She's one week old

Well, so far our birthmother has not changed her mind. We are getting closer to the end of the revocation period. That ends Friday at 5pm. My social worker said that it is extremely rare that a birthmother changes her mind on the 10th day. If we waited until the official end of the revocation period, then we would not be able to pick the baby up until Monday. So we are going to pick her up on Friday morning, with the understanding that we could have her for a few hours and her mother could change her mind. But since this is very rare, we are comfortable taking this risk.

Now, she still won't be officially ours at that point. The birthfather stuff still has to be done. They have to wait until the baby is 10 days old and then they send in a request to check the birthfather registry. If he is a sexually active male in VA, he is supposed to have registered in the database and also listed women he's been with. So they will search the registry under the mother's name and see if anything comes up. It is very unlikely that they will find anything as all they have for him is a first name. And even if they did, he may be totally willing to sign the papers because if he doesn't, he's got a kid to take care of. It will take a week to do this, as they have to mail in their request and wait to hear back by mail from the database people. If he has not registered, his rights are terminated, as it is his responsibility in this state to have registered, whether or not he is aware of a child. So even though the mother's revocation period will be up on Friday evening, the baby will not technically be ours until the end of next week, after the father searching is finished. So due to this, we are considered an "at risk" placement until all that is completed. We are comfortable taking this risk.

The biggest thing left to happen during the revocation period is a meeting between the birthmother, the baby, and the baby's sisters. The birthmother was not aware that her children would not be allowed into the hospital. When mom and baby were discharged, mom went home and baby went to her foster mommy's house. So the older sisters have not yet met their little sister, and they would like to see her before she becomes ours. The birthmother told us that she is not emotionally ready to see the baby again yet, but that she knows her girls need to see their sister. So she is going to try to be strong and bring them in this week. I do not know when this meeting is to take place. I just know that if it hasn't happened yet, it will be happening either today, tomorrow, or Thursday. I am not sure how this meeting will affect the birthmother and her decision. I am sure it will be very hard for her to see her and have to say goodbye all over again. It will probably be very hard on the sisters as well. So please just keep them and the meeting in your prayers.