Adoption : FINALIZED!

Hello all! It's been nearly six months since I have posted, mainly because I am LOVING being a mom and spend my time loving the adorable child that is my son. I thought today was a great day to give an update. Jonah is doing awesome. He is healthy and thriving. He is an easy-going, relaxed baby. He's been sleeping through the night for several months now and has such a calm demeanor. He is freaking adorable, and only seems to get cuter as he grows.

Today is a huge day in our adoption world. We got up early this morning to appear in Florida court via telephone and finalized our adoption. It is now complete and as if Jonah was born directly to us! We are so excited that everything is completely official and gives us another day to celebrate the miracle that is our little man! We are overwhelmed at the changes we have experienced in the past six months. 7 months ago we were begging God to speed up time (and had been begging for the previous 2 and some years), now we feel that time needs to SLOW down a bit. Jonah is growing so fast. We can't keep up with how big he is getting. With every new stage though, we fall more and more in love with him. I never knew I could love someone so much and that love overwhelmed me the day that I met Jonah. It just keeps growing though. As we see his personality more and more, we just keep falling deeper and deeper in love with this beautiful boy. Man, being a mom is just the best.

Here is a photo of our family taken this morning, at 7 am, after our finalization hearing was complete. We are now official official. This is our family, and it's just awesome.

Our adoption Story

Ok blog followers, I apologize deeply at how far behind on the blog I am, but I am going to write a huge post to catch you all up.

After the most recent post, the following day on Tuesday November 3, I spoke with our birth mom on the phone. The phone call was amazing. After talking with her, I knew that this child was ours. She spoke the entire time referring to the child she was carrying as "your child" or "your son". She said that she knew she would carry this child, but would never be his mother and that he was meant to be our son. So at the end of this conversation, she mentioned that she really wanted us to be present for the birth of our son. I was so against it before but hearing how she referred to him as ours, we made the bold decision to go to Florida to be present for his birth. We only told the essential people as I had already gotten comments like "hope this one actually gives you the baby" from people when we were rematched. So to keep people from giving us unwanted comments like the one above, that, believe me, no one knew better than myself, we kept our decision to go to Florida relatively quiet.

Justin was of course away the week this all went down. He was in pennsylvania for work and I was so overwhelmed to be planning a trip to Florida all by myself and I left in two days! It was very overwhelming, but thankfully I have amazing family and friends that helped me get myself organized, clean my house, pack my bags, book my flights and drop me off at the airport. I left early on the morning of Nov 5. My entire trip down to Florida I had to not think about the adoption too much as I would just start to cry, I didn't want to be the crazy lady crying for no apparent reason on the flights, so I did hold it together pretty good.

I was picked up from the airport by one of the women that we worked with very closely from our adoption agency. She was so awesome! She picked me up and took me to the hospital where our birth mom was and we visited with her for several hours. It was such a cool experience. She let me feel him hiccuping and she even let me feel her belly so I could see how big he felt. It was a pretty cool night, I was sad that Justin wasn't there that day, but we really formed a bond. I saw so many similarities between mine and her personality, so that was really neat.

The next morning my agency lady took me to the airport where I met Justin and we got our rental car and then headed to the hospital where they were going to be starting the induction soon. It took a while to get things going, and we were able to hang out with our birth mom and get to know her a bit as well. We did have a bit of stress that was related to some situations that I'm not even going to talk about, so that was interesting and I'm just really glad it's over. But know that our birth mom constantly told us how much she loved us and that she knew this was our son, the stress was never related to that she wasn't going to give him to us. At one point she looked at me and said "I don't want you to think I am going to change my mind, I won't. This baby is yours". So that helped put my heart a bit at ease although it was a stressful time up until the papers were signed.

So again for strange circumstances and what not, our birth mom needed to have a c-section, which I was so lucky to be able to be in and witness my son's birth! It all went so good. Jonah Samuel was born on Nov 6, 2015 at 10:33 PM. He weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and was pure perfection. The most beautiful baby I have ever seen. He had a beautiful full head of hair and big pouty lips! So beautiful!

They took babe off to NICU and I was told we could go see him in about an hour. So I headed out to show Justin some of the pictures that I took - they weren't super good, I was so distracted about what was happening I kinda forgot about taking pictures. Then we went back to the recovery room and visited with our birth mom for a bit. She asked me if I would mind snuggling with her for a bit, so I crawled up onto the stretcher with her and snuggled her and she said to me "Promise me you will you take care of my boy", to which I started crying and told her that he would be so loved and spoiled for all of his life. We stayed with her probably for about an hour, then we went up to see the baby in NICU.

