A Great Weekend

Day 239 Waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

This past weekend was so fun! Our birth mom, J, and our birth father, T, came up to visit us. On Saturday they drove up together and we took them out to eat at our favorite pizza place here in town. After dinner, T went home. We're still working on building a relationship with him, but so far, we have gotten to be on pretty friendly terms. Hopefully things will go well and we can open up this adoption a bit more with him. Anyway, after dinner, we took J to our house and gave her the "grand tour." We sat and talked for a while and she showed me pictures of her two other children she has placed for adoption. They are SO CUTE!

Then we took her out to one of the local corn mazes/haunted hollows. We go every year, and thought it would be a fun tradition to share with her. Garth, Laura, Ashley, and Jesse came along with us and we had a ton of fun. We listened to a storyteller, ate kettle corn, launched gourds with a giant slingshot, took a wagon ride, rode a train, jumped in a giant pile of hay, went down a VERY slow slide, and walked through the blackout maze. J and I had so much fun walking through the blackout maze arm in arm trying not to crash into walls! It's been a long time since I laughed that hard. To top it off, we walked through the haunted hollow and corn maze. After that we were pretty well exhausted, so we headed home. We chatted for a while and then crashed for the night.

The next morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed and J came with us to church. Then we went home, ate lunch, and the real fun began. While J was here she wanted to meet the family. So by the end of Sunday, J had met my mom and all but three of my eight siblings and their families. She also got the chance to meet a couple of our family friends and my grandparents. I was a bit worried that we might overwhelm her since our family is big and noisy, but she liked everyone.

We are SO blessed that such an amazing woman selected us to place her baby with. And we are SO lucky that she lives only a few hours from us so we get to see her often. We're already looking forward to our next visit with her!

In other news, we are going to be extremely busy and stressed over the next couple of weeks with some different things. Next Monday especially is going to be a difficult day, so we are asking for prayers on our behalf.

Drum Roll Please...

Day 233 Waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Today was an awesome day. We had our ultrasound with our birth mom, J, and we also met our birth father, T, for the first time! It was so exciting, I can hardly contain myself.

So, I will try to describe for you how the ultrasound went.

First, the nurse called us all back. You could tell she was sort of surprised to have all four of us back there. But, to her credit, she took it all in stride and didn't even flinch when J explained that we are adopting her baby. There was an awkward moment at that point where Jeena had to expose her belly and... yeah... while we all averted our eyes. But then, the ultrasound tech said, "there's your baby!" We looked up and there on the giant screen was the most precious little baby. The nurse showed us the baby's profile, hands, feet, organs, etc... I was nearly speechless the whole time and trying not to embarrass myself by sobbing like a 3 year old girl. Then the nurse asked us if we wanted to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl. All four of us just about shouted at her: OF COURSE!!!

So the nurse pulls up the most perfect little shot of the baby's teeny tiny heiny. Of course, the baby was completely obedient and didn't even hide for a second. And the nurse said...

"I have never seen a more clear, perfect shot of a GIRL! 100%!"

A Modern Day Miracle

Day 212 Waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Miracles do happen. Our birth father signed all of his legal paperwork today. He did it in the presence of our birth mother, her caseworker, and a notary. In the state where we live, he has no opportunity to change his mind now that the papers are signed.

I would be lying if I told you that I'm not relieved. It feels like a small burden has been lifted from our shoulders. But, at the same time, we feel a sadness knowing how difficult it must be for him today. We will continue to pray for him every day just as we have for the past year since we started this adoption process. We are so thankful for him regardless of some of the poor decisions he has made. We respect the great leap of faith he has taken in trusting us to follow through on our word. We hope he knows that we really meant what we said when we promised him some openness in this adoption.

Today we are eternally thankful to a man named T, and that he made such a courageous decision.