I Introduce to you...

Christian James Breen!  He was born on Wednesday at 2:54 pm weighing in as a linebacker at 10 lbs. 2 oz with the length of 22 inches long!  He's a big boy, but as I cuddle him as I type, he's still a little guy!

Two things, the placement is not 100%, this is an "at-risk" placement, so we are technically waiting out a period of legal time that needs to pass.  Secondly, we agreed to not put pictures of him out there (you can't really see him here, so it's ok) until finalization.  If you would oh so love to see him, we would be happy to email you a picture if your heart desires.  Trust me, this is SO hard, because he is SO cute, we want to show him off!!!!

We are completely thrilled at the addition to our family!  Jacob is so sweet and gentle with him and always concerned about him - whether it's giving him his pacifier, rubbing him to "calm him down" or just to come check on him!  Today they are wearing matching brother shirts.  Just handsome I tell you!

I don't want to go on too much about the past several days in our lives, but this week has been a wild one.  He was a week over due when he was born and actually knew of the birth plan for the week, and then that changed to something else, and that changed because she ended up going into labor!  Talk about CRAZY!!!!

We were completely blessed to be a part of the hospital stay and spend quality time with biological family and Christian in the hospital!  There were definite roller coaster parts during our time there, completely emotional.  I held on pretty strong until one afternoon around 3 pm - which ended up being the day we were able to bring him home!  We were praying a lot throughout our time there, but there came a point where we didn't know what to even pray for any more, so Nate sent out a text to our families asking for prayer.  We were thankful as we were at ease and things fell into place for us.

We came home Thursday night on the later side, Jacob got to meet his brother before going back to grandma & grandpa's house, which turned out to be a great idea because the three of us at home got no sleep.  We were up all night.  Which resulted in Christian sleeping a lot yesterday and we had a much better night last night!!!  Hooray!  We seem to be getting him on a nice schedule, Nate and I have been taking turns napping and being on Jacob duty.

We thank everyone who has sent us such kind and encouraging words during this time of transition.  We are loving our family of 4!

Oh, I forgot to mention, on our way home Thursday night, we drove through some rain and I said that I hope we see a rainbow!  We came out to the bright sun setting and what to our wondering eyes did appear, but a rainbow!

It was a fabulous reminder that God always keeps his promises and fulfilled our desires to become parents.

My (Nate) first post in a long time, but I came across this article regarding sports (go figure with me, right?) and adoption.  Enjoy!
http://www.golfchannel.com/news/john-feinstein/critics-of-bubba-dont-understand-adoption/

Jacob has his first graduation

 Jacob has completed his first year of his school career in Nursery School!  Quite something!  He still gets to go to daycare until whichever comes first, my school work is complete or the baby comes.  

His school had a short program/graduation on Thursday morning and thankfully Nate and I were both able to be there!  

Here he is the morning of his last day of school...photo taking has become quite the event...the first picture was the best and I kept trying to get better ones...he really put on a show for us!

Here he is, ready to perform!

  

Receiving his first "diploma"!  What a guy!

We are so proud of this young boy and all the life he brings wherever he goes.  He seems to be the class clown (for better or worse) as during one of the songs about peanut butter...

::peanut butter, we like peanut butter, peanut butter, that's what we like best...on your head/shirt/pants/shoes/socks , yes we like it on our shoes on our pants on our shirt, on our head, oh oh oh.  Well the last one is underpants and he shouts, STINKY UNDERPANTS.  And, since the whole crowd laughs, he says it several times and soaks it all in.  :)  

Needless to say, there isn't a dull moment in our house.

That night Jacob and I got to participate in a big brother class.  Even the nurse who was giving the class commented on how there is probably never a dull moment.  I can only imagine right now the things he's going to do to get attention once baby is here.  

A point of view

“We won’t post pics until the birth mom has given us permission to parent her child.”  So there, don't ask for them.  :)  And even once that happens, we won't be publicly posting hardly any, until finalization happens after 180 (minimum) days.  Which also means if you happen to have a picture of us, you can't post it either.  


With that being said...here is one point of view on open adoption in the blog world...


http://openadoptionbloggers.com/2012/04/12/virtually-speaking-respecting-open-adoptions/

Not that I agree 100% with everything said in this blog post, there are actually many comments after the blog post that give further information that is helpful too.  I encourage you to read the post and the comments that follow to gain a little bit of understanding as to where we are coming from.

Yes, we are excited for said child to be placed into our family if that is indeed what happens.  Are we preparing and doing all other things biological parents would do if they were due in a few weeks...yes, because I'm type A, organized and freakish about making sure everything is ready - not just about a baby, about life.  Freakish, I said.

We really just want people to understand where we are coming from and reasons behind it.  We love and respect this set of expectant parents that have chosen us to be the adoptive parents, if they continue with their adoption plan.  We want to honor them in this time.  We also need to bond with the child if we do get to parent this child, so posting pictures will be far from the top of our list of things to do.  With that bonding comes holding, feeding, diapering, singing to, reading to, cuddling, soothing, whispering to...ALL the things that we are so excited to do with a tiny little baby.  When you can't just have a baby on your own schedule, you long for it so much more and the "dirty" jobs like diapering and cleaning bottles, aren't chores, they are treasures, we look forward to them, because it means we have been entrusted to a precious little one.  So, if we don't let you hold the child...because 1. our agency won't let us for a period of time and 2. because maybe we feel like that time needs to be longer or 3. because we just want to hold him...it's not because we don't trust you.  It's because the child needs us, the child needs to know that we are his parents and we provide for him.  It's all about attachment.  I'm hoping to find a blog post about attachment to share.  So does that mean you should just stay away?  No, we like visitors!  We'd love to show him off and there's other jobs I could give you if you really wanted to do something. :)

Anyway, we pray right now that the baby's best interests will be taken into consideration and that will be done.  Whether that means we parent this child or whether that means the expectant parents decide to parent the child.  God's will.

Preparations

With the time drawing nearer, it was time to get more things ready for baby.  We decided Thursday afternoon that we would paint the boys room that night!  Spontaneous is the name of the game.  Maybe it wasn't the best day to do it, after a full week, but it wasn't going to happen over the weekend!  Jacob was very excited about painting!  He didn't quite understand why we couldn't paint IMMEDIATELY (because that's how a 3 year old think), but once we were set, he had a blast!  He was a bit concerned about his T-Rex in the morning, but we just told him that his T-Rex was camouflaged!  

I worked really hard Friday morning to put the room back together!  

Then, Friday night we had the opportunity to help out at the Show Hope booth at the Matthew West & Casting Crowns concert.  We were able to share our story adoption story with many people.  We were blessed to be able to participate at this event.  

Now, at the beginning of this new week, we have no extra activities scheduled - except maybe a family activity Saturday evening.  It feels great to look at the calendar with a sigh of relief!  Once May hits, I have several meetings a week, plus preparations for the end of the school year (preschool graduation, report cards, year end clean-up...), and a baby due & all the preparations still to come with that :).  Nate's schedule also picks up a bit.  Thankfully, we can face one day at a time - we never know what each day may bring that's not scheduled, but trusting in the Lord's plan!

A must read...

Please, do us and other adoptive families a favor and read the post dated April 16, 2012.  http://www.christianadoptionservices.blogspot.com/

I agree with all of the points and said, "YES!" many times!

So there you have it.

Please pray for our baby and his expectant parents.  With roughly 4 weeks to go, we ask for strength, knowledge, good health and God's protection over them.

One...

One year ago we decided to start adoption process number 2.  One month from today is the due date of the boy we hope to adopt!  I can't believe we have been "doing this" for a year already.