You know as confident as we were that he would be our son, I think both Justin and I felt a bit distant until the papers were completely signed on Sunday. When we went up to see him in NICU, we weren't allowed to hold him, but we took lots of pictures and video and talked to his nurse about how he was doing. He was doing good, he had to be on a small amount of oxygen, but was already being weaned off and had an IV in to give his some sugar water as he wasn't going to be eating by mouth quite yet. We stayed up with him for a bit then headed back to down to see our birth mom before we left for the night. When we got down to the labour and birth unit they wouldn't let us back to see our mom so we ended up going back to our place to go to sleep as it was around 1 in the morning.

The following day was hard. We went to go into NICU and we weren't allowed to due to some comments that were made by our birth mom. So as we waited for an hour to talk to a social worker. I had convinced myself we were going home without a baby. A doctor came out and told us what was said, which was vague comments which again I'm not going to mention but they didn't in anyway imply that she wasn't going to sign the papers. So after a bit of communication with our agency, we went and visited our birth mom for a bit. Then we ended up just taking a bit of a break from it all and going for supper together and trying to de-stress. There was a lot of drama that happened from the Thursday I arrived until the Sunday the papers were signed and both Justin and I felt stuck in the middle of it, not knowing what to do. But although the drama itself never involved us, and our birth mom and birth dad were set on us being this boy's parents, it was still incredibly stressful. So we didn't get to see our son at all this day and because of the comments made we actually weren't even allowed to have an update of how he was doing. It sucked a bit, OK ALOT!

Sunday we woke up and went to the beach! We spent a couple hours in the sun and playing in the ocean. On the way back to our place we got a call that our birth mom had spoken with NICU and that we were now officially allowed to go in and see the baby. We rushed to our place showered, and then headed to the hospital. We quickly stopped in to say hi to our birth mom and give her some flowers. She then told us we needed to go bond with the baby.

When we got up to NICU, we found our baby towards the back of the NICU, where the less intensive babies go. He would stay here his entire stay as he did so well. He had some jitters, but that was the extent of his withdrawal to the narcotics they had mom on. I got to hold him for the first time that day and I cried. He was so beautiful and I just wanted him to be mine. Justin said so many times while he was up there that he wanted him to be ours, but wouldn't feel that he could really hold him and be sure of it until the papers were signed. Even though I understood that too, he was mine as soon as I held him. I told Justin that he was coming home with us. We hung out in NICU for a few hours. Our mom left the hospital that day, so we helped her take her stuff out to her car gave hugs and farewells. She would be back to sign the papers in a few hours. We went to a pub across the street, had supper then went back to NICU to hold our son. I didn't want to leave until I received the call that the papers had officially been signed. I wanted to be holding him in that moment. Around 1135 pm we got the call that she had signed the papers and that we could breathe a sigh of relief. We got in trouble for answering our phone in NICU, but once I told the nurses it was because our birth mom signed and he was ours, they were more understanding. We stood up, both crying (my husband never cries by the way), and we shared our first group hug as a family. This boy was for sure our son. There were no take backs. He is ours. That was the best feeling of my life. And the stress of the past few days melted away, except for the cold sore that had formed on my lip.

Jonah did so well. He was in NICU for a week just to be monitored due to the narcotics. He never needed medication for withdrawals or anything. He was in a bili blanket for a couple days as he was slightly jaundiced but that was it. The day we got to bring him home from the hospital was cool and just like that they let us walk out of the hospital and bring this baby with us. I said to Justin "they're really letting us take him with us!" What a bizarre but amazing feeling.

The next day we had to relocate to a different hotel which was fine. We found one close to the beach and we were going to hang on the beach while waiting for all the paperwork needed to come home. Well, that same day we got a call that Jonah had some regular neonatal screening that came back as trending upward and put him at risk for a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia. So our first day out of the hospital we had to go back to a different children's hospital and get blood work drawn. Poor boy has horrible veins, they poked him like 6 times and he didn't cry at all. He is such a relaxed baby.

