Re-Adoption Day!

On May 7th, Besufikad Brian Gossett legally became Elias Besufikad Gossett. We finalized Elias' adoption on the U.S. side of things in San Diego Juvenile Courts. Elias is now officially a U.S. Citizen. The court hearing literally could have taken 15 seconds but the judge was really nice and drew it out to a whopping 7 minute long ceremony. This was after we waited in the lobby area for over 45 minutes. At least we all had a good time in the lobby.The entire adoption process I was confused about the readoption process. Every time I asked questions about it they were dismissed by saying we'll talk more about it once we get there. I still don't really understand it all BUT what I do know is that thanks to the great state of California this was by far the EASIEST (and cheapest) part of our entire adoption process. I filled out 5 forms all basically asking me the same easy questions. We had our first post placement visit. I over-paid (I mean...paid) our homestudy agency to complete 3 forms for me. I took all of the above to the juvenile courts, filed them with a really nice lady, paid $20, signed a couple things, showed her a couple things, and was booked a court date 1 month later.

When we walked in the court room it was not at all what I pictured. We sat at this long table and the judge was on the other side. It was nothing like the t.v. court room I had been picturing. I thought she would have introduced herself but she didn't. Instead she asked us if we were Brian, Autumn and Elias. We said yes. She then told us the first order of business was to let Elias pick his hand stamp. At this time I am thinking, "Cute, but are you serious?" She pulls out her stamp collection and lays them in front of Elias. He grabs Tigger and it goes straight to the mouth. 2 of our 7 minutes were spent by her walking around stamping Tigger on everyone's hand.We brought a bunch of family with us and I believe there were 13 hands to stamp. At one point I turned around because I heard a bunch of laughing. Apparently when it was Almeu and Israel's turn to get their hands stamped Dad tried to explain who Tigger was. He said, "you know, Tigger, from Pooh." They asked the obvious question, "Like poop?!?" Um, no. I didn't hear it because I was a bit distracted but they don't exactly have court room volume as a vocal level. Everything is said very LOUD. Next we signed the 2 documents (adoption papers!) I had previously filed. Then we were told the adoption was FINAL!!!!! The judge, whose name I still did not know asked if we wanted a picture at the bench. Of course! So we walked the 3 feet to the bench and had our photo op. For some reason I felt like I had to keep saying something because it all seemed like so much of nothing and there was a lot of awkward silence...I must have said "thank you" to the judge 10 times in those 7 minutes and really she didn't do much of anything. She probably thought I was nuts. Oh well.

Next we headed to Balboa Park to kill some time before we celebrated with dinner downtown at Buca di Bepo. We had a wonderful afternoon celebrating Elias together!

Thank you family for once again being supportive and present. We are so happy you could all share with us in this special day to celebrate Elias and welcome him as an official part of the family.