PICTURES

Sleep deprived, nervous and incredibly blessed: the first few days of parenthood

The first few days of having Elijah home have been incredible and yet exhausting.  My parents were here to greet us and stayed until tuesday afternoon as a support.  Elijah decided not to sleep a wink the first night and kept mommy up ALL night.  Soon we were on our own and trying to figure out all the tricks to a happy baby.  Nate describes parenting as having a FAST learning curve, and he couldn't be more right! :-)  Having changed less then half a dozen diapers before bringing Elijah home, We have graduated from novice to competent and am quickly becoming experienced.  The list of things my son has taught me are numerous, from swaddling, dressing wiggly toes and diapering to soothing, truely loving and learning to take time for every cuddle and every moment.  This adoption experience has not only opened my heart to him but also his birth family.  I can't wait to send them pictures of his first Christmas and share how he is growing.  This is the poem I shared at our placement ceremony and I read it everyday to remind myself of what a gift my son is.

"I didn't give you the gift of life
but in my heart I know
the love I feel is as deep & real
as if it had been so.
For us to have each other
is like a dream come true.
No, I didn't give you the gift of life
Life gave me the gift of you. -unknown. "

 

This has given a whole new perspective to me on God sending his son to come to earth and how much of a sacrifice it truly is.  Because our birth mother chose to make a similar sacrifice so that we may be blessed by her son.

This Year Christmas came early for us!  

It wasn't store bought, we didn't have to fight crowds and wasn't available on amazon.com.   Because true Christmas gifts are about the gift of LOVE and through this adoption LOVE is what has been shared between two families and a beautiful baby boy, a true blessing this Christmas season.

ELIJAH IS BORN!!!

Elijah was born around 4am. on Saturday, December 17th.  He weighed 7 lb 3 oz, 20 in long and AMAZING!  We have never experienced such JOY in our lives!  After the Drs left the room, we were invited in to feed him for the first time.  He was so tiny and beautiful and I will never forget the feeling of holding him in my arms for the first time.  He was perfect and such a gift from God!  AFter spending several hours with him and biomom, he was put in the hospital nursery.  We scooted home to get some sleep after being up all night and some last minute baby items.  On the ride home, we almost blew a tire, but Nate caught it at a gas station before it blew through.  We drove the rest of the way home on the donut tire.  It was hard to think we were 3 hours away form our new son.  After getting our tires fixed and one more good nights sleep, we headed back sunday morning and spent the day holding Elijah and spending quality time with the Birth family.  We slept at a hotel that evening and returned the next morning to the hospital for the placement ceremony and paperwork.  The ceremony was the most emotional experience I (and I think my husband) has ever had.  It was incredibly joyful, sad and powerful all at the same time.  Through tears we shared verses, poems, thoughts and prayers with each other.  The strength it took for our Bio mom to walk over and hand Elijah to me, I can never imagine.  After a tearful but loving goodbye, we were sent on our way with our new son, Elijah and whole new life!

A LOT Has Happened...catching up

The month of November and December were very busy with preparation for Baby, getting to the Biomom through email, applying for grants, and getting excited about baby showers. So now its time to Catch you up!
We traveled to New York State on Fri, Dec 9th for Nate's Coast Guard Drill and my family baby shower.  BUT we never made it to either.  At 6:30 on Sat morning, we got a call from our social worker saying our Biomom was in labor and admitted to the hospital!  We hadn't planned on her being so early, and so we quickly packed up our stuff, stopped at mom's so she could give us our gift, a carseat, and drove 5 hours back to PA to the hospital.  We had our puppy with us and found a kennel on the way about 1 hour from the hospital, and dropped her off for the night.  When we got to the hospital we met our Biomom's social worker, who set us up in a waiting room until our Biomom's family could come update us.  It was an amazing day, getting to know her family and friends better, and being able to be there for her.  After 12 hours, petosin and her water breaking, the Hospital gave us some disappointing news.  They were sending her home.  She wasn't ready for full labor yet, and they preferred she go into full labor on her own.  SO..false alarm! But it was not an accident in the scheme of things.  It gave us the opportunity to build our relationships with the birth family and prepare ourselves better for what was to come.  We then drove 3 hours home, back to pick up our dog the next day and returned home again.  We realized we drove over 12 hours that weekend, good thing we love road trips! 
Well, a week went by, and nothing.  Then, on Friday, Dec 16th, at 4:30 pm we got ANOTHER phone call from our worker.  This time she was in labor for real!  We hopped in our car and drove 3 hours back to the hospital.  When we arrived, we met up with our biomom's family and soon got to see her.  As it got later, most friends went home, leaving us, biomom, her mom and her grandma.  Around midnight, we all took a seat in her room and passed the time telling stories, laughing, getting to know each other and trying to stay awake.  It was an incredible evening.  Now you're caught up to the most important part....

