2 Months

2 Months post mediation and nobody seems to be able to reach him. 

No News

Nearly two months post mediation and we are still not done.  We all thought the process would go relatively fast after Justin said he would "be ok with finalizing."  Too bad he has a lawyer that is too gun shy to ask Justin to do what he said that he would for fear of losing all the progress we have made!  So sick to think I have no idea when this will be over, I have no idea what the other attorneys plan is. We have sought the help of our mediator last week who sent a very nice and motivating email to the other attorney indicating the faster we can wrap this up the better for everyone, and we wait....nothing.  Now the mediator is planning on calling the other attorney to discuss the hold up.  I mean seriously now we have an attorney that is dragging his feet, can we catch a break! Very very very angry and tired of the unknown.

Same nose, same chin.

Visit

Had a visit today with the birthfathers family.  Met some more of his family and we were very excited to meet his older full biological brother Jimmy.  He's very sweet.  We spent 6 hours together at the zoo and it was actually fun.  The kids had tons of fun and everyone seemed in great spirits.  We are not sure if the birthfathers attorney has spoke with him about terminating his rights so hopefully we will get more info on that soon. 

Big Sigh

We currently dont know if the attorney is going to ask our birthfather to sign this weekend as originally thought.  He just does not know if its the right time.  Words can not even describe our frustration!  We thought we were so close!  Now we wait     again

Good News

After weeks of trying to schedule this out, its been decided that our birthfather will be here in 9 days to sign over his rights to Brandon!!  So happy to have a date set and so happy to be counting down to something positive. 

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!