8 Days to Finalization

We left West Memphis for Conway, Arkansas at 9:30pm.  Surprisingly, the ride was a quick 2 hours.  Ellis slept the entire way.  Conway is a small college town and is quite nice.  The first 5 days seemed to take forever.  That was the time we had to wait for the rights of the birth parents to be irrevocably terminated.  There was no concern that either one would change their minds it was just our first milestone as adoptive parents.  But the last 3 days seemed as long as the first 5.

We were hoping for a Friday court date but no such luck came our way.  Our attorney contacted us and told us that Monday, 18 June, at 9am was the earliest court date she could get.  One judge was out of town and the other judge had a full docket.

What do you do when your are far from family and friends at a hotel in an unfamiliar town with a newborn? Not much! We really did not want to take him anywhere but we could only handle a small hotel room for so long.  Ellis accompanied us to a few restaurants on the days we could not handle take out and he experienced Target every time we needed to replenish baby supplies.  He visited his first antique store and we purchased an old needle point train pillow for him to commemorate his time in Conway.

                                    We also took a trip to Little Rock to visit the Clinton Presidential Library.  

Jason spent his first Father's Day in Conway.  We decided to attend Sacrament Meeting even though Ellis was only a week old.  We were pleasantly surprised at the size of the ward.  The members were nice but disappointed when they learned we were only visitors. After Sacrament Meeting Jason received his first Father's Day from the Relief Society, chocolate chip cookies:)

Monday morning finally arrived.  We checked out of the hotel and headed to court.  We walked into the courthouse and the bailiff said, "You are in the right place.  I was waiting for you.  I was told to look for a couple with a baby." Judge Michael Maggio presided.  He talked with us about how most people who appear in his court are running away from responsibility and how refreshing it was to have a couple running toward responsibility. Adoption was very important to him as he had 4 adopted nieces and nephews. He was happy to make Ellis an official Italian in the Covili family.