1 Month Old!!

When God leads you to the edge of the cliff,
trust Him fully and let go, only one of two things will happen,
either He'll catch you when you fall, or He'll teach you how to fly! '
God closes doors no man can open & God opens doors no man can close.
It is so hard to believe Makayla is a month old! Having a newborn baby is a whole new ball game! Maegan was almost six months old when we brought her home and her wonderful fostermom already had her in a routine. She only woke up once during the night. Not this little piglet! She loves to eat! Her cheeks are filling out and so is her second chin! She only cries when she is hungry and you are taking too long to make her bottle, when you are changing her and bathtime. I dread bathtime because she hates it so bad. She cries so hard she sleeps for atleast four hours straight afterwards!
Today Makayla's babybook came in the mail. I found it on Amazon. It is called, my family, my journey. It is so neat. So if you are looking for an adoption baby book this one is great.
Maegan is still doing good at sharing the attention. She baby talks to her when she is crying. Sometimes they cry together-Funtimes!

PEACE......awwwesome!

For the first time in several years I am at peace! I feel like a ton of weights have been lifted off my chest. I've been contemplating leaving my current job for several years, and today I finally did it! I had not and still do not have one ounce of regret. I loved my profession and working with patients, but realized I had to follow my heart and my morals. I'm looking forward to focusing every bit of attention to my two wonderful blessing God has given us. I do not want to look back and regret missing their baby years. That regret, I could not handle. Thank you all for your words of encouragement and blessings that you have called and emailed me with! It reassures me that I have done the right thing.

Now on to my two pride & joy baby girls!

Makayla sleeping peacefully......but not for long! Maegan cannot stand to see her sleep.

Makayla absolutely loathes being woken up! Maegan can't figure out why she is crying.

Trying to soothe her with her paci.

Thankfully my camera was close by to catch Maegan playing Mama to Tigger.

She loves to hold Makayla, but doesn't understand actually physcially hold her! She just wants her to chill in her lap.

PRICELESS! Looking forward to lots of memories with my girls!! and Joel.

This was Maegan on Sunday. We went to Joel's parents and she refused to take a nap. As soon as we got into the car she asked for her blanket. I looked back to check on her and this is what we saw! She was done for! It was 6pm and she was out!!! She slept through the night until 545a this morning.

With gratitude, I turn to you, God, to receive spiritual guidance, communication, and direction. In the quietness of my Right-Mind, the place within me where our minds are joined as One, I listen to your Voice of wisdom and truth and I know what to do.

3 weeks!

Here are the bottles I got from the healthfood store. Their website is www.newbornfree.com
They also have sippy cups. Mindy, the genius on all of this said to check the bottom of our sippy cups and look for the recycle symbol. If it has the number 7 in it, throw the cups away. They are the bad ones. These bottles are Bisphenol-A free. Bisphenol-A is a chemical compound used to create polycarbonate plastic, a hard, clear plastic used widely in consumer products, including baby bottles. Recent research suggests that small amounts of BPA may leach into food or beverages stored in polycarbonate containers, especially when the contents ared heated and may act as an endocrine disruptor, mimicking natural human hormones! Call me super, psycho freak mom, but something is causing the percentage of autisim in kids to rise! Immunizations is something we are gonna have to think about...

Now to the fun stuff. I found this cute blanket in Orange County while visiting with the totally awesome ANLC staff! They even tell ya the best shopping places! My dream job would to be to work side by side with this great group of ladies! There may be men, but I just didn't see any! If anyone is interested in ANLC, their link is on our page titled Our next journey begins here. Cary Sweet is who we've dealt with and absolutely love! We still call eachother often. She's like a friend I've had forever. She is genuinely sweet and caring. (a little loco in the cabeza!!) But we love her.

Makayla held her head up for a whole minute checking out the leopard print. Her facial expressions were priceless.

Cute little baby piggies!

Close up of our California beauty!

