Interesting Twist

The drive to mediation was a silent drive..not knowing what we walking into.  We arrive at 10:30, wonder around the building and finally find the office we are supposed to be in.  The mediator is with Justin-victory number 1-he showed up!! We met with the mediator from 11 to 12.  She asked us about our family and we talked about what we were willing to offer regarding an open adoption.  The mediator told us about the conversation that Justin and her had.  He was full of anger about the situation as he does not grasp the concept of why he was not able to have Brandon from the beginning.  He was angry with our adoption agency and our birth mother for giving us Brandon, but the good thing was that he was finally not angry with us.  Big Step!  Around noon we walked into a room that the birth father was already in and did an official introduction of ourselves with hand shaking and everything.  Somehow general conversation went on for what seemed like an hour.  Maybe it was just me because I was paying three people to be there, but we finally got down to business.  The mediator asked our birth father what he wanted regarding pictures and contact.  The discussion of him having Brandon never took place, it was like he had been advised (thank god) that he would most likely not win in court and this was his opportunity to ask for what he wanted.  Two hours later we were leaving mediation to get Brandon so they could have a visit with him.  In essence a verbal agreement to relinquish his rights was made!  Nothing official as the lawyer and mediators thought it might be too much to ask him to sign as we were all pretty much walking on eggshells around him trying not to say the wrong thing.  We spent the next two hours with our birth father, his father, Greg and I, and Brandon.  We all played with Brandon and at times it was really hard for our birth father to see Brandon and to see him pull away from him as he was a complete stranger.  We sent them back to IL with a full tank of gas and drinks on us.  Trying to keep them as happy as we can!  Our birth fathers father was surprisingly encouraging Justin that this open adoption arrangement was a good thing to do.  We talked a little about how often and what kind of contact we could all agree on but nothing official was decided.  We gave each other our PO Box addresses so we could send things to each other for Brandon.  He even texted us when he got home that night to let us know he made it home allright, which was about midnight, poor guy had been up since 2:30AM that morning.  The plan is for him to return on a weekend sometime in the near future (2-3 weeks) to sign the papers and have his mom meet Brandon and have another visit session.  So we feel like we are on the brink of this all being over, but we are not there yet.  Nothing in mediation is binding so we can only hope and pray that he will not change his mind.  Now again we wait and wait and every call or email we get we will wonder if somethings changed or not.  Please keep the prayers coming! 
I was in Brandon's room today all by myself-could not bring myself to go to work today (way to exhausted) and I was able to say the word son out loud for one of the first times ever without feeling so uncertain about our future. That felt really good!