Update on our little one:

1. All parental rights have been terminated.
2. The time frame for all appeals to termination have now expired.
3. The State has cleared Sophia to be adopted.
4. They have identified our family as the only current adoption placement for her.
5. Because laws have changed since our last adoptions, we now have to re-file paperwork before we can adopt, even though we were just re-licensed and aproved for adoption in April. So last night I filled out all the paperwork. Today during Steve's lunch, we'll go get fingerprinted again since the sherriff's office only does fingerprinting certain hours and days. Then I'll turn all of that paperwork into Social Services, who will then send everything to the FBI and DCI (dept of criminal investigations) who will actually do the screening. My results shouldn't take very long to return because I've always lived in the State of South Dakota. Steve's will probably take a while because he's lived in 5 states. Information will have to be sent to all those locations and then they will send back any paperwork they will need Steve to sign in order to screen further in their state.
6. I also have to have a telephone conference with our adoption caseworker and Sophia's Child Care Assistance caseworker. It should be just a formality to change the circumstances of the case to adoption and change my work information. This will hopefully happen on Monday.
7. Steve and I need to go to social services, also on Monday, and look over Sophia's case. Because I've been involved in the case from very early on and have also appeared in court, I already know most of the information. It's really just something on the State's checklist prior to adoption to ensure that an adoptive parent can't come back later and claim that they weren't made aware of certain information in the file.
8. Once all of that has been completed, we wait for the adoption worker to put the file together and write up a report. Then she'll let us know that we can have our lawyer file for a court date to adopt Sophia. Everyone involved is tentitively shooting for a date before the end of July but we'll have to wait and see how fast the paperwork progresses through the red tape :)

.