The next day we had a relaxed day and did nothing which was finally really nice! But the following day it all quickly turned back to running around fort lauderdale. We had to drop some stuff off at our agency and pick up some papers from them as well, and then we had to go get more blood work drawn on Jonah, and then we had to go see a pediatric endocrinologist to follow up with his blood results. We didn't get a confirmed diagnosis, but she talked to us about what the condition is (it's basically means his adrenal glands don't make cortisol), what symptoms are, what treatment is and that we need to get him into a Dr ASAP when we get home.

We were supposed to hear back from this Dr the next day, but we didn't. So we had a family beach day, did some shopping and packed up our stuff to go home the next day. We had our first family outing at Olive Garden (where else would I go, YUM!). It was a nice day. We slept for a few hours before needing to get up with Jonah around 3 ish and so we just got up fed him and headed to the airport.

Did you know that when you fly with an infant within the USA they don't require you to have any identification for the infant? That seems crazy to me. I said to Justin "I guess they are letting me take him at least to Minot!" We arrived in the world's smallest airport - I have never been to minot's airport, it's tiny - and were greeted by two anxious grandma's. My mom and Justin's mom both came down to pick us up. Did I mention that our little man was born on Justin's mom's birthday? And he is also her first grand baby? Happy birthday Grandma Jo! What a gift!

Although the wind was ridiculous that day, the roads weren't too bad. We made it to the border safely and spent about 45 minutes waiting for all his immigration papers to be processed and what not, then they let us enter Canada. So I said to Justin "They are letting us in the country! He is really coming home with us!" Not that I thought that he wasn't, but it all became so real when we got to actually come home with him. We were welcomed and overwhelmed with the awesomeness of our friends and family. Supper was ready for us when we came in the door, and everyone did quite well sharing the baby we've all been waiting for for years. Our fridge was stocked as was our freezer and we even had decorations and banners welcoming Jonah into our community. We are SO loved and SO blessed!

We have settled in nicely. Jonah is such a relaxed little man. He lets us sleep for 4-5 hours at night. He lights up our world. We arrived home on Wednesday Nov 18, Nov 19 we spent most of the day at ER of the general hospital just to get him into the system quickly for the potential CAH that he might have. They did blood work - all his electrolytes were normal which is good and they sent off his screening again. We were referred to appropriate Dr's and we feel so much more at east just doing all this in our own country!

Jonah's middle name, Samuel, means God has heard and it is honestly the most appropriate middle name ever. We felt that God was so silent through many times in our adoption process and although we grew a lot, it was still very hard and painful. When we got to the states and everything happened, God kept answering three years of prayers in about two weeks. It was insane and I can't even tell you all the prayers that were answered. All our travels were smooth, we only dealt with amazing people from airlines to the hospital to our adoption agency. Our son thrived in NICU as the staff waited for him to withdraw from the narcotics his mom was on, we have prayed for God's protection over him for three years, and God protected him. We were able to come home quickly (we were in Florida for less than two weeks) and safely with no problems with airlines, missing baggage or at the border. We are so blessed and thankful for how everything went. God is faithful and God is Sovereign. God is Sovereign is what I prayed every time a stressful situation came up. And it is true, God is in control and knows what's going to happen and takes care of us. We waited for a long time, but it was because we were waiting for this beautiful boy. And I can't imagine what life was like without him. And just like that, the last three years don't feel as long, and they were painful but totally worth it.

We just want to thank you all for everything. For prayers, for kind words, gifts and just spoiling us. We are overwhelmed by everyone's kindness and generosity. We are so blessed to have you all in our life. It's been pretty cool for us to not walk this road alone, but alongside all of you. How amazing it is to come home to everyone so excited about this little man! We have all waited for him, and the excitement and love that he had waiting for him here warmed my heart so much! Thank you for walking this road with us, we are so blessed.

The pictures I included on here are from the day that he was born. ENJOY!

Friday November 6, 2015

SO I am having a sleepless night, so I thought I would write a quick post for those of you who follow on the blog, but don't have me on facebook.

This past Friday I received a call from the adoption agency that notified me that our mom was currently in the hospital with pain that was unrelated to the baby. Because of the pain she is needing to be on Narcotics. Baby is looking great, but due to this pain (it's very vague, I know) our mom will be induced on Friday November 6, 2015. In case you aren't aware that's like five days away! Babe will need to spend some time in the NICU because of the narcotics that mom has been on, but holy smokes, we are having a baby this week!

