Today is a special day for me, as I’m starting the process of adopting my stepson. My wife and I are going to meet with a local lawyer this afternoon and get the ball rolling, and I couldn’t be more excited. The most obvious reason for my excitement is that I love my stepson (who I call my son anyway) with all my heart, and I can’t wait to make him my son legally. I’m the only Dad he’s known, and I love him as if he is my own. A second (and less important) reason I’m excited is that the law firm we’re going to visit with seems very capable and specializes in business law as well as family law. I’ve been looking to start a relationship with a capable law firm for various personal things as well as the legal needs for my own business, and I think my meeting today will be the first in what turns out to be a long mutually beneficial relationship for the both of us.
The question of whether or not I would adopt my son was first brought up when my wife and I got engaged. She wondered what I thought about it, and honestly it’s something that I had always intended to do. The last thing I would ever want is for him to feel like he is left out of the family. With my wife and I having the same last name, along with any other kids we may have down the road, I wanted to make sure that he could be a part of that too. He’s at the age now where he notices that his name is different and it makes him feel certain ways. He’s too young to understand all the adult circumstances surrounding the situation, but he’s perceptive enough to know that it’s different and that he wants to be a part of us. The simplicity in a child’s understanding is so amazing to me. Adults can be too smart for our own good. We sometimes complicate things with unnecessary noise when it’s much simpler if you look at them at ground level.
The adoption process will hopefully go smooth with full cooperation from his biological father, but I guess only time will really tell on that. I feel somewhat fortunate that the cost will be somewhere around $3800 if everything goes smooth. That’s no small chunk of change, but it could be a lot worse. Since we’ve had our emergency set up now, we can easily dip into that to pay the cost and start replacing it in our budget for a little while. There’s no question to me that it’s worth it, and I never second guessed the decision even for a second. I love that little guy, and I can’t wait to make it all official. I’ll keep you all updated as to how it goes, wish me luck!
