Three Little Birds

Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people.   1 Chronicles 16:8 I am a little behind in blogging, and this Thanksgiving blog post is a little late coming, but I have been extraordinarily busy loving on a little bald guy :)  Please forgive me... This year, we obviously have so much to be thankful for.  Not only the warm home, our jobs, my being able to realize my dream of becoming a Nurse Practitioner & being blessed to be able to pursue & succeed in becoming one... our amazing marriage full of laughter, affection, & true teenage-style love... a fantastic supportive family and group of friends, and a church family that accepts & loves us as well as challenges us to become humble followers of Christ and to tell our community of His love... the list could go on & on.  And this year, we give thanks for our little tiny blessing.  Zane is ours to love, to teach, to guide, and to be called parents of!...

Many of you have already seen these pics on Facebook, but I wanted to be able to post them here for my bloggy friends and be able to go into more detail about the various elements. Because I'm kind of a designer at heart, I guess I like to pay attention to detail and share my ideas on decorating with my friends for inspiration.  I'm really proud of how Zane's nursery turned out.  And I think he likes it too!!  Every time I put him in the crib (if I'm cleaning or working close to the nursery), he falls right to sleep & likes to watch his turtles spin on the mobile.  And he LOVES his changing pad - it's his favorite spot. I wanted it to be a reflection of us, him, his heritage, and have a touch of vintage and nostalgia.  We painted the walls aqua before we knew it was a boy - I just knew I wanted a light blue because it's so soothing.  Just not a fan of "baby blue" so had to find a color that I liked.  But we will get there in a minute... gettin...

In 3 1/2 hours, my son will be exactly 4 weeks old :(  One MONTH!  Four weeks ago, my life was forever changed.  Four weeks ago, at this very time, I was sitting in a waiting room almost sick to my stomach & scared for my life as the birthfather & his mother tried to manipulate and coerce T. to change her mind and give the baby to them.  I am so thankful she didn't give in.  This little guy is perfect in every way, and just as his name proclaims, God is so gracious to place this gift in our lives.  There were so many years that we didn't know if we would ever be parents.  Doctors would tell us "there's no hope", and my heart was not ready for adoption, mostly for the fear of a failed adoption (meaning, that the bmom would change her mind).  Failed adoptions are real.  In fact, our agency told us it's actually quite common - as many as 1 in 4 birthmoms change their minds.  The words "failed adoption" is a strange phrase to me - tr...

The Wayne Pregnancy Center is a non-profit group in our county that supports pregnant girls and women in their decision of giving life to their child through adoption and/or in deciding to keep the child, if possible.  They offer counseling and information.  I am thankful for this group of volunteers, because they help to keep abortion off the table as an option for these women - they obviously don't force this issue, but give them hope about adoption instead.  I cannot wait until life settles down just a bit, for me & Justin to get involved with this group. They posted a couple of videos on their Facebook page this month in regards to Nov. being Adoption Awareness Month.  I have to tell you... I have not been super emotional about this adoption until the moment I heard Mark Schultz' song, "Everything to Me".  I bawled my eyes out!! Here's the video of Mark (who is adopted!) explaining the meaning of this song, and how it came to be.  Wow. Here's...

Here's a video of us on the way to the hospital once we got word that T's water had broken!  We were so excited!  PS- Important! Don't forget to pause the music by scrolling down (the music player's on the bottom right of the page).

Sounds so official doesn't it?  Well to us it is!  And legally, it's one of the LAST steps to finalizing the adoption of Zane.  The state of OK requires that a social worker visit the adoptive family one time after temporary custody has been awarded to ensure the baby's safety and our adapting to parenthood.  Which is good, considering how much it was!!  Oh my word.  Anyway, the state of NC requires 4!  So we are glad in one way that we could finalize the adoption in OK instead (for that reason only though). We had our PPA this past Saturday (Nov. 13) - the same social worker that did our home study came to do our PPA.  She is so nice and was ecstatic for us.  It was much less nerve-wracking and I didn't do quite the crazy spring-cleaning that I did for the home study.  She just interviewed us about our experience in OKC, the adoption itself, our relationship with the birthfamily, how the baby was doing at home (how much he eats, how w...