Mom signs papers 48 hours after the birth, then we will travel after that! It's going to be a busy week full of cleaning and nesting. I can't believe it. We are praying really hard that everything will work out with this one, and that this little guy is indeed our son. I guess we will find out come Sunday.

4-5 weeks out

Hey Everyone! Here's a quick update for you all. So our birthmom is due 35 days from today (according to her dates due date) or 31 days from now according to the ultrasound, which is what I am choosing to follow. We received word that our mom has been admitted into the hospital with some sort of pain - not related to the baby - but she is getting the care she needs there. So we've been praying that she will heal quickly of whatever it is that is ailing her! Otherwise, we hope to meet this little guy in the next 2-4 weeks!

We spoke with our birthmom's caseworker on Monday. The call went great. Our caseworker is fabulous! She is a much better communicator than the one we had with our previous match which is such a great change! She says that she is expecting our mom to go into to labour sooner rather than later, just because she has been carrying quite low the last little bit. That baby needs to stay in for two more weeks! Then after that he can come whenever!

In the meantime, I have been working like crazy this past month, but am finally getting a week off after these last two shifts tonight and tomorrow night. I hope to get our house completely cleaned up and organized and ready for the baby in that time. Justin will be out of town next week, I hope to accomplish a lot while he is away!

Things to pray for: As always pray for our birthmom. Pray for her to experience peace in her decision and pray that she will follow through with the adoption plan. Pray for the baby, that he would be born full term and would be healthy! Pray for the exchange rate! As we quickly approach our due date, I'm experiencing a bit of anxiety with the financials, trusting God to care for us, but nervous of how much into the red we will be going. If the canadian dollar would miraculously jump, I don't know, like 20 cents, that would ease our financial burden significantly. Pray for us as we wait. Pray that time would pass quickly, as we anticipate bringing home our son. Pray that we would be ready to become parents as much as we can be! Pray that this one is for keeps! We are excited, with a bit of nervousness mixed in, for good reason.

We thank you all for the amazing support that you have been throughout this journey. We can't wait to get our little boy home and share him with all of you!

We're expecting.... again!

Well God sure has a sense of humour. Only a few hours after I posted my post yesterday, we received a call from social services that we had been matched with another expectant birthmom! Although we've been praying that our next match would be an instant placement where baby is already born and we travel immediately, we are happy with this one. Our little boy is due November 29 (or also Dec 3rd because she has been given two dates, but we go with the earlier one). We are excited, but a bit reserved and anxious, praying that this will be our baby. It is no surprise that there is a little fear as we wait for this one, but we are praying and praying that he is ours. In meantime we are excited that we are fully ready for a baby boy as we were stocked up on boy stuff for the last one. So now it's time to just start cleaning up my house and work like crazy to get more money in the bank because I'm going to be off work in like 5 weeks! Whew. So excited. But totally feel like I could vomit at any point in the day.

Please pray for peace for us but also for our birthmom. Pray that she is fully committed to this adoption plan and that our hearts don't get broken again. Pray that the next five weeks will fly by! Pray our baby will enter this world healthy and strong. We can't wait to meet him!

We're still here.

Hey everyone! Thought I should maybe write something to let you know we haven't fallen off the face of the planet. Here's what's been happening.

It has been 79 days since our adoption fell through (but who's counting?), and honestly I feel surprised that it's ONLY been 79 days. It has felt so so much longer. 27 days after our match fell through we were offered another match, to which we said no. Justin and I reviewed all the information on the potential match and we prayed and prayed and prayed about it. We talked to a few trusted family members and friends and all of us had the same opinion - that this child would not be ours. It was an incredibly hard day to say no to a potential match and I was really frustrated that God would even let it be proposed to us, but I guess it really proved to us that we are truly waiting for the child that is ours - not just any baby. I have always said I would say yes to any child because it's a child, so I guess that proved that theory wrong.

