It's official: she is OURS!!!!!

We finalized our adoption of our baby girl today at 3:15!!!!!!!!!

Birthfather never showed. Birthmother gave her testimony. The judge deemed us the rightful parents of our beautiful angel girl. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. It isn't adequate enough to tell you thank you, but we do: for your prayers, phone calls, prayers, emails, prayers, dinners, prayers and for those able to show up May 12 and today. We are overwhelmed with love and gratitude for your support; we could NOT have survived without it.

We give God the full credit for today. There is nothing else we can say except Praise the Lord for his mercy and love. Our family couldn't be more obviously created by Him, and we couldn't be more proud to give him the full credit.

We love you all and simply say Thank you.

It could be worse... right?

Baby girl doesn't cry much; only when she's hungry or tired. Yesterday she was both hungry and tired... and we were in the car. Madison kept trying to put her paci in her mouth but she wasn't having it. So at a stoplight I got out her bottle, mixed the powder and started shaking it.

Over the shrill shrieking, Madison said: "Hurry up, Mom, before she pushes me over the edge!!"

hmmm....

I got the bottle to her, it went into baby girl's mouth, and Madison said: "Wow. She was really screaming bloody murder, huh Mom?"

Where does she get this material?

Update

Here's our girl... isn't she beautiful?! We went to court yesterday to finalize our adoption but it didn't go as we'd hoped. For the update I will copy an email I sent after we got home:

First of all we want to say a sincere thank you to everyone for the emails & phone calls letting us know that you couldn't be here but that you were praying with us. It was certainly obvious that we were enveloped in prayer. We also want to thank you who came to court today. Wow, that was overwhelming to see so many loving and supportive faces... and we certainly needed each one of you there.

To say it didn't go exactly as planned is a huge understatement. The birthfather called the court house this morning saying he'd tried to come but his work wouldn't let him have the days off (mind you, he works at Schlotzky's and was not at work when he called). The judge decided to quote a state precedent and extend his chances to show up in person. Our lawyer explained that this is erring in the side of conservative judgement and said "this way we won't show up on the evening news in 5 years with a birthfather trying to say he was never allowed his day in court."

That means we go back to court on May 27 to try and terminate his rights. And we're back to the original plan of hoping he doesn't show up. If he doesn't show up this time, it's a done deal -- his rights are terminated and we get full custody of our angel (name not used on purpose). If he does show up, then it's up to him to prove he provided support to Tiffany (he didn't) and that his rights shouldn't be terminated.

So. Not sure what else to say at this point except please keep praying. We can't thank you enough for loving us and being with us on this whole excursion. We know without a doubt that our angel is destined to be a wonderful addition to our family. We believe that this, too, shall pass.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 says: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.