{"id":400,"date":"2010-07-12T09:26:45","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T16:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/?p=400"},"modified":"2010-07-12T09:26:45","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T16:26:45","slug":"doctors-and-nurses-and-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/?p=400","title":{"rendered":"doctors and nurses and lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"sad\" src=\"http:\/\/lh5.ggpht.com\/_PTNu-ATLX5k\/TDFp5hORhqI\/AAAAAAAABUE\/6TNoHcgKkV0\/s720\/_IGP9515.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>this past week baby dude had his 4-month check-up.\u00a0 apparently, he&#8217;s in the 61st percentile for weight and the 15th for height.\u00a0 i think he&#8217;ll fit in well with our family.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 of course, each visit to the doctor nowadays comes packaged with some immunization shots.\u00a0 this time there was a trainee nurse, so the two nurses coordinated their efforts and i think he got stuck with all three needles at the same time (J was holding him this time, i had to busy myself in another corner of the examination room) which was better (i think) for him than three separate stick-experiences, but still very ouchy and he let us know it.\u00a0 poor baby dude.<\/p>\n<p>we also have begun the paperwork with the lawyer who is helping us with our finalization in court at the end of this month*.\u00a0 it feels sort of like when you&#8217;re in a plane and you&#8217;re approaching your destination.\u00a0 you&#8217;re told to fasten your seatbelts and return your trays to their fully upright and locked positions and you get that sense of excited anticipation because you know that you&#8217;re about to reach the end of your journey.\u00a0 i know this is really only the beginning of our journey of parenthood, but this is the last legal step in our adoption proceedings and i can&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s here so quickly.\u00a0 we traveled to texas for our orientation with the adoption agency only slightly more than a year ago.\u00a0 and here we are, traveling back again as parents.\u00a0 i know that the finalization is really only a legal formality and that we&#8217;ve been a family for several months now, but i&#8217;m still looking forward to taking this last step.<\/p>\n<p>while we&#8217;re in texas, we&#8217;re hoping to be able to visit with baby dude&#8217;s birthmother again and also maybe catch up with some of our orientation buddies at the annual retreat (for all 3 members of the adoption triad plus the agency workers themselves) that our adoption agency happens to be hosting that weekend.\u00a0 it will definitely be a trip of a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>*in case you&#8217;re unfamiliar with the adoption process, finalization is when you show up in court, usually about six months after placement, and the judge decrees that you are now the child&#8217;s legal parents and you can officially change their last name on their birth certificate.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure about how other states do it, but in Texas, we&#8217;re not worried about anyone changing their mind at the finalization hearing (as soon as placement takes place, it&#8217;s more-or-less a sure thing except in some rare cases where fraud occurs) and baby dude&#8217;s birthmother isn&#8217;t required to appear in court (unlike the laws in our state), and it only takes about 15 minutes, but we do have to show up in person.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"happy\" src=\"http:\/\/lh3.ggpht.com\/_PTNu-ATLX5k\/TDFp7i-7qxI\/AAAAAAAABUM\/ulx5zxBB_Bs\/s720\/_IGP9880.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>this past week baby dude had his 4-month check-up.\u00a0 apparently, he&#8217;s in the 61st percentile for weight and the 15th for height.\u00a0 i think he&#8217;ll fit in well with our family.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 of course, each visit to the doctor nowadays comes packaged with some immunization shots.\u00a0 this time there was a trainee nurse, so the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riftraft.jayandcarissa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}