Tale of an Adoption Day

Adoption Day Pictures

It is hard to believe that Deacon was adopted legally one week ago.

The day before Deacon's adoption, our basement flooded because of a clogged drain. We could not use our plumbing, so we opted to stay in a hotel. Deacon enjoyed looking in the mirror and a fun time in the tub.

Deacon and daddy playing in the hotel room.

Here we are in the courtroom. They bring the families in one at a time to conduct the hearings. We were first that day- I guess they go by the age of the child.

We (mom and dad) each had our turn on the stand. Raise your right hand... take a seat. Our lawyer asked us some basic questions (state your name, is that your wife?, who's that beautiful baby boy?- stuff like that). After she finished, she asked if the court (judge) had any questions.

We had no idea what questions he would have, he could ask just about anything and that's just what he did. He asked each of us questions. None of them, however, had much to do with our adoption. For Paul questions like: "Just what does an Assistant Dean do? College is expensive, isn't it?" For Kim: "I see you got your master's at WVU. You know I went there myself. What happened in that basketball game last night?" All the while, the stenographer was typing away. That was not so bad after all.

Here's Deacon making himself at home.

Grandma was here for a little over week and got to spend a good bit of time with the star of the show: Deacon himself. Grandma loves her little man and Deacon's crazy about his Grandma!

Here's the back of our lawyer- she's great.

Here's us with the judge. After he signed the order- the first thing he wanted to do is hold Deacon. Below is Deacon with our friend from church Elizabeth. We credit her with introducing us to Bethany. Not only is she our friend, she's the adoptive mom to two awesome boys, and also happens to work at our local Bethany office. We were so excited to have her represent the agency at our hearing- although her questions from the judge were more pointed.

For his part, Deacon took it all in stride- as he does with most things really. So Deacon sleeps and we pray that he will always sleep secure in the knowledge that we are forever a family. We have dreams for his future, hopes to witness what his life will become, and an overwhelming thankfulness that we get to play a part in the future of this boy that is now and always will be
our son.

The bittersweet aspect of this day is that there are literally millions - yes millions- who know no such sleep and have no one to dream for their future. But this day- this great day- that number was decreased by one and all of our tomorrows are forever changed.

Meet the Perrines- This Time It's Legal!

Just wanted to put up a quick post to let everyone know that our finalization hearing went very well. The judge signed the order this morning in court downtown. (Note the old fashion date stamp- upper left.) We'll post more later. Hurrrraaaaayyy!

Adoption Article

Back in August, we were interviewed for the Geneva Magazine about our adoption experience. The title of the article is "Blessings Beyond Belief: Adoptive Families at Geneva Reflect God's Brilliant Grace". We were honored to be included with the many other families at Geneva who have adopted. The magazine recently came out and is online to read. We want to share the article with you and hope that you are blessed by it. The above picture is the original one they were going to use in the article, but instead opted for another as you will see. We welcome any questions and comments.


Click here to read the article

If that doesn't work, click here and click on Winter 2007-2008.

If neither of these work, let us know!

Moving Along

In my last post, I shared that the social worker was coming last Friday. That didn't happen. Nor did she come on Tuesday, which was our rescheduled date. Paul and I (and now Deacon) have been battling the Geneva plague with fevers at 100 plus degrees. Although we are not 100% well, she risked contamination and finally came today. I am happy to report that it went extremely well! The questions were easy and Deacon was flirtatious and charming and all is well.

On Feb. 21st we will legally be a family!

Since we don't have any pictures of our court social worker visit (I thought it would be kind of weird to ask her to pose for some pics for our blog, you know like Paul would put rabbit ears behind her head or something and we would make funny faces). So instead I have decided to post two videos of Deacon. The first is of Deacon waking up in his crib in August. For those who remember, it's the one that wasn't working. The second is of Deacon waking up a couple of days ago. I thought it would be fun to compare them and see how much he has grown. Enjoy!

August 2007 (notice the butt crack)

February 2008