Our adoption process is a bit like a triathlon. The first leg is the home study and finding process. Most of you have heard about that. You answer a bunch of questions, clean every nook and cranny of your house (even the ones a caseworker would never look at), and then wait and publicize and wait some more.
The second leg for us has had a lot of hurdles. Some of the milestones have been a pre-placement agreement, enrolling Patrick in our insurance, a court date to establish custody, pre-authorizing a medical transport, and today we crossed the last hurdle… the Interstate Compact, or ICPC.
An ICPC is a formal agreement between two states about how an interstate adoption will be handled. It has to be finished before the child can leave the state. And we’ve been sitting here anxiously all weekend waiting for it to come through. And finally today at 4:15 EST we got the authorization we were waiting for to take Patrick back to Utah!
So now the only thing left for us to be able to go home is arranging the air ambulance for him. We expect that to be worked out tomorrow morning. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it home before Thanksgiving. (Knock on wood). Then the last leg is 6 months’ supervision and then the adoption will be final.
We are so excited to be able to bring Patrick home and let him meet the family and friends who have been praying so earnestly for him.
In the meantime, I’ve thrown a couple of other pictures of him in just because that’s what a bragging mom should do.
Patrick’s doing really well this week. His surgery on Monday seems to have been a success. A couple of days ago his jejunostomy started to work. They started feeding him again yesterday and today advanced him to formula. (Patrick doesn’t get much nutrition from food, but eating stimulates his other organs to work and may help preserve his liver and increase his chances of making it to a successful transplant.)
He’s also making great strides in winning us over. He’s pretty good at convincing me that I should hold him for hours for no reason beyond just that he wants it. I’m a sucker for the little smile he gives me when he recognizes my voice or my face. Howie’s not faring much better in resisting his charms.
Patrick Hoopes 