A Long Overdue Update!

First of all, we have adopted!

Our lives have been crazy for a few months, so we haven't had time to update our blog followers. We are so sorry for that!

So, here is what happened in a nutshell:

In early July, we received a call from our adoption agency for a last minute adoption situation in Iowa. We spoke with the expectant mom, and she was a wonderful young woman. As a result of our call, we matched with each other and jumped on a last minute flight to Iowa and traveled the dark roads in the middle of the night (much of Iowa was flooded at that time) to get to the hospital in time for the birth. We arrived an hour late, and it was the middle of the night.

The expectant mom asked to see the baby when he was ready to come out of the nursery. We asked if we could meet the mom. We ended up spending a lot of time with her and it turned out she was an amazing young woman. We expected the baby to be born with a cleft lip, but instead he was born with a cleft palate, which is more serious. We were not concerned about it because we knew that surgery could correct the problems. The hospital gave us our own suite, and we ended up taking care of the baby his first 24 hours.

We were frustrated because the hospital was not giving us any medical information about the baby. We knew he had an ultrasound of his heart done, and that was not a normal test for a healthy baby, but still, we could get no information and were put off until the doctor arrived.

Finally the doctor and a neonatologist arrived to speak to the mom, her family, and us. It is a meeting we will never forget. The doctors informed us that the baby was indeed very sick, and that he had a serious heart defect, a chromosomal abnormality, and they suspected they would find his brain and other organs abnormally developed. Even though we had been feeding him for the past 24 hours, they expected he would stop eating and have to go on a feeding tube. We couldn't believe we had been taking care of this little baby for 24 hours and not a single member of the nursing staff gave us any indication anything was wrong.

I could write pages and pages about our Iowa experience, but I won't do that now. To make a long story shorter, we did not end up adopting the baby. He was too sick, and we had talked about what we would do if that situation ever arose. We knew we could not adopt this baby, and it was very difficult for us to tell the mom. We did, and she said she understood. Our agency had called her and told her they have families who are waiting to adopt special needs babies, and that when she was ready, they could introduce her to the families. She did not take our agency up on that, and we believe she decided to parent the baby. She had the support of her parents and older siblings, so we felt good about that.

It was yet another very difficult adoption experience, but we had not bonded with the baby, so it was much easier to heal from. We were able to talk with our adoption agency and they all felt so bad for us. Apparently, we were become quite a pitiful family with terrible bad luck. I had told the director that I thought maybe the baby gods weren't smiling on us. He let off a nervous laugh.

Within one week of that experience, we received a call from our agency with another last minute adoption situation. This call was important because I believed we were going to adopt this week. I could just feel it in my core. We spoke with the expectant mom Wednesday evening and flew out to Cleveland, Ohio Thursday evening. The baby was due to be born Friday morning, so we were excited to be there in time for his birth.

The expectant mom said she chose us because we looked like we were a fun family. After meeting her, we hit it off and felt very close to her. We were the only ones there for her the day of her c-section. The c-section was scheduled for the morning, but it kept getting pushed later and later due to other emergencies. Finally, that evening, we accompanied her in for the c-section, and an hour later, Miles was born! He was a healthy baby boy weighing almost 8 pounds.

Miles was born 7/15/11

Maggie was present for the long day at the hospital, and she was able to hold her new baby brother that evening. We were overjoyed with this beautiful baby boy, and somehow, we just knew it felt right.

Brother and sister's first meeting

 

We spent a few more days at the hospital, and the biological mom decided to go forward with the adoption and she signed the paperwork to do so. We spent another 10 or so days waiting for approval to leave Ohio, and had the opportunity to visit with Lisa's sister and Maggie's cousins who lived in nearby Pennsylvania. After a while, we were getting stir crazy living in the hotel with a newborn, and we were finally given the go-ahead to go home.

We quickly raced to the airport to go home, and we were so excited to bring Miles to our home, and to see our dogs, cat and beds again. Now, the journey of parenting Miles has begun.

We are over-the-moon with happiness for our new son. Maggie is doing great with him and has been a terrific big sister.

We will write more about our journey, but I wanted to take a minute to catch you up. Thank you to everyone who has been following us and sending us well wishes. You all definitely made a difference in helping us stay strong in our journey to add another Angel to our family.

Our Newest Angel!

Love,

Kathy, Lisa, Maggie and Miles