[Forever_family]

I've found some wonderful and creative adoption annoucements for adoptions of babies and even older children but can't find anything regarding step-parent adoption.

I'm happy to find this forum! Any ideas on how to celebrate her adoption? What to put on announcements we are going to send out? Should I tell my ex and his family to send all mail and packages with her adopted last name once it is final-she has a thing about this?

A "short" background:

My ex husband gave us (well my husband but in NY we BOTH have to adopt her in NY-its a little weird) permission to adopt our 9 year old dd and we are nearing finalization. This has been a long road.

Our dd is now almost 10 years old we have been married since she was 3 years old and my husband has been her father in everyway, my ex used visitation and the courts to continue to hurt my dd and to try and control and manipulate me. My dh is one of those people that is just amazing, he is a wonderful father.We also have a 5 year old dd from our marriage.

A child support increase is what prompted my ex to sign his rights away. We were shocked to get the email from him offering this as we had spent years and both of us had spent a small fortune in legal fees, him fighting for more visitation (at our cost) and us fighting for what our dd wanted. The increase was not more then $200 a month more and it was based on his current income.

I know deep down he cares about her but feel he was not capable of seeing that his actions were hurting her. He was too caught up in hurting me.

We have had such a blessed family and this nightmare was always there, it was so hard. With the upcoming adoption we feel it has been a miracle for our entire family, but I have especially noticed a wonderful change in our 9 year old dd. This was something we never felt would happen because my ex was so controlling, so demanding. We feel so blessed. We had years of court/legal battles and yearly traumatizing extended visitation.

She is so excited about having our last name, she has been asking why she can't have our name since she started Kindergarten and noticed the difference. There were many times my ex and his family would tell her that my dh was not her "dad" and she was not to call him that, that my ex was her dad... Visitation was only once a year my ex never made any atempt to see her during the year because that was travel he had to pay for. She really didn't know him as her father. It was confusing and hard for her and we did our best to give her security.

The change of name and official adoption (my husband being her legal dad) is HUGE for her. I really want to celebrate the adoption when it is final. A side note; the best part about the adoption she has been able to develop a better relationship with her birth father. He no longer sees her as a way to control and hurt me and that has made such a difference.

L

[healingfeeling]

its really nice that you are going to let your daughter have a relationship with her birthfamily! and she'll be raised by your husband...her new dad! I really respect you for respecting her relationship with her original father as well.

as for announcements...I think its cool...when I was adopted by my step-father there were no announcements or anything...I think I would've liked them! maybe some balloons too!

[tgage]

I did an announcement when I adopted my step-kids (4 of them). The announcement said on the front ,"We're now a family!" and had a cute picture of a cartoon family with smiles on their faces (I did it in MS Word with their card wizzard).

Inside, it said that on such-and-such date, the blank district court granted the adoption and now (insert kids names) are all Gages.

We put something at the bottom about the family being happy to be together, etc....

tim