A Very Special Weekend

We are officially exhausted! This weekend was very special for us but also incredibly exhausting. Our shower was on Saturday, and all I can say is we are so blessed with our family and friends. Our son is so incredibly loved. I am constantly overwhelmed with how many people have prayed for him and who are so in love with him.

Like father, like son. Those two and their hats...

Nathan snuggling with his grandmas

Overall, I haven't been overly emotional (visibly at least), but when I got up to thank everyone I lost it. There's something about being surrounded by so much love and so many people who are genuinely happy for us and who have such a deep love for this little guy who just entered our lives. I just keep finding myself repeat over and over again, we are blessed. 

On Sunday, we braved the crazy winter storm for Nathan's baptism. It was an absolutely nutty morning with a little guy who wanted to be held when everyone needed to get ready, the roads a mess, the same little guy hungry when we walked into church, and a giant hole in my tights before his baptism even began. But the second his baptism started, nothing else mattered. We were a part of one of the most important days of his life and surrounded by many of our closest family and friends. It was perfect. Again, I am so grateful to everyone who came to celebrate with us. It was so special.

A friend of ours from college is now a priest, so he celebrated Nathan's baptism. It made it even more special. When I did get a chance to snuggle with my little man yesterday, I just loved smelling him. Mmmm that chrism just smells so good and so holy :) When it comes to these pictures, I really can't choose favorites. So I will just have to share a bunch!

His wonderful Godparents

With grandparents

The angel pin was given to him by his birth mother at the hospital. We wanted a piece of her with us on his special day.

Woohoo! Our holy little man.

The stained glass in the back of the church. This is my parents' parish, where I grew up, and where we were married.

Our little group is growing :) Loving all the little ones.

Can't forget Fr. Steve!

Hanging with his Godmother

Kristin takes her duties very seriously. She already has him praying.

Our Adoption Story, Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2

We were fortunate to have a close friend who lives in Peoria. She is a Sister of St. Francis of the Immaculate Conception. When she found out we would be traveling to Peoria for a few days, she immediately offered us their guest house behind their convent. So we headed down to Peoria that Sunday evening and met her for dinner. The house we stayed in was small and cozy. It ended up being the perfect place for us to stay. It was quiet and just a short drive to the hospital.

We headed to the hospital early the next morning to spend some time with Nathan's birth mom before her surgery. Then she went in, and we waited... a whopping 10 minutes. It actually went by pretty quickly. Soon we could hear the squeaking of wheels coming down the hall and voices at our door. Our son was here! They gave me a bracelet to come into the nursery with him for the first hour while they did vitals. Dan was able to stand and watch from the window nearby. We got our first peeks at him, and he was absolutely gorgeous!

The nurse was wonderful, explaining everything she was doing, answering my questions, and calling me mom (which was still pretty surreal). I got to feed him his first bottle, which he drank like a champ. She gave him his first sponge bath. He absolutely hated it and continues to hate it to this day. That first hour was like a whirlwind.

After that hour was up, we were able to take him to an empty room across the hall they had for us to use for the next few days. We wouldn't be able to stay overnight, but we were allowed to stay as late as we wanted each night and take him from the nursery whenever we wanted (which was pretty much always).

We spent the next few days soaking him in, staring at him in awe, and taking about a million pictures of him. I think one of the coolest things about the experience was watching Dan immediately transform into a dad. He was so proud of his new son and already I could see that he would do anything for this little guy. He was a pro at calming him and was by my side learning everything with me. He took care of our son, and he took care of me. 

Our time at the hospital was unlike anything I thought we would ever experience. Our time was split between our own room and Nathan's birth mother's room. We spent a lot of time with her, which I am so grateful for. I feel so lucky to be able to tell Nathan about all of our experiences with her at the hospital. In this time that had to be one of the hardest in her life, she helped us take care of him and shared tips and tricks from her own experiences. Not once did she complain of her own pain or discomfort (after all, she had major surgery). Instead, she was concerned about our well-being and wanted to be sure that we had a special experience with Nathan. She kept telling us how much she loved watching us with him. In a situation that could have been incredibly awkward, she made it natural. I feel like our relationship grew tenfold in those few days, and she is genuinely a new family member.

In those few days, Nathan met several friends and family from his birth family and he got some alone time with his birth mother and her family. He chugged his bottles, slept like an angel, and peed on the nurses and tried to get us a few times. We spent hours with his birth mother both laughing and crying together and talking about his next few weeks at home. She assured us that we would be bringing him home, which to us meant the world. We had made it to this point before and walked away in heartbreak. This time was entirely different, and she made it that way. 

  

 

That Wednesday came, and it was time to go home. Birth mom's cousin came to take pictures of Nathan and all of us with him. His birth family was there to say goodbye. And the agency counselor was there to go through paperwork. It was finally time to take home our son. Surrenders could not be signed by law until the next day, but amazingly we had no worries. Nathan's birth mother wanted us to enjoy each moment, and that we did.

I never realized how hard it would be to leave the hospital. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had grown so close to his birth mother in those few days, and I didn't want our time with her to end. I knew how special and important it was for all of us, and this initial separation made everything real. My heart ached for her, overflowed with gratitude, and leaped for joy all at once. 

