adoption update...and another change!

It has been a looooong time since I have posted about adoption. One because we have made some changes that I was not ready to public. And two because we have a newborn (an two other kids) who pretty such take up all my time and energy along with my thinking skills. Seriously, I have trouble even making coherent sentences 90% of the time.

We realized in October of last year that our i-600 approval was expiring in January, and not just any day in January, but Zeke's due date. Crazy, huh? So, we began the paperwork process...again.

If you have been following our journey, you may know that before we found out we were expecting #3, we were faced with a decision on whether to stay in Uganda or switch countries.
When we found out I was pregnant, we decided to stay put in Uganda and then make the decision closer to my due date.
And then in October, when we realized that our paperwork had to be updated, we also knew that we needed to make a choice on which country was best for our family.

Well, we decided to switch. We are now adopting from Democratic Republic of Congo.

There were several factors affecting our decision, but the overriding factor was travel time. We would have had to take one 8+ week trip to Uganda. Our original plan was to take the kiddos with us. But after Zeke was born, we knew that travel with all three kids, especially a baby may not be the wisest decision. And leaving the kids in the states while we traveled was not an option! I have trouble leaving them for a weekend, there is no way I could do it for 2 months!

So here we are...once again having to start certain processes over and once again finding ourselves on the paper chase.
Our adoption journey has been one of many emotions. When country processes change, it is frustrating, but it also reminds me of who is in control...and that is NOT me. God has showed me many times that He is sovereign over this entire process. It is not mine to control, it is His. Our baby is in His hands.

Now that we are settling in to being a family of 5, our adoption is back at the forefront of my mind. With that, I am hoping to do a better job of keeping y'all updated!

my growing belly

our attempt at newborn pictures

Have I told you how much I love Pinterest? Well if I haven't, I really love Pinterest. I am sort of challenged in the creativity department and Pinterest really helps me out.

Zeke is 12 days now and I wanted pictures of him as an itty bitty baby. Since I am cheap thrifty, I decided to attempt them on my own and Pinterest was just what I needed for some ideas.

Although the pictures are far from professional, I am happy with what we got. It only took 2 hours, several nursing sessions, almost 400 pictures, one poop accident and one pee accident to get some good ones.
All in a days work people.

He’s here!

Ezekiel Richard ~ born Monday, January 14th at 1:57am ~ weight 8lbs 3oz ~ length 21.5in

Our precious baby boy is here! He is absolutely perfect and is blending into our family just wonderfully. I know most of you are here for the pictures, so I'll start there and then share Zeke's birth story :)

Zeke's first moments - being weighed, right after birth, and having his newborn exam

Family of 5! Tay is super excited about baby brother, she was just upset that Noah got to hold Zeke :)

Sweet baby boy

One happy big sister...who happened to wake up at 3:30am to greet her new brother :)

Big bro!

Meeting cousins and grandmommy for the first time. 

First adjustment

Zeke's Birth Story

This pregnancy was a rough one. Between being super tired, sick, and the back aches, I was ready for our baby boy to come. 

The last few weeks of Zeke’s pregnancy, I had more Braxton Hicks than I did with any other baby. There were 2 nights I thought I may be going into labor only to be let down when the contractions became more spread out and less painful. One of these nights I even called our midwife at 3am thinking that labor had begun. I asked her to wait another hour before she came to our house. Within 15 minutes of getting off the phone with her, my contractions had almost stopped coming completely.   

The day Zeke came, I had been having Braxton Hicks on and off. They were sporadic and just enough to be noticeable. 

I went to bed around 9:15 with the contractions still coming. A little before 11:00, I decided to start timing them. They were coming every 6 to 7 minutes and were becoming more painful. At that point I got in our bath tub for about 20 minutes. The contractions were coming every 5 minutes and I needed to breathe through them. Once I got out of the tub, around 11:40, I knew I was in labor. The contractions were hard and came about every 3 minutes. A little after midnight we called the midwife and asked her to come over. She immediately said “I’m on my way”. Forty minutes later she was at our house and I was at 8 centimeters. 

