Hayden Steven Schramm

Its officially ALMOST official. Hows that? Today, Hayden's mom relinquished her rights to him. We first got him on January 12, 2008. So, this was one year and one day from the time we got to bring him home. Now we can go into a little more detail on the blog and use his new name. I wanted to write down what happened today before I forget the details and the feelings. I have a lot more I want to write about this entire process, but that will be another day.

Here are some pictures from the last few months that we have not been able to post.












Today, we went to court expecting his mom to drag this out longer. We asked family and friends to fast with us today as we went to court. We were fasting that her heart would be softened and that she would relinquish. She came into court right behind us and came over to sit with us. She came right out and said "Im going to relinquish my rights today." She had tears in her eyes as she told us. She said that she had been thinking about it last night and this morning and she knew she could not take care of him at this time. She said because she loved him she knew she had to do this and she wanted him to be where he would be loved and taken care of. She said she didn't want to drag Hayden into this any longer and she did this because she loves him. She asked us to make sure he knows she did this because she loves him and she wanted him to have the best. We know this is because of prayer and fasting. We know that the Lord softened her heart. I want all of you to know that I admire his mother. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for her. We are grateful for this experience to get closer to our Heavenly Father and I've appreciated watching Jakob and Corrine gain their own testimony of fasting and prayer.

We will go to court on April 14th to finalize everything. But, because we no longer have visitations with his mom, we can start calling him by his new name. Please meet Hayden. We decided to have a name changing party. However, since none of us have had or have been to a name changing party, we weren't sure where to start. We got a cake with his new name and some balloons. Here are some pictures of our name changing party. Its going to be a weird change for us, but Im sure we will all get it pretty quick.