What a magical time! Happy birthday to our savior and thank you, Jesus for the gift of life we have been given. Thank you for each of our angel babies and for Lainey Noelle.
Lainey’s first Birthday cake for Jesus!
As we worshiped Jesus (I should say tried to worship with a sweet fussy girl…Iwon’tsaynames) by candlelight last night I thought back to just two short years ago. We had just lost Noelle and the first song we sang at that Christmas Eve candle light service was Noel (not a coincidence, I am sure!). There we were singing in the very same church with a sweet child in our arms that sometimes I still wonder what I did to deserve. Our God is amazing. He died for us so we can be forgiven. So I can be forgiven for my sins yesterday, today and tomorrow.
I know I have written before that there have been times when all I could say is “God, help me”. Times when I had no other words. But, the truth is (and unfortunately I don’t write enough about it) there are just as many times that I say “God, thank you!”. And, really I should be saying it way more because everything good does come from Him.
Christmas tree pancakes from Daddy (he wants everyone to be sure to note he added ornaments AND a star!)!
A tree hung for our angels…
We honestly didn’t get very much for Lainey as all of our family (and friends) spoiled her wonderfully for Christmas and truthfully, she loves paper and boxes! And…..it takes forever to open her gifts! A few times I have found myself saying “I can’t wait until she gets excited for Christmas morning or I can’t wait until…”. But, the truth is…I can. I can wait. She isn’t walking yet and part of me hopes she doesn’t for a long, long time because she is my baby. My only baby and I want her to stay a little baby for as long as possible. She isn’t really talking yet and I love hearing her whisper little bitty baby babble! I’ll wait as long as it takes to hear Mama. I can wait. Just the thought of getting rid of bottles makes me sad because that means she is growing up already. Yeah, I can definitely wait. This Christmas of paper and boxes was just right for this Mama.
I cannot help but weep when I read them. I can still feel the pain in that person but it is very distant. It is a memory now, not a way of life. I praise God for my new life, for the gift He sent to me:
We just received a book for Lainey and on the inside cover the person that gave it to us wrote that every time she hears this song titled “Mom” by Garth Brooks that she thinks of me. Thank you, Chelsea….I hadn’t heard this song. It touched me deep, made me weep and will now be one of my favorites forever…I know God sent her to me…
I’ve mentioned before that I do not know how any of you do it. How DO you get anything done?! Especially if you have more than one? My goodness. I stand up and apologize right here and right now to EVERY mama I have ever cared for as a patient or ever taught in Lamaze. I have always said you should sleep when baby sleeps…the books all say that, too. Quite frankly, this is a load of bull. When else are we to get basic life stuff done? I’ve also always said don’t let people come to visit when your baby is a newborn unless they are coming bearing gifts or food as you will be tired, etc. Both of these pieces of advice are not realistic…maybe in some alternate universe….but not here! The fact of the matter is that I have OCD and all of this laundry is FREAKING me out so there is smoke coming from my laundry room (and the dishwasher, too!)….and as for company? Are you kidding me? Of course it’d be nice to streak around the house in my underwear but it was even nicer to have Grandma and Nana here to take those 5 am feedings for almost three weeks!! Not to mention how awesome it was that baby brother aka boy, his wife Linden and my nephew Colt surprised us for a ten day visit. AWESOMESAUCE! I’ve mentioned in the past I have always dreamed of my brother and I raising children at the same time…these cousins are going to grow together and get in trouble together! My older brother’s wife, Michelle and my niece, Katia drove 11 hours (ONE WAY, mind you) to meet Miss Lainey, too! We have been so, so loved on! So, yeah….I definitely take back the rules. The rules that they taught me to teach all the mama’s and daddy’s out there about sleep and visitors and such. I’m not sure what the best way is other than somehow just do your best….and take lots of pictures!!
Speaking of being loved on. Just a few of some of the beautiful things that have happened since Lainey’s birth….
Starting when we got home, things continued to arrive to help us! People came to the house with baby clothes and other hand-me-downs, so that we could care for Lainey! The very first evening Adam went out to get something from the car and came across a box of baby girl stuff on the porch….still not sure where that came from! Our neighborhood did a “porch shower” the weekend after she was born. We had never heard of this but it was so amazing. It was on a Sunday (in a blizzard!!) and gifts just appeared on our porch at random times throughout the day. It was great as we got things we needed and we didn’t need to go anywhere! My sister/sisters-in-law held a “mail” shower right away and gifts started arriving right away that we needed! I have already shared about our milk buddies….all I am going to say is that not only have they been a huge blessing nutritionally for Lainey but this is a huge financial blessing for us. Thank you, thank you. $4 per ounce was very painful. My nurses are throwing us a shower next Saturday-we can’t wait to show Lainey off some more! People have brought food which has been wonderful….especially during the times when our house and all the beds (and then some!) were full!
I’ll leave you with some pictures:
Lainey meeting Auntie Kim
Lainey meeting Auntie Kim
Lainey meeting Grandma via Skype
Lainey meeting cousin Colt via Skype
First bath!
First Superbowl
Her bow is actually adhered with “girlie glue” which we joked we technically could lick off at the end of the day as all it contains is agave nectar, corn syrup and sugar!
