It's a Boy!

One of times a reply is hard to communicate. All I can say is you're a great person and I wish you and your family all the best.  And also, getting older made your hair go flat. I'll see myself out. 

Just sitting here hoping for stability and happiness for everyone going forward. I have a nephew, sort of, (nephew of my sister in law, no relation to me) that was raised by my brother and my sister in law off and on from age 4 to 16 when he went back with his birth mother. It's been hard. The whole thing. So I'm hoping that the adults become good enough people that his whole thing becomes invisible to the kids. Best of luck to you. 

Man, I'm so sorry.  Like those who've posted before me I'm hoping for stability and happiness for all involved.
 

My parents fostered infants for many years and it was so hard when they moved on to their adoptive families - even when we knew that their stay with us was supposed to be temporary.  I can only image how tough it is for your family.  Hopefully the biologicals will be able to keep their act together and do right by the little guy.  If it's any consolation at all, my parents made an exception to their "only newborns" rule one time to take care of a brother-sister pair where the brother was a toddler.  They were part of our family for a while before they got adopted by a wonderful couple.  To this day, though, we still see them all the time and they're both just as much members of the family as my brothers and sister.   Hopefully you'll enjoy a similar life-long relationship.

John:

I can't imagine how tough this is for you, but I think you put the feelings very well.  You were able to provide stability for the boy, and give the parents the relief they needed to apparently get back on track.  Both are accomplishments your family can be proud of.

John they may not realize it until much later but both kids are much better off for the stability you have given them. Thanks for making mankind a little better overall. 

I just got back to the desk.  Thank you all for the well wishes, shared experiences and kind words both here and via email.  

Now, to lighten the mood, here is some humor from the situation...

We had always considered Jane or Jack as possible kid names.  So, we began to think that if things went to full adoption and we could then change the little guys name that we would go with Jack, possibly moving his given name to his middle name (we did the same with Jane.)  This would result in the name of Jack Welsh...good.  

Then we realized it could be possible that if we remain long term legal custody vs adoption that we then might not have the right/ability to legally change his name.  However, that's okay, we can still call him whatever we want and keeping with our style we could give him the family name/nick name/pet name of Jack.  That's okay too.  but...

As we thought this through that would mean that he would retain his original last name of Hoffman.  This leads to an unfortunate name...  No kid could survive middle school and the taunting of 13 yr old boys with the name of Jack Hoffman.  

In reply to John Welsh :

You are a very strong man. Well done, my friend.

It takes a very special kind of person/family to do what you do.  

Wow. Mixed bag of feelings is right. Good job being grown up about it. I hope he has a wonderful time growing up and you guys get to be a part of it from time to time. Jane looks like a happy kid she reminds me a lot of my 5 year old. 

You and your wife deserve a big cyber hug.  You're a better man than me, but that's a pretty low bar.  

We've never met in person, but I'm still getting a lot of that, "proud to know you," feeling.

There's no truer charity than when you accept you may get nothing in return.

I can't imagine how hard this is. 

I'm also very proud of the birth parents.

I’ve wanted to foster for a long time. I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes. 

You have special gifts. 

John, I am so sorry to hear that this is how it turned out. I was extremely sad for you after seeing you at the challenge and hearing that this would be the likely outcome. The whole family was lucky to have you guys. Thank you for being public about the process. 

YGM