We kid! I mean, Our kid!

Sooooo, this blog seems to be the perfect place for public confessions.
If you don't like reading, then I'll jump right to the chase. Carrie and I are currently in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow morning we are picking up our adorable baby boy (Not Ethiopia, not Caleb's birthsibling).
The rest of this is more of a journal entry for me, but if you'd like to read along go ahead, but I'm starting from the beginning. You've been warned.
About a month and a half ago, Carrie and I were weeding in the backyard and starting talking about our family and how things don't always turn out how you expect, but you realize you are happy. We talked about how cool the sequence of events was that led us to Caleb, and how excited we were to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. We started talking about what our plans were for our "post-Ethiopia" family. As we began that topic we both got the feeling that our "post-Ethiopia" family was supposed to more of a "pre-Ethiopia" family. We felt like we were supposed to get a baby, and fast.
So we began researching a few different agencies and getting details about timing and costs and such. We analyzed our finances and figured out a way that we could swing it thanks to the adoption tax credit. We decided to go with the agency that "assisted" with Caleb's adoption (An agency assist basically means they bring a family and another agency together). The advantages were that we would only have to redo about half of the paperwork. Of the paperwork, only one document required us to tell anyone what we were doing, so Carrie and I decided we wanted this baby to be a surprise.

Uhm. Surprise!

So we finished the paperwork and started receiving situations. The way the agency works is that they find birthmothers looking to make an adoption plan for their baby. They get the paperwork in order and then send a series of documents to adoptive couples. We then review the situation, and let them know if we do or do not want our profile sent to that birthmom. The birthmom looks over the profiles and decides who the lucky couple will be while the adoptive couple tries to stay sane. I think we received about 9 or 10 situations over the past 1.5 months. Of those, we passed on all but three, primarily because of the timing. The babies were due in December or January, even though that was WAY faster than an adoption can be reasonably expected. We of course consider each one, but they just didn't feel right. There was a definite urgency in the feeling about this adoption for us. 2 of the situations we had our profiles sent and then went through the agonizing wait only to find out that another family was selected. Up until a week ago we slowly watched all of the August, September, and October situations disappear in spite of a surprise September situation that didn't pan out.

I'll admit that exactly one week ago I had a sinking-Peter moment. Remember when Peter was walking on the water and started to doubt? He was WALKING ON WATER when he BEGAN to doubt! It seems crazy, but he got distracted by the storm around him and as he doubted he began to sink. It has been amazing to see how Heavenly Father has led this entire adoption process, yet I started to question, because I thought he wanted us to get a baby soon, and we'd done all we could, and there were no situations left before December. Why did he tell us it had to be fast? (Oh NO! That's a pretty big storm out there!).

I kid you not, the very next day (Wed the 29th) after our weekly spouse lunch day, Carrie dropped me off back at work and took Caleb home. When I got to my computer I saw that there was a new situation we'd been sent.

And the baby was due October 19th!

I was immediately more excited than I had been for any situation we'd received. It was torture wating for Carrie to get home, but within an hour we had reveiwed and accepted the situation (Previous situations had taken us at least a day or two), and we were SO excited!

I was sure this was going to be our little baby. I'll actually spare some details here because they'll come up later, but it just seemed too perfect for us. A few times Carrie and I would start to think rationally about how crushing it would be to find out we weren't chosen, since we were so sure we WOULD be chosen. But everytime I started thinking that way, I didn't feel worried, which was so very different from the others. There really was a sort of a night and day difference, that was really peaceful to feel.

We waited over the weekend and learned valuable lessons like the Peter lesson and other conference related lessons, and went into Monday confident in the Lord's timing for us, no matter when we got the call, and no matter what the answer was.

Late Monday morning (yesterday) we got the call.

We were told there was "double good news" which made us only slightly nervous as we pondered the possiblility of twins or something.

The first good news was that we had been chosen for this baby. YEA YEA YEA!

The second good news was that the baby was born about two hours prior and was healthy. YEA YEA YEA!

So he (we'll most likely name him Noah Zackery) is here! Caleb is a big brother! Noah was 6 pounds 7 ounces and 19" long. He was about 2 weeks early, and he was born at 10:26am.