A Phone call away...

On October 25th we agreed to have our profile seen by a bio mom after reading her situation letter. It was a typical email and similar to the past months, we hoped, but braced ourselves for disappointment. 
THEN OUR AGENT CALLED!  We had been chosen as the adoptive family! It was a day we had been waiting for for almost 2 years, and yet was still shocking.  It was an amazing moment, and we were...speeechless.  :-)   As the news sunk in over the next few days we experienced any emotion you could think of, but of course, all overshadowed by JOY! We got to meet the bio mom 2 weeks later.  She is amazing; funny, smart, kind, pretty and incredibly mature.  We couldn't ask for a better match.  The meeting went great, and we found out A BOY is due DEC 20th!  With not much time to prepare, we quickly got to work on names.  On Monday, Novemeber 21, a name was agreed upon and the bio mom was thoughtful enough to send us her sonogram pics form 22 weeks and we got to see him for ourselves for the first time! (even if its in a picture :-D).  We are now working on our nursery more and preparing the changes that lie ahead!  God has been incredibly faithful to us, walking with us through each step and showing us his plan day by day.  Less then a month until the due date, CAN"T WAIT!

Patience and Prayer

Its about time for an update in our adoption adventure blog.  Over the last couple of months, a couple of scenarios did open up in our agency, but we were not chosen.  It was tough to feel rejected and yet not surprising due to the number of families out there to be chosen.  We know when the timing is right, we will be the family chosen.  I could only imagine the joy that the "chosen" family felt and can't wait to get my own phone call someday.  It isn't easy knowing someone is looking at our profile, trying to make one of the hardest decisions of their life.
Recently the birth parents have been due very soon form the time they view profiles (within a month).  That has motivated us to begin our baby registry.  We have been slowly compiling a list of necessities to bring home a baby.  For those of you, like me, who currently have not brought home our first child yet, the options out there for baby stuff are overwhelming at times.  But we are learning and researching and having fun trying to pick out strollers and books and toys for our child!  Sometimes the adoption seems like a pipe dream but the registry helps me remember that this will happen and is REAL, despite the waiting.  For now we pray for our future birth family and child, and patiently wait for the phone call that changes our life! :-D

SOOOO Excited!

It has been a crazy couple of months!  In June we officially became an aunt and uncle to a beautiful boy named Damian.  He was born on June 10th.  Jess and Eric (my bro) make such great parents and watching them grow into a family has been awesome!  Also, Nathan's sister Emily got married July 9th to a great guy named John.  The wedding was beautiful and made me reminisce about our own wedding day! 

BUT the most exciting day was TODAY!  We received our OFFICIAL HOME STUDY APPROVAL letter, stating we are eligible to be chosen by birth mothers!  A year and half after starting the process we have officially completed all the necessary papers to be eligible.  It is such a milestone in this process.  I was so ecstatic that I took it to show Nate even though he was working.  The smile on his face was incredible!  I can't wait to celebrate with him tonight!
Now on to waiting/praying for the child who is the perfect fit for our family and we are the perfect fit for them!

A quick update

It's been about one month since we've made an entry, so here's an update.  Our social worker liked our profile and had us add some labels to a couple of pictures.  We then sent in our three FINAL profiles that will be given to prospective birth parents.  She has received them and said they looked really nice.  Now we are just waiting for official approval, which will hopefully happen before the end of June.( You know all the "red tape", paper work, supervisory approval, etc).  We are so excited.  We can't wait to hear the official word from her.  That will be a day to CELEBRATE! And when the true adventure begins.  Nathan and I can't wait to meet the family that we will be involved with.  We have been praying and talking about it a lot!  Thank you for your support and I'll let you know if anything exciting happens!  For now I am excited as Jess and Eric are awaiting the arrival of their son and my nephew.  She is two days overdue and I can't wait to meet our new addition to the family!  Hopefully the next addition won't be too long in coming ;-)

Oh and for those family members who are looking for some more information about adoption check out this book - http://www.amazon.com/Adoption-Family-Affair-Relatives-Friends/dp/0944934285
 Sometimes you can find it in the library too!

