Home Sweet Home With Kyla Danielle

My how the days are already flying by! We arrived home with Kyla on Thursday after an exciting and emotional few days in the hospital.

On Tuesday around noon, we received a call from Danielle who told us her doctor had admitted her to the hospital because she was in labor! We were both at work, and I'm sure none of our coworkers had seen us move as fast as we did that day. We had to go home and pack up the car, then headed to the hospital. We arrived in plenty of time, were able to briefly see Danielle, and then the waiting began. We sat, and paced, and sat, and paced, and talked to some of Danielle's sweet friends, and paced.

At 10:44pm, our adorable little bundle of joy was born! She weighed just 5 pounds, was 18.6 inches long, and was absolutely perfect. We got to hold her for a few minutes and then got to watch her get all cleaned up in the nursery. Wednesday morning we watched her in the nursery and then were able to hold and feed her in the evening--what an incredible experience! Thursday morning we were able to hold Kyla again and then learned we all would be discharged later in the afternoon. We were so excited and a little nervous--it was just going to be us and little Kyla! And boy, those nurses don't give you much instruction--definitely not a manual! :)

We made a quick stop to see the grandparents and made it home that evening. We were exhausted and so glad to be home--especially home with Kyla. Our first few days have been simply amazing. She is such a sweet baby and really loves to snuggle--and we definitely cater to that request!

We feel incredibly blessed to have the pleasure of being Kyla's parents. God has been so good to us in guiding us through this journey and to adoption. Our experience has been amazing. God truly orchestrated all of the details and we could not be more grateful. Here are just a few pictures to enjoy.

First car ride

Meeting the grandparents

Meeting the grandparents

First bath at home

First nail trim

Snuggling with dad

Baby Girl Has Arrived!

Baby Girl was born last night (Tuesday, February 21) at 10:44pm. She weighed 5 pounds and measured 18.6 inches. She is beautiful and healthy, and everyone is doing great! We're still working on the name and will try to post more pictures soon. We appreciate all of your prayers--keep 'em coming! :)

Our Transition to a Transracial Family

One aspect of this adoption that we realized we hadn’t mentioned on the blog is how it will create a transracial aspect to our family, which we are simply thrilled about. Our precious little one is African-American and Caucasian!

While filling out mountains of paperwork, we had to answer quite a few very challenging questions, one of which was what racial and ethnic backgrounds would we be receptive to. Our first response was that of course, we’d accept any baby that was given to us, but we realized we needed to do a lot of praying to be sure that was the right answer for us. We knew that we had to consider the additional challenges we would encounter raising a child of a different race and ethnicity and be prepared to raise our child with an educated, intentional plan to ensure she would grow up confident and comfortable with all aspects of her racial/ethnic makeup. We also knew that our lack of experiencing prejudice would require us to readjust our views of the world and strive to understand things we may not have even considered before.

But after much discussion and prayer we knew that God had called us to be open to whatever baby he brought to us, especially considering the fact that there is a great need for families who are open to transracial adoption.  We consider ourselves beyond blessed that God has led us to our beautiful baby girl! Please continue to pray for us on our adoption journey.

The Journey Continues!

It's amazing how excited you can be just from receiving a simple text message. We were out registering at Babies R Us on Friday night when Danielle sent us a text saying she had some great news to share and asking when we could talk. We called her just a few minutes later (we decided we should finish in the store so we didn't make a scene with our excitement when we called her) and got some exciting news: It's a girl!!

Danielle had a doctor's appointment on Friday and everything went great. The doctor said the baby was healthy and doing good, but that Danielle seemed a little small for being 38/39 weeks, so he wanted to do a sonogram (actually a praise since Danielle had really wanted to find out if it was a boy or girl but wasn't sure if the doctor would do a sonogram for her). During the sonogram, they immediately knew it was a girl. The doctor also said that Danielle is really closer to 36 weeks, so they've revised her due date to March 3. This will allow us to plan and prepare a bit more. :)

We continuously learn that flexibility is key for this journey. But we wouldn't trade the experience for anything, because we know it will ultimately result in our God-given daughter!

We're Having a Baby!

Danielle, the expectant mom, called us Wednesday night and very sweetly asked us if we would be the parents of her child. We were so thrilled and we could tell she was excited! We had a wonderful conversation, talking about the nursery, names, that she wants us to interact with the baby at the hospital--all kinds of stuff. We just adore her and are so excited! We could hardly stop grinning all night.

We found out after talking to one of our social workers that they have never had a case at the agency where the birthmom asked to call the adoptive parents personally to ask if they would parent her child. (Usually the social worker just calls.) So we were just so touched that Danielle would want to do that--she's just so thoughtful and sweet!

We obviously have lots to do in the next few days (since she could go into labor any day now), but we're just so excited--and maybe a little nervous, too. :) We have just felt such an outpouring of love from everyone we've been able to talk to already, as they've offered to help in whatever we need and to let us borrow baby items if we'd need them. So we are just so thankful for that. We feel blessed to have so many people who truly care about us!

Please keep praying for us through this journey; it is definitely going to be an emotional time at the hospital, and probably a little overwhelming (although wonderful!) when we come home. Also keep praying for Danielle. She just seems so strong and so comfortable with everything, but the hospital experience is going to be difficult from what we hear. We want to have a good relationship with her, so pray that we'll be able to connect with her and figure out how our relationship works best. And of course, pray for that little baby, that he or she would be healthy, have an easy delivery, and just that everything would go smoothly!