Adoption Finalization

On August 19th we went to court to finalize Mason's adoption! Utah law requires that we wait six months before we can finalize, so we were happy that the wait was over and he is now legally part of our family.

Trent and I both had to swear into the court,then our attorney had to ask us a few questions to testify on the record. Mostly making sure that we understood that the adoption was permanent and that we had full responsibility for Mason. After we were sworn in,  the judge looked at me and said "Jessica, there is no way I'm going to let you testify while you're holding that baby." Trent looked confused for a second and said he could hold him while I testified, but the judge said "No no, Trent. You don't get to hold him either. Give him to me." :) 

 I went up to the bench and handed Mason over to the judge. Luckily Mason is a pretty calm baby and he just sat on the judge's lap and looked at him. This Judge keeps a box of toys in his courtroom for kids, and the entire time we were talking, he was helping Mason pick out a toy! So while we were going on the record as his official parents, Mason got to sit on the Judge's lap and chew on a Donald Duck stuffed animal. :) 

After we testified, our attorney asked the judge if there were any other questions he had for us. He said "Now Trent, you know this is permanent! When he crashes the car at 16, we don't want to see you back here!" And he told Trent that he was putting him under court order to let me pick the restaurant where we went to lunch to celebrate. It was pretty obvious that he is a family man and that he looks forward to these cases. Since Mason was being good, he passed him around to all of the different people that worked in the court (the picture above is of him cuddling with the court reporter!). Finally, the Judge brought him up to his chair and handed him his gavel, which of course Mason immediately put in his mouth. I'm pretty sure that not everyone who walks through that court gets to sit in the Judge's chair and chew on the gavel!

We were so grateful to have such a kind Judge who made the hearing so much fun for us. After it was over, we filed his permanent adoption paperwork and he will be getting his birth certificate soon with his legal name on it! We are overjoyed to have the entire process complete.