Life in pictures!

This has been one of the most rewarding, frustrating, and exhausting week of our lives.  We completed our profile "scrapbook" today!  After three days of talking, sticking, writing, printing and designing, our life has been put into 12 pages.  It took a lot of heart and a lot of work, but I must say it wasn't nearly as difficult as some had made me believe.  Nathan was amazing, typing up our thoughts so that they sounded like us and not just words on a page. working on this even brought us closer together, as we talked about how we met and reminisced about the last 3 married years and our future together.  We are proud of the way it turned out. Thanks to Melissa, who let us borrow her scrapbooking tools, we were able to make our pages fun and interesting.  It was exciting to be able to share about our life and family.  We know that our profile will stand out to the right family and we can't wait to meet them, when its time!  We've sent our profile on to our Social worker for review and comments.  After we get her feedback, we'll print our final copies and be ready for official "approval" by the agency.  Thanks for your prayers and support during this experience!  We'll let you know how things go....

How to put a lifetime in 12 pages...

Nathan and I are beginning to gather supplies for our family profile.  We have looked through hundreds of pictures and spent a few too many minutes looking at scrap-booking supplies, as if we know how to use them.  We have purchased our "pages" and some accent stickers, but honestly it seems very intimidating.  Where do you start, trying to tell a stranger about each other, your friends, family and life?  We want our profile to represent who we are, but that's quite a challenge to do in 6 double sided, 8.5"x11" pages.  We've decided to tackle the task next week when we can devote some serious time and effort to it.  In the meantime our supplies are spread out on the dining room table in hopes it will inspire sudden organizational scrap booking genius!  If anyone has any thoughts about what we should include or what you think is an important part of our lives/family to share with the future family, please feel free to let us know!  We can't wait to hold the finished product in our hands as this an exciting step for us!

Home Visit! and what a beautiful Day...

Our social worker came today for our home visit.  After many hours of spring cleaning (seemed like as good of an excuse as any) we were ready to show her our home.  Harmony, our puppy, did wonderful.  She said hi and then played outside and then on the porch for hours with very little whining.  I was so proud of her!  We had a wonderful conversation and experience with our social worker.  She asked about our "neighborhood" and surrounding community(hospitals, stores, etc).  It made me realize how blessed we are even in a small town in rural PA, we still have own grocery store, gas station, mcdonalds, pizza shop, parks, library and bank.  What more do you really need?  Especially when your spitting distance from Hershey and Wyomissing/Reading.  We talked about parenting philosophy, education and our family's response to our adoption plans(which has been extremely encouraging and accepting).  After some of the conversation, we gave her a tour of our home. :-)  We finished up our visit talking about making our profile for prospective birthparents.  We got to look through some and get an idea for ours.  It is tempting to try and make yourself look appealing to everyone, but Nathan and I decided it was more important to truly represent our own personalities to be matched with the family that is looking for a family just like US.  The home visit lasted about 2 hours and was wonderful.  We felt very comfortable and encouraged by our social worker.  She answered all of our questions and took the time to really explain things to us.  When we finished she explained that it would be about 6-8 weeks for our Home study to be written up and approved by her supervisor.  During that time we will design and create our 6-12 page profile and submit it to her.  After she reviews it, the final profile is printed, and the home study summary is approved we will be able to be viewed by potential families!!! YAY!  We are so excited to have completed the Home study process and let God work out his plan for matching us with the perfect child and family.  I can't wait to meet the prospective birthparent(s) that will choose us and the amazing child that will be loved by both families!

Baby steps up til now.....

Welcome to our adoption blog!
It has been an amazing adventure so far and the best is yet to come!  Through time of frustration and times of hopefulness, this process has brought us closer together and made us more confident that adopting a child is what our hearts desire.  This blog is meant for our families, close friends, potential birthmoms and the new addition to our family( when they arrive) to share in our adventure as we begin our family.  To catch everyone up to today(when we started this blog), here is a timeline of past benchmarks in the process.

March 2010 - preliminary application submitted
September 2010 - informational session
October 2010 - Adoption class/ Formal application complete
November 2010 - References contacted
February 2011 - Joint Interview
March 3rd/10th 2011 - Separate Interviews/networking class
Upcoming:
April 18th 2011- Home Visit

Thanks for joining us on this adventure and we will keep you updated on any progress!
Prayer is our greatest support right now as we follow the desire that God has put in our heart to adopt.  It is not always easy but definitely going to be worth the wait!