Soooooo, Carrie and I wereSOOOO excited, and we were also getting everything ready since, you know, we needed to fly to Pennsylvania ASAP :o)
That's right, about 18 hours after finding out we were selected, we would be on a plane with Caleb to go get a little tiny newborn! We won't be able to get him officially until Thursday, so I guess there is still some risk, and then we will have to wait for all of the ICPC documentation to go through, just like we did with Caleb in Florida, but we are hoping that we'll be flying back on about Wed. the 13th with our two little boys :o)

Noah's birthmom is Caucasion and his birthfather is African American, and they are actually engaged, but just don't feel like this baby belongs to them. They really seem to be a pretty interesting couple and we were anxious to meet them.

So we basically spent Monday finding and booking flight, car and hotel, we got the puppies a nice place to stay, we arranged for mail pickup as well as travel to and from the airport, we've drove all over notifying most of our immediate family about our exciting news, Carrie went through clothes and got all of the necessities for us and both kids, we went to store to buy some things we needed included more travel friendly food for Caleb, we arranged for substitues for our church lessons and Scout activities, we checked into our flight online and printed off maps and directions, I arranged for all of my work and e-mails and assignments to be taken care of, we signed documents, discussed various issues with the agency, wired our savings away, we packed for the three of us, and eventually laid down to get a few hours of sleep before our flight.

We left Salt Lake early Tuesday morning with continued help from the family members who we'd just informed, but who were gracious enough to help in so many ways.

The flights went better than we could have expected. Let me just say that Caleb was AWESOME yesterday. He was happy, he didn't fuss or cry once, he took a nap on my chest for over an hour, and he was awake at one point for over 9 hours and he was still being good for us. What a little man.

We landed in Philadelphia at 4:45 PA time and went to get our rental car. As we were loading the car up we got a call from the two agency workers who also flew to PA yesterday. They said that the birthparents (Crystal and Keith) were at the hospital right now and had to leave fairly soon, so could we go straight to the hospital.

We, of course, told them no WAY. We had just finished 9 hours of travel, Caleb needed his second nap, we hadn't eaten anything but a quick bite during our short layover in Phoenix, and we definitely needed to freshen up and put on some nicer clothes.

We, of course, did NOT tell them that. We went straight to the hospital, where it was our extreme pleasure to meet Crystal and Keith. What an amazing couple. They were so polite and thoughtful. So kind and intelligent. They were clearly very much in love and had tremendous respect for each other. They have been together for 8 years and already have 2 little girls together. They simply felt that this baby was meant for someone else, and they aren't in a financial position to give this little boy all they want for him in his life. I'm not sure there is another set of birthparents like them in the world. Noah is so incredibly lucky to have such special birthparents who absolutely adore him. They didn't name him because they didn't want us to feel any pressure. Crystal had the baby naturally, because she wanted to make sure he didn't have any drugs or anything in his system. They went above and beyond anything that could be expected because they wanted to deliver a perfect little angel to us.

Crystal, who reminds me SO much of my cousin Molly, had her precious baby brought from the nursery. She carefully and lovingly picked him up. Smiled and gave him a little hug, and handed him into my sweet wife's open arms. It was such a special moment. An unbelievable one for us. While we kicked ourseslves for somehow forgetting to bring any of our 3 cameras into the hospital, we were simoultaneously grateful that we were able to just soak in the moment and feel all of the feelings instead of trying so hard to document everything that we missed the moment.

We all took turns holding Noah and just talked. There are a lot of things we have in common with Crystal and Keith and the Spirit confirmed that this was a moment divinely set up by a loving Father in Heaven.

Noah is absolutely precious. He has dark hair and a very light complexion. He has perfect little features and even woke up for us to see into his eyes. He looks SO much like Keith that it is amazing.

We stayed at the hospital until almost 9 o'clock. Did I mention what a champ Caleb was?

We left and checked into our hotel and got Caleb some well deserved food. Then we went to TGI Friday's, which, interestingly enough, was the very first restaurant we went to with Caleb in Florida. Now it is the last restaurant we'll go to with him before picking up his baby brother :o)

There have been some events already today, but I've got to draw the line somewhere.

2uesdaynite seems like as good a place to draw the line as any. Oh, did I mention Keith plays the bass guitar and sings in a band?