Since we received that proposal, we have really heard nothing. I talk to the agency every 1-2 weeks. They reassure me they are working to find us a baby. The last time I spoke with them they told us that they have several moms due in December that will be getting matched soon - so hoping that our baby is in there somewhere, but honestly not fully counting on it. Although I really hope and pray we have a baby this year, I've gotten to a point where it feels like I've been waiting for so long that it really feels like it will never happen. Although I know that it will, I feel it's best to not get my hopes up until something does happen. So I am finally going to stop having expectations, because all of them have been wrong so far. I expected to be matched within 6-9 months of actively waiting because we are a young couple with no kids who make a good living(here we are on our 21st month anniversary of actively waiting), I expected to have a baby in the summer and that our mom was set on her adoption plan (that didn't happen), I expected to get a baby 1-2 months after our match fell through because our agency puts us at the top of the list (it's been 79 days) and I expected that 2015 was going to be the year I became a mom, but maybe it won't be. I feel like I'm finally letting go of my expectations, and it's a good thing. Although it may sounds like hopelessness, it's not. I'm hopeful, but without a date or expectations in mind, because when it doesn't happen it makes it harder. I have also learned that when I trust God to wait for my children, that means it's up to His timing. I can't follow his will and then throw tantrums when it doesn't follow my timeline. God has a plan for us, He loves us and will make us parents in accordance to His will. Although I hope this is relatively soon, ultimately it doesn't matter because I have no control over it anyways.

Many times throughout our adoption plan I have said (whether to God, my husband, or close family and friends) if we are still waiting in X amount of time, I'm not going to be able to handle it. I said that in August 2014 about still waiting until this past August. I said that about my brother having a baby before me, which he did in August. I have said that about Justin's sister who will become a mother before I do in the beginning of December. I have said it about being childless another Christmas this year. But the truth is that I am FINALLY learning. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who has kids before me. It doesn't matter how long I wait. I will still be here. I always knew I wouldn't be able to wait this long and I wouldn't be able to handle this. But the truth is, is that God is good. He is good in the good times and he is good when it's bad. It's HIS strength that has pulled me through many dark months of waiting. It was HIS strength that held my hand when I found out that I wasn't going to be a mom in August. It was HIS strength that allowed me to go back to work and still love helping women meet their children for the first time. It is HIS strength that lets me keep waiting and prevents me from having a complete mental breakdown. God is good, all the time. I can't wait until he blesses us with children. I have no idea and no more expectations of when that will be. I'm just going to focus on getting through today first.

We have been so blessed with many amazing people around us and again want to thank you all for the love and support. I hope it won't be long until we can share our joy of becoming parents with you all. But until then we will just wait and trust that God knows what he is doing.

The worst day ever.

Hey everyone, so I thought I would write a bit of a blog for those that follow our blog and aren't friends with us on facebook.

One week ago today, we received a call from our adoption agency letting us know that they had decided to pull our match with our birthmom. They felt she had changed her mind about the adoption. This was the day before she was supposed to be induced, so we aren't sure whether baby was born and she started changing her mind or if she was still waiting to be induced. From the sounds of it the communication started getting a bit distant between our birthmom and the agency.

We have since heard nothing about this baby, so as it appears now - this child is not going to be our son. We were devastated hearing the news, but we have actually been a bit surprised how well we are doing. We lost a significant amount of cash in this failed match which has been actually the most frustrating part of it all (after grieving the fact that we are not getting the baby of course). We have worked hard to fundraise, and it's really frustrating how in an instant a lot of that money is gone. So we are dealing with our anger towards the situation.

The plus side to everything is that our agency really tries to get us another match as quickly as they can; they put us immediately to the top of the list (we're number 1, we're number 1!). I spoke with the agency yesterday and our profile had already been shown to another mom, 6 days after our match fell through. We are really hoping and praying that a match comes quickly and that it is an instant placement, meaning that baby has been born and all papers are signed. That way we know that baby is ours and there is no fear that it could fall through again.

We have been overwhelmed by love and support, as you are all so amazing. So thanks. We are settling back into normal life in which it feels again, like we will be waiting for an eternity.

Please pray for us. It seems like everyday I have new emotions with the situation, it all kind of feels like it was just a dream. Excitement for a baby, and then back to the junky feeling of the never ending wait. Almost like the 9 weeks we were matched never happened. I'm not sure what is going to happen. We know and trust that God has a plan in all of this, even though this isn't what I would have planned for myself. You can also pray for me as I go back to work next week, which I feel like is the most disappointing thing that I'm dealing with. I love my job, but was so excited to have the next 8 months off with my new baby, but that's not happening. So it's back to everything again. We are quite disappointed, but still have hope that we will be parents, and hopefully soon!

Thanks for all the love! We are truly blessed with an amazing community of friends and family around us!