Since then, Nathan has been loved on by countless visitors. He has brought joy to more people than I ever expected. He truly is our little miracle. One of the amazing things about this adoption is later finding out the insane amount of people we had praying for us and Nathan. I feel like every day I am learning about someone else who was a friend of a friend or family of a friend who had prayed tirelessly for us. And we are blessed to have this community on here who has also prayed for us. So thank you! Our prayers have been answered in a big way. This little man is such an incredible blessing for us, our family, and friends. When it felt like we were losing hope, this beautiful gift has overjoyed us and brought us closer to Him. 

I know none of these people will read this blog, but I need to acknowledge the incredible staff at the hospital, especially the nurses. They treated all of us with nothing but respect. They treated Dan and I as if I had given birth to Nathan. They were truly happy for us and let us know it. More importantly, they took great care of Nathan and his birth mother. They treated her with incredible respect and let her know it. They acknowledged this wonderful thing she was doing and treated her with so much compassion and admiration. 

The past almost 3 weeks have been some of the most challenging, emotional, and wonderful all at once. Nathan is such a blessing to our family, and we are soaking him up. We continue to regularly email his birth mother, and I am sure we will be planning a visit in the coming months. Our son will always know where he came from, and she will be no stranger to him. He is one very loved boy, with a birth family and friends, and a forever family and insanely large circle of extended family and friends. He has two women who love him with a mother's love, and I am so happy and honored to share that with her. 

Here are a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure. This will most certainly not be the last you see of him :)

Our Adoption Story, Part 2

(Part 1 can be found here).

I can't write the rest of Nathan's story without focusing on his birth mother. She is a woman I have come to love in a very special way and have deep respect for her. I of course won't share any personal information about her, but so much of his story is about her unconditional and selfless love for her child. I just hope that by sharing our story, that in some way I can remind us all of how special, strong, and amazing these women are, the birth mothers. It can be easy to get caught up in the joy of this beautiful child as we celebrate our family, but we wouldn't be this family of three without the selfless decision of one very important woman. As I sit and reflect on the past month or two, I have realized how much she has taught me about a mother's love. Nothing was ever about her. If we turned our focus to her, she always brought it back to Nathan and what was important for him. I only hope that I can be half the mother that she saw in me when choosing Nathan's parents. With all that said, here is a recap of the rest of our journey to bringing him home.

Nathan's birth mother asked us to name him, which we felt so honored and fortunate to have the opportunity to do. She could have named him whatever she would like, and we could have changed his name later if we had wanted. But she told us that she would like him to have the same name on his original birth certificate as what he would grow up with (besides the last name). So we were thrilled to choose his name. She had told us that she wanted a name that meant miracle but that she was having a hard time finding one. So we took a look at our list of favorites, and I started to look up meanings. When I reached Nathan, I knew we had found the perfect name. Nathan means "gift from God". If you ask me, that's such a fitting name for him and that's pretty darn close to miracle. The name Joseph was very special for us too. It is Dan's middle name, along with his dad's and grandpa's. Not to mention St. Joseph. So his middle name was pretty much a no brainer for us. 

So it was finally time to meet her, and of course it was nerve-wracking. The moment we met her, though, everything just felt natural. She really seemed to have her heart set on adoption, and as I said before her love for her child just shined through. We found out that the c-section was scheduled for December 16, and we were invited to care for the baby at the hospital. She wanted us to have that time to immediately bond with him and get to know him. So we left that initial meeting feeling pretty awesome. Even thought we were feeling pretty good about things moving forward, the caution was still there. I really think we guarded our hearts until the day he was born, and even a few days after, but we were definitely slowly becoming more comfortable with the situation. 

After that meeting, when we shared the name we had chosen, she began calling him Nathan. Seeing the name that we had given him in writing just made it seem so much more real. She frequently updated us on her doctor appointments, sent us sweet emails referring to us as mommy and daddy, and we planned another trip to visit her the weekend after Thanksgiving. We were blessed with the opportunity to meet her son, and she gave us a blanket that had been her son's that she wanted to pass on to Nathan. Again, everything she did was out of her incredible selfless love for this child. I continue to be in absolute awe of everything she has done out of love for Nathan.

The next few weeks both flew and crawled at the very same time. I found myself constantly bouncing from excitement to being completely terrified. I felt like every time I referred to bringing him home, I ended my sentences in "hopefully" or "we'll see". I just wanted to know what was to come. Was this really happening, or would we be disappointed again? Until finally, December 15 came around and it was time to travel downstate to meet our son the very next morning. We spent the night before at a beautiful Christmas concert at St. John Cantius followed by appetizers and drinks at TGIFridays. I couldn't have imagined a better night out prior to the whirlwind we knew we were about to experience. I of course have to share some pictures because it was absolutely gorgeous.

How could we spend our evening in that beautiful church filled with music and the presence of the Eucharist and not be at peace? So on Sunday, the 15th we traveled downstate to experience some of the most nerve-wracking, emotional, numb, and joyful days we have experienced. I'm unfortunately going to have to spread this out into one more post because apparently I'm becoming extremely wordy.