New Beginnings: Adoption Hearing

Friday, June 21, 2013

Adoption Hearing

What a crazy couple of days! A new supreme court hearing stated that every interested party in an adoption must have their case presented before a judge, so on June 19, 2013 we had a placement hearing with Matthew's dad and step mom, and also in a separate case his half aunt, uncle, grandpa, and grandma. It was originally scheduled for 9:00 a.m. but the judge forgot and he is from Monticello so they rescheduled for 1:00. Court started about 1:30 and went until 5:00 p.m. Matthew's dad represented himself, but his aunt/grandparents had an attorney present. Matthew is loved by a lot of people, so the judge had the daunting task of deciding who would be best for him in the long run. Matthew's biological mom wanted Matthew to stay with us because she wanted him to grow up in a home with both parents, loving siblings, and high morals. The judge actually commended her for her courage in giving us Matthew and for her insight and decision to give him a better life. The man who may or may not be his biological father represented himself. He wasn't there for custody, he wanted a paternity test completed. Because he hadn't filed the proper paper work the judge would not grant him a paternity test. Matthew's mom was very happy about that because she claims he is very abusive. Matthews aunt uncle, grandpa, and grandma testified that they would be the best place for Matthew because they are his biological family. The judge disagreed because of a history of arrests, convictions, DUI's, and excessive alcohol use. When it was all said and done the judge granted us permanent placement and scheduled an adoption hearing for the next day. He made us feel so good about ourselves because he raved about our parenting abilities and the way we represented ourselves. The next day, on June 20, 2013 we officially adopted Matthew. We changed his name from Mathew Jace Jensen to Matthew Max Bradley. This court hearing took 10 minutes. We were sworn in and then promised to treat Matthew as our biological son. We had lots of family support and it was a really special day. I hope that one day, when Matthew hears the story about his adoption, that he won't resent us or his mom. I hope he knows that all his biological mom wanted was for him to have a wonderful life, and she wanted us to be the ones to give it to him. I hope he knows she loved him very much and it took a lot of courage for her to give her son to us. I hope he realizes we love him unconditionally and fought for him because we truly believed he was meant to be our son.