told me that the person I needed to talk to is away from her desk and I need to leave her a message. I left her a message and 6 hours later she called me back.
I told her what we wanted to do and she tells me this:
- Since we're not married yet, they won't even consider starting the paperwork on us.
- We have to be married for at least a year before Chris can adopt Reese.
- They wait a year because they need to make sure that the marraige will last. (and how would the court determine that our marraige will last, that is so stereo typical)
- I have to get the other birth parent to give up his parental right completely even if I already have full custody and he hasn't seen Reese since he was 1. Something about CA courts doing things differently than MN courts.
- Department of Social Services will need to have that first year of our marraige to do an investigation on our family and make sure that we are compitant parents.
That last part is what I don't get about the whole process. There are so many people out there who aren't fit to be parents at all and we have to be investigated. Ok.. that makes a whole lot of sense. Chris is the best dad this kid is ever going to have and he will be with him his whole life. He already treats Reese as if he is his own kid. We share responsibilities when it comes to the boy. Dad is what Chris was born to be. No questions. But we still need to go through the process to make sure that we are good enough parents so Chris can adopt him.
We are already a family. All we're asking is for the courts to let us change Reese's last name.
Our goal for the next year is to become: Christopher, Kanika, and Reese Clavejo. (and more than likely one more little one by then)
::Rant off::
No comments:
Post a Comment