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!