TX Agency meeting today

Today we met with Adoption Alliance in San Antonio. We had to sign more paperwork and go over what will be going on. They will look up the last city the birthfather lived, and place an ad in the paper notifying him of the situation. If they don't hear anything in 30 days, his rights will automatically be terminated. God, you will be hearing lots of prayers from us during this time. They call the 6 months that we wait until we return to San Antonio to finalize the adoption the "supervisory period". We have to contact the agency social worker monthly for give them at least 5 photos of her, monthly medical reports, and a general report on what's been going on such as her development, behavior and any changes in our family's lifestyle.

The girls did great on the trip to San Antonio. Maegan showed the social worker her Guatemalan Diva side. I was quite embarrassed. She had to stand in time-out in the corner of his office. He was a great sport about it though.

2 weeks old today!

Two weeks ago tonight, we received THE CALL!! I'm still amazed. A lot of people didn't know we were adopting again. It's not that I left anyone out, everything happened so fast! Our social worker hadn't even mailed our homestudy off yet! Gotta love God's perfect timing! Thank you to everyone who prayed for us, called to keep me company while I was alone in LA & for being supportive! It means a lot to us. We are very fortunate to have such great friends & family.

Makayla will have her first Dr.'s visit this Friday. I'm anxious to see how much she weighs. She wants to eat every hour to hour and a half. If by some chance she sleeps for more than two hours in a row, she wakes up wanting her bottle ASAP! Maegan is being such a good big sis! She wants to hold her and feed her. After about a minute she calls it good. When she's sleeping she'll peek over at her to make sure she's ok.

We also have to go to San Antonio soon to start the finialization of the adoption. We will go back in six months to court in San Antonio to finialize. Much different than with Maegan.

God answered our prayers!

Our grand entrance!

Maegan giving Makayla kisses

Just landed in Midland

Checking out of our hotel, about to head to Los Angeles airport to go home!!

Joel carrying Makayla to our waiting limo!! Raul, the driver we had for the week was the sweetest! He took us everywhere we had to go. At times it was up to six hours a day! So we became friends with him. As we walked out of the hotel Saturday morning, he said he brought the limo for Makayla!! How sweet of him!

The sign outside of Adoption Network Law Center (ANLC) congratulating us on the birth of Makayla & our speedy exit!

Maegan meeting Makayla for the first time. Maegan is so proud of her baby sister. When Makayla would cry during the night, Maegan would half asleep say,"Mom, Kayla is crying"

Making sure she is real & still smiling!

Her first bath! She hated every minute of it. This was also my first time bathing a newborn so I felt the same way!

She wants to do it all. She doesn't want any help either.

Yep, hair all the way around! Daddy is jealous!

When we were packing, we didn't know if we were having a boy or girl! So we borrowed some neutral outfits from baby Kaden.

Our very awesome team at ANLC. On the left is Cary Sweet. She is the very 1st person we spoke to when we began thinking of adopting again. She kept in touch several times a week, usually just to say hey and see how we were. She is the reason we went with ANLC. She knew her business, answered every question and worry we ever had along the way!! On the right is ANLC's attorney Kristin Yellin who acted as our attorney. I went to ANLC on Friday to meet Cary & introduce our baby girl to everyone. During our visit, employees of ANLC were coming in to see Makayla and congratulate me. It was obvious that they all loved what they do, bringing families together.

This is Mary from ANLC. She is the one who called us with the good news!

Maegan & Joel picking flowers outside the hospital while Nanny & I visited with our birthmom & Makayla.

Maegan taking after Wayland checking out a squirrel! ( he has to be the only kid in history to catch a squirrel! then it latched onto his finger!! never a dull moment with Wayland!)

Can't get enough lovins!!

I can do it myself!!! she says

Maegan got so sick on their last day with us. Nanny took her to the giftshop and bought her a turtle to make her feel better.

Saturday, all dressed to go meet with our Adoption Supervisor & birthmom for her final sign-off.

Picture Joel took on their way home last Sunday. I think it is beautiful with the sun's rays shining down!

Averi & Maegan making welcome home signs for us.

