Ruby's Adoption Step By Step

Some of you are familiar with adoption, while many are not. To satisfy curiosities and answer a few common questions, here is a time line of significant events on the road to Ruby's placment with our family.

• July 2007 - Carter turned one year old. Our agency recommends, but does not require, that you wait until your youngest child is a year old before applying for an adoption. We fully intended to apply again as soon as Carter turned one, but for whatever reason, his birthday came and went and we felt it was not quite time yet.
  
• October 2007 - Renewed our adoption certification with the state of Arizona.
• November 2007 - Updated and completed our paperwork with LDS Family Services. We were approved to adopt again and our online profile went live.
• November 2007-November 2008 - We started our "finding efforts" to make a connection with the birth mother that would place our next child with us. In the meantime, Carter turned two in July of 2008.
  
• December 5, 2008 - After 13 months of waiting, we received a contact from a beautiful young woman who was 5 months pregnant asking how we felt about openness in adoption (i.e. contact with the birth mother after placement. Hint: We're all for it!)
• December 10, 2008 - She announced to us that she wanted to place her baby with us that was due in April.
• December 15th 2008 - We met her in person and got to know each other.
• December 2008-January 2009 - We kept in contact via email/texting and met with her again. She also called to tell us she was having a boy!
  
• January 18, 2009 - She told us that she had been struggling with her decision and had decided to parent her son. We were heartbroken that we would again have to wait to be chosen, but expressed our love to her and kept in contact off and on after that. We still have a lot of love and respect for her and pray often for her and her son.
  
• January 2009-July 2009 (7 months)- We increased our finding efforts and started using Parent Profiles, a paid service to help match couples and birth mothers online. We also started advertising our adoption website on popular blogs Megan had been following.
• July 2009 - Carter turned three and we celebrated his birthday in Utah with his birth family along with our immediate and extended family. We had been approved and waiting for 21 months at this point.
  
• August 6, 2009 - Megan received the phone call that Ruby's birth mother was in labor in Michigan and within an hour we heard directly from Ruby's birth mom and found out she wanted to place with us. Ruby was born that night.
  
• August 7, 2009 - We left Carter with Shane's aunt and uncle (thanks Acacia and Brittney for also helping with Carter this day!). We arrived in Michigan and briefly met Ruby's birth mother at the hospital. We learned that she had named Ruby "Jane Lyn" and decided we wanted to use one of those names for Ruby's middle name. We met Ruby for the first time and spent three hours taking turns holding her before we realized we hadn't eaten all day and needed to find a place to stay for the night. Our case worker in MI helped us get to a hotel near the hospital called "The Pink Palace" and then we took the hotel shuttle back to the hospital to see Ruby again for as long as we could until just before the hotel shuttle was stopping service for the night.
  
• August 8, 2009 - We spent the day at the hospital with Ruby and took turns going down to the hospital cafeteria for meals. On the way back to the hotel that night, we had the shuttle driver take us to Target to get some baby supplies and cute little girl clothes!
  
• August 9, 2009 - We went to church (there was a church building really close to the hospital) and the ward found us a home to stay in within walking distance from the hospital. Our hostess rushed us to the hotel after church to check out before they could charge us for another night and we made it by the skin of our teeth! We can't even begin to count the miracles involved here. Our hostess was such an angel to us in so many ways! Way too many coincidences here to just be coincidences! After picking up our luggage at the hotel, we spent the rest of the day with Ruby in the hospital. The hospital was able to give us a room to be in with Ruby for the first time. It was so peaceful to just be the three of us in a quiet room all afternoon and evening. We walked back to the house we were staying in and got some sleep, joyfully looking forward to Ruby's release from the hospital the following day.
  
• August 10, 2009 - We spent the entire day at the hospital anticipating Ruby's release. An irregular heart rate was detected, so Ruby had extra testing and we had to speak with a cardiologist before finally being discharged around 5:00 that evening. Ruby's birth mother signed Arizona relinquishment documents terminating her parental rights just before Ruby was released from the hospital. Normally, she would have signed Michigan documents, but chose to use Arizona law in this case. Every state has different adoption laws. For Arizona, the relinquishment is irrevocable at signing. Some states allow days, weeks, or months following signing for the birth mother to change her mind and parent her child. The hospital discharged Ruby directly to us. We went to the agency and signed our portion of the placement papers.
  
• August 11, 2009 - The agency sent all the papers overnight to the Michigan ICPC office (Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children). Both Arizona and Michigan ICPC would need to give us approval to take Ruby home.
• August 12, 2009 - Michigan received the paperwork. We went to stay with another wonderful and extremely generous host family. More miracles every day!
  
• August 13, 2009 - Michigan cleared us and sent the papers overnight to Arizona.
• August 14, 2009 - Arizona received the papers after 2pm. Because of the time difference, the Michigan office was closed and couldn't answer questions Arizona had.
• August 17-20, 2009 - Arizona ICPC, Michigan ICPC, Arizona LDS Family Services and Michigan LDS Family Services went back and forth for days until Arizona ICPC was satisfied with the documentation they had. They cleared us to return home.
• August 21, 2009 - We returned home and Carter finally got to meet his 15-day-old baby sister! Tears of joy at the airport!
  

What happens next?

• February 2010 - In Arizona, approximately six months after placement, we can finalize the adoption in Arizona court. During this time, our case worker will make supervisory visits to ensure that Ruby is happy, healthy, and thriving in our home. Following finalization, from a legal perspective, it is the same as if Ruby was born to us. She will get a birth certificate with the name we have chosen and listing us as her parents. She can also get a Social Security Number at this point. We will then be able to bless her in church and have her sealed to our family as our daughter in the LDS temple in Mesa, Arizona. (If you have any questions about this, we'd love to answer them!)