If you are new here, we recommend you take a minute to read our story from the beginning. I would start back at the beginning of this journey and work your way forward! Click next in the upper right-hand corner to advance after reading each post.
I start this post with this picture. This “selfie” was taken approximately one hour before Lainey was born, unbeknownst to us! This used to be a typical evening for us…we would work together in Adam’s office on sign stuff and for some reason Wednesday night, the 21st Adam said, “smile!” and took this shot….little did these two people know what lie in store for them just across town…
January 22nd, 7 pm:
The attorney arrived. Again, another crazy amazing part of our story-that she was able to drop everything and come to Cozad, America in the middle of the work week! She was wonderful. She actually met with the birth mother before she was discharged which was really good. She felt the same way we (and all of the hospital staff) did and that is that the birth mother was very much at peace with her decision. That she had made her decision months ago and was emotionally prepared (as much as she could be) for this. She shared with us that situations like this are very rare…she referred to it as a “drive-by adoption”. She had only experienced one other similar situation and was confident that the birth mother was not going to change her mind. This had been one of our big concerns with adoptions…approximately 20% fail (ie: the birth mother decides to parent their child-which is actually a wonderful thing but still is scary). Not to mention our concerns regarding drug, alcohol or tobacco use….which the birth mother did NONE of! Praise the Lord!
The attorney had already arranged to meet with the birth mother in 36 hours to sign the final paperwork and had already contacted the other certified adoption attorney to represent us so things were well taken care of!
Shortly after this some of my peers from the hospital started trickling in with little blessings. One brought a basinete, another pushed in a wheelchair full of diapers, formula and blankies. Gift bags began appearing throughout the night with onesies and other necessetties! We barely slept a wink, I only 30 minutes and Adam about an hour and a half. Adam kept saying, “this is the best night of my life!” over and over again! At about 4am we began watching our mandatory videos…you know, the ones about SIDS, don’t shake your baby, etc. There was one about postpartum issues and at one point it mentioned smelly discharge. It said, if this happens, be sure to contact your doctor…to which Adam, said, “you aren’t kidding me! We’ll be contacting someone if that happens!”. Other videos mentioned things you should do before your baby is born….uhhhh, I guess we missed the boat on those things!
We also got online and ordered a car seat/stroller combo and ordered some organic formula to be over-nighted. I hate to sound like a freak….but, I remember years ago this memorandum coming across my desk from the FDA stating that similac or enfamil (I cannot recall which it was) had “exceeded” the allowable amount of beetle parts and therefore was being recalled. Why were any beetle parts allowed? Now, I realize we can’t put Lainey in a bubble and protect her from everything and heck, there may even be beetle parts in the organic formula but it has just always freaked me out so I couldn’t wait to get that formula. I also knew I wanted to give her some breast milk if possible due to it being influenza/cough/cold season.
I knew there were milk banks (where breast milk is pasteurized and tested, etc) in a few places in the United States but didn’t know quite how to go about getting milk from them. I started with calling Milk Works in Lincoln which is a baby boutique with awesome gift items used to fund their breast feeding education. They stock breast milk that women can buy until their milk comes in, etc. Our neighbor happened to be in Lincoln so was able to pick it up for us! They sold us all that they had…32 oz….for $160!!! Yeppers, $5 per ounce! Liquid gold. They gave us the contact info for the University of Iowa and the milk bank in Denver where we bought coolers of milk to be over-nighted on dry ice. Theirs was a steal at only $4 per ounce. We were just thankful that they sold it to us at all as apparently there is a shortage of breast milk in the United States and it is usually just reserved for premature or sick infants but adopted infants are automatically included so we just needed a prescription from her doctor and we were good to go! Now, this is jumping ahead but I want to share with you another blessing….a HUGE, GINORMOUS blessing! Several women in our amazing community heard we were buying breast milk and contacted us. These women are very healthy and are breast feeding their own infants and have provided us with frozen milk. Again, God is so good and Lainey lurves her milk buddies!!!
Okay, enough of being off on that tangent….we had to learn how to give her a bath the next morning and get her dressed…again very thankful for the clothes people were bringing! Thankfully one of the nurse’s has an infant and LITERALLY loaned us her car seat so we could bring Lainey home! After we got home Adam drove the car seat back to the hospital to her! Miss Lainey was very quickly becoming Cozad’s sweetheart! I leave you now with pictures and a video of the end of our hospital stay. I wear my emotions on my sleeve so as I have struggled the last couple of years, these people….these peers of mine have witnessed this. So, not only were we celebrating bringing Lainey home….so, too were they. They were celebrating the gift we finally received! The love we felt was palpable! This is not the end of Lainey Noelle’s story….just the end of her hospital stay. It is really just the beginning of her story and I have much more to write! God’s blessings are so very amazing. Remember, that just two months before sweet Lainey’s birth I was pregnant so adoption may not have even been on our radar and a few weeks before I had yet to be cleared through the FBI, state, etc! God is so good! We know now that everything was all part of His carefully orchestrated plan. His steadfast love is never ending and I cannot wait to continue to share our story with you!