During this time, Mark was working on filling up the birthing pool. But we had one problem…our hot water heater went out. The tub was only half way full and there was no hot water left. So everyone (midwife, her assistant, our doula, and Mark) began boiling water. I went ahead and got in the tub, but it was chilly and uncomfortable. As the boiling pots of water got dumped in, it was more and more bearable. 

I got in the birthing pool around 1:00am and I was in some serious pain! I remember our doula speaking encouraging words and bible versus and coaching me through the breathing. Mark was holding my hands and speaking encouraging words over me. As painful as the contractions were, having them there helped me get through them.

Around 1:45am, I began to feel the urge to push. I waited as long as I could and began to push about 5 minutes later. At the first push, my bag of waters broke. It took several more pushes for him to come and it was definitely the hardest part of my labor. 

Zeke was born at 1:57am on Monday morning. He came out with the cord wrapped twice around his neck and twice around his body. It took one agonizing minute for our midwife to unwrap it and for him to begin to cry. It may have been the longest minute of my life. But exactly one minute after he was born, we heard that beautiful sound that all parents love to hear, our baby’s first scream. It was a wonderful noise. 

My mom arrived at our house around 2:20am. When she got here she asked Mark "How far along is she?" . Mark said "0". Then it clicked for my mom. She had missed my delivery...again.

Both of our children slept through the entire labor and delivery. And let me go ahead and say it was NOT because I was quiet. However, Tay did wake up at 3:30am. She came into our room and was a bit overwhelmed by all the people. She came into bed with me and Zeke and after about 2 minutes grasped what was going on. When she realized her baby brother was here, her face lit up and she immediately wanted to hold him. In all of her excitement, she did not go back to bed that night. She is one magnificent big sister :)

When Noah woke up the next morning he decided that breakfast was a bit more important than meeting his little brother. But once he made his way into our bedroom and saw Zeke, he was ready to hold him and give him lots of sweet kisses. 

I have been asked if I would do a water birth again. My answer is probably not. I was hoping that the water would provide relaxation and help with the contractions. But after having one in the water and one out, I have to say that I don’t think there was a difference. 

And if you ask me if I would have another natural birth, my answer would be heck no! Hum…I guess I said the same thing after Noah and I obviously did not stick to that. Mark’s grandma said that “labor is the worst pain and the easiest to forget”. I am going to have to agree with that. Labor pains are AWFUL, but the reward is so sweet it is easy to forget.

Out little guessing game!

And we have a winner! Rainer you came the closet with 124.75 points. You can click on the online baby pool to the right to see the results.

I plan on posting pictures of our newest family addition, Ezekiel (Zeke) Richard soon!

Christmastime fun

Since I have not posted in a while, this will be a "all things Christmastime" post (sorry for the delay Janet and Grandma A. :)).

Last week, Tay had her Christmas program for preschool. She has been about it talking non-stop since they stared practice over a month ago. She could not wait to get up on stage and sing her heart out. When the night finally came, she was so excited. Grandparents and cousins were in tow for the show and it was sort of a big deal. But then she got on stage, could not find us, and realized there were alot of people staring at her. She was on the verge of breakdown, but thankfully her teacher came to the rescue and all was good. And once she got to stand by her bestie Kylie (on left), she was golden.

Friday night we decorated cookies with cousins. There were 4 of us who each made about 5 dozen cookies, so it was quite the production. The night ended watching dancing Christmas lights (Noah was pant-less, of course).

And then we come to our 3rd Annual Neighborhood Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. I love our neighbors for numerous reasons, but one being that everyone wears a sweater. No one is above the ugliness.
We also made sure to throw in a few games, my favorite being "jingle box". The object is the get the balls out of a tissue box by dancing or moving around...good times.

And to wrap up the Christmastime fun, Tay and Mark went to the Nutcracker. She absolutely loved it and I know it helped that her favorite 2 cousins were along for the show. Can I please just freeze time and keep these kids little?

Christmas 2013

Every year my mom makes a calender for us. I love it because we never know what pictures to expect, except for the one in December. We always take the kids' picture in their pj's by our tree.

Let me just say that this was the best out of 74. And no, that is not an exaggeration.

A couple of my favorite not so calender worthy pictures...

I just love these kids.