On Wedenesday evening (10-1) our phone rang. It was ANLC asking if our homestudy was done. I said yes, our social worker actually just mailed it this evening. I heard her talking to someone else and she came back on and said we have a birthmom in CA in labor. Since your homestudy is done we are going to present you to her. The birthmom wanted one of the parents to be hispanic. We hung up and waited for a call back. Our next call was from Karissa telling us that the birthmom could not decide and that her labor slowed and the baby would not be born until the next day. She said for us to go to sleep and she'd call us the next day. YEAH RIGHT!! So as were just trying to process things, she called back and said she picked us!!! She was now in heavy labor and the baby was on the way. We needed to get to CA ASAP!! She went through all the history on the birthmom. I only half listened, my mind was racing on what all I had to do. It was 9:00pm!! We booked our flights & made a mad dash to Wal-Mart for a few essentials. We flew out of Midland at 7:00 am and arrived at LAX at 11:30am. We went to the hospital only to be greeted by the worst social worker in history!! Let me point out, she worked for the hospital, not ANLC. She acted like she had no clue what was going on, when ANLC had filled her in and so did our birthmom. After almost an hour of talking to her, she said only I could go back to meet the birthmom. This is after I had already called the birthmom and told her we were in town and on our way. She was expecting all of us. I walked into our birthmother's room and I felt my heart stop and all the air leave my lungs. My legs felt like jello! For someone who had given birth only 18 hrs ago, she looked amazing! Hair & make-up done. We introduced ourselves and hugged. I automatically felt a warmth in my chest and knew everything was going to be okay. Makayla was laying in her baby bed all wrapped up. She looked so tiny. She was just perfect! We visited for awhile, getting to know eachother. It felt like I had known her? The conversation was very comfortable and not awkward at all. She asked where Joel was, and I told her about our experience with the social worker. She went onto tell me she was ugly to her too. The social worker & OB doc had been trying to convince her to keep Makayla and that she would regret her decision later. Even after she told them she was comfortable with the decision and that there was no way she could care for a baby at this time, they didn't let up!! I apologized that she had to go through that and that I wasn't there with her during that hard time. They totally made her feel horrible. Joel then came in to meet her and Makayla. Then my mom came in. That's when the tears started!! We then took mom & Maegan to the hotel and went back to the hospital. She felt good enough to be discharged so they released her and Makayla. I took out Makayla's outfit and gave it to her. She asked if I wanted to dress her and I told her to go ahead. That was a little emotional for us. She kissed her and said good-bye. Saturday, we had to meet with a Adoption Supervisor for paperwork and for the birthmom's final sign off. We met there at the same time so we just did our paperwork together. Once again she looked amazing! As we were finishing up, she handed me 2 pink envelopes. One for us and one for Makayla. We read it on the way back to the hotel. She is a writer so the letter was amazing! She told us not to think of her as a hero. We were the heros for taking her baby and giving her life. Sunday, mom, Joel and Maegan flew back home. Joel would return when we were cleared to come home. Makayla and I hung out in the hotel together. I was too chicken to venture out! Wednesday I woke up with a fever and horrible sore throat and body aches!! Thanks to Kelli, Honey & the amazing Dr. Farquhar meds were called in for me! The rest of the week was uneventful, besides the news there was like a reality show!! CRAZYINESS! Friday morning, I was in a deep sleep and barely heard my phone ring. It was the agency in CA telling us we were cleared to come home! I asked several times to make sure I didn't misunderstand her! I called Joel and he booked the first flight to CA!! We arrived home Saturday afternoon. It is actually starting to sink in that she is ours forever! We signed with ANLC in August. Our homestudy was done September 1st. I never dreamed we would have our baby and home in October! There were many times we were faced with obstacles during this time and it felt like it wasn't meant to be. I prayed every night that if this is what God wanted from us, for Him to open the doors. If not, please close them. I prayed for Him to give us the strength to make it through. I also prayed for comfort and peace for our birthmom wherever she might be. Once again He answered our prayers.