The birth mother's final court hearing was yesterday, and the judge ruled to give her parental rights back. We have felt that this conclusion was coming for a while. Although it wasn't the conclusion we wanted, we are glad we can close this chapter. We pray that this is good for the boy, and that his mother can keep her parental rights. While we could appeal this ruling, that seems futile at this point. We would have little chance of winning and this would just drag on for several more months. Our goal throughout this adoption has been to provide a home for a child without one. In a way we were able to do that. Without us spurring this mother on to change her life and try to regain her rights, he would be staying in an orphanage or completely changing his life by coming to a new country.
While this hurts, we do have a plan from here. We plan on trying to adopt from Ukraine one more time. We will need to update some of our paperwork, as much of it expires in November. It will take a couple of months to get everything updated. The cost won't be as great as starting over completely, but will be more than completing an adoption we had already started. Once everything is approved again, we will head back to Kiev to get another referral for a child. We hope to travel there in January, assuming all of our paperwork is completed and approved by then. In the meantime, please pray that we can get all paperwork completed and approved, and that we will choose the referral for the child that God wants for us when that time comes.
