What comes next:

Today is a big day for Baby --.  Not only is he now 8 months old, but it has been exactly 90 days since he has had contact with his birth parents.  In Ohio, this means that Children's Services now has grounds to file an abandonment charge, which will sever their parental rights.  Although we the requirements to file for Permanent Custody have been met, we will now wait (probably 3 months) for a court date to make it official.  If his parents request contact between now and the court hearing, they will be able to see him through supervised visits with his case worker.  Once their rights have been terminated, they will have to arrange visits directly with us, something they have never attempted before.  In any case like ours, relatives have the right to claim the baby and raise him from here; in our case, the social worker has contacted the family and they have given their blessing for us to move forward with an adoption.  That means that once the baby is in the permanent custody of the state, we will then be able to file paperwork and schedule a court date for an official adoption.  Based on conversations with other foster-to-adopt families, this process could take up to 9 months, which means that this child we have been raising since he was a week old might be 18 months by the time he can take our last name.  We have also been told that the state assists with the costs of an attorney, meaning that this will be the least expensive child we have in terms of money; but the fact that a relative could at any time step in and we would never see him again, means that he is the most expensive in terms of emotional cost.  When we first got custody, I thought the chances that we would be able to adopt the baby were about 15%.  As his parents failed to meet their case plan and started missing visits, my hopes went up.  Now that we have secured the 90 day requirement, I feel like it is 95% certain that he will be with us forever, but there is still that 5% of doubt that makes me hold back.  I am so glad that we became foster parents, that we have been able to give this amazing little boy the best possible start to his life, and I hope that we will be able to see him grow into a man and bear our name.  Our family has been so accepting of him, especially our biological sons, who have always treated him like a brother.  He has captured our hearts and we want what is best for him, even if it is heart-breaking for us.