It has been 2 weeks!

I simply cannot believe that it has been 2 weeks since Selena was born. She had her 2 week check up today at the Naval Hospital Pediatric clinic in Pensacola. The Dr. gave her an A on her health but we do still need to follow up with the cardiologist for her heart. Selena Kate has gained 1 lb. and grown 1 inch! Crazy! I knew she was getting bigger but I did not realize this would happen so quickly in just 2 weeks. Our time off with her feels like it is flying by and I just want it to slow down!

This weekend, we are headed back down to Merritt Island to throw my best childhood friend, Lauren a baby shower. Her daughter is due in March. This is exciting for me to imagine our daughters being as good of friends as we have been for 23 years. Selena Kate will also get to see Grandy and Granddaddy and also her birth family. The following weekend, we will be making the trek up to Mississippi to see Chad's parents and Amy's extended family and grandmother. Selena Kate is quite the traveler in her first month of life! We know how very important it is for all of our family to meet her and are so excited to take her to the place where her Mama and Papa met and dated.

As I look back on my life and all of its many eccentricities and crazy turns in the road, I cannot believe that we are where we are. I would not have believed anyone if they had told me 10 years ago what, where and with whom I would be spending my time and energy. It is not that I would not have agreed, I just would not have believed it. Life can change in an instant but my life has evolved in perfect preparation for a plan that only God could see. There were so many times in my early adult life that I thought there was no hope for my happiness. As I look back on this, I feel so silly. God intended for me to be happy. There was no way I would truly appreciate this happiness for His glory, if I had not gone through years of what some may call unhappiness. Do not get me wrong, I am and always will be a happy person. We, as a couple, are happy and stay that way most of the time. I just mean there is a difference in being happy in trusting God's plan for your life and forcing yourself to be happy when you do not truly trust or have faith.

As we contemplate and discuss our adoption experience, we know that adoption is our call to ministry. Chad and I have seen that through adoption your will WILL be refined and fine tuned to hear and be open to God's plan for your life. Through adoption, you fulfill God's call to his people to take care of those in need. The amazing thing that occurs during this though, is that you end up the one who has been taken care of!

"You'll find success in life when you stop trying to include God in your plans and Instead ask God to include you in His." - Rick Warren

Here are some of this week's pics so far. More to come from our trip this weekend.

The First Week!

Selena Kate's first week with us has been busy to say the least. She has been from Vero to Merritt Island to Gulf Breeze. She has gone to Chick Fil A, Target, the pier on Navarre Beach, and even Ft. Pickens for a ride down the beach! She of course has not seen any of our chilly weather because she has either stayed in the car or had the bundle me on. This is a neat thing made for car seats to zip up around them in the car seat.
She has spent time with her Grandy and Grandaddy and Auntie M (Amy's Mom, Dad and Sister) as well as her Mimi, Papaw and Sissy (Chad's Mom, Dad and Sister). She has had plenty of baths and LOVES her hair washed. She moves her head all around under the water. She loves her MAM pacifiers and super soft blankies that our neighbor Kristy gave us. She has met all our neighbors and their children and become Marley's (our daschund) new snuggle buddy.

We have determined she is  allergic to Pampers with drymax and have had to switch her to Huggies natural care. She is still able to wear  her newborn clothing as well. She has been spending a ton of time being held by grandparents and also in her new glider, compliments of both set of grandparents.
She has a doctor appointment at the Naval Hospital to establish with her pediatrician this week and then will receive a referral to Nemours Clinic in Pensacola to see a cardiologist. The cardiologist from Arnold Palmer stated that the hole in her heart was small and would be expected to close by her 6 month check up, but we plan to follow up with the cardiologist here as well.
She has made herself a nice schedule of feeding every 4 hours and would honestly sleep through the night if we let her. She sleeps in the bassinet next to our bed at the present time but will transition to her crib as she gets a bit older. 

This week has been an amazing week of firsts for all of us. We are so blessed and in complete awe of this precious angel we have the privilege to raise. Tomorrow is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday and this is so very special to us as we think how her birth mother chose life for her daughter and made a life plan for her as well. How awesome is it she CHOSE us?! At night when we pray, we wonder what we did to deserve this beautiful child. We wonder how we could ever let her biological mother know how very brave she is. What we DO celebrate is a continued relationship with SK's biological family. This gives us comfort in knowing we will be able to show and tell Selena the love that has been for her from the beginning. We will always be able to show SK her roots and this will help her grow in a positive way with the confidence in knowing she is loved beyond a shadow of a doubt! Here are her week in pictures!

Selena Kate was worth the wait!

On January 12, 2011 Selena Kate was born in Vero Beach, FL. She was 6 lbs, 12 oz and 19.5 inches long. She has dark hair and brown eyes and is the most beautiful little girl we have ever seen (although we are biased). Her birth mother is the most amazing woman we have ever met. She stayed awake along with her biological grandmother "Gammy" the whole hospital stay and we were shocked to see how natural she was with her daughter. As the moment came for our birth mom to entrust Selena to us, the emotions became indescribable. There are simply no words to express the beauty that occurred in the moment or the pain that was felt by all parties. We could never understand the heartbreak that our birth mom feels. We will never know that loss or emptiness inside. We do know that our heart breaks at the thought and sight of her pain. We do know that she is brave, courageous and amazing. We know that God had a plan for Selena's life and brought together two families that were perfectly strangers into a large "chosen" family. We know that the covenant we have between Selena's birth family and ours is something that only God could have designed and so we give thanks for this with every breath and being.
Selena's first few days have been spent ta Amy's parents home. The first night, she woke up every 1.5 to 2 hours. This was difficult, but we quickly realized we did not care if we were sleep deprived because this amazing little girl was with us. The 2nd day and night were a little less tiring and by the third day and night SK has made herself a little schedule all on her own!. Selena has been eating very well and has a laid back personality. She is most alert in the morning between 7 and 9 am and just looks around taking the whole world in! We take this time in the morning to give her mini photo shoots :) She loves her bouncy seat too! She had a pediatrician appointment today because the doctor at the hospital detected a heart murmur. After her appointment, Dr. Gonzalez suggested we take her to Cape Canaveral Hospital for an echo cardiogram. She was hooked up with little sticky pads and cords and placed on a big hospital bed. Boy did this make her look even smaller. The results from this test are not back yet but the preliminary results show she has a ventricular septal defect: in lamens terms this means a small hole on the two lower portions of her heart. She will get established with her pediatrician back home and need to see a pediatric cardiologist regularly to monitor this. We will keep all updated on her progress but hope this resolves itself as some cases do.

We are preparing to make the 8 hour drive back to Gulf Breeze tomorrow and get settled in for a few days before her Mimi, Papaw and Auntie Mindy arrive. Here are some pictures to highlight the first 5 days of her life :)

We are headed to meet Selena Kate

When we woke up this morning and all mornings since SK's due date on the 9th, we wondered if today would be the day we would meet our daughter. Around 9 am, we were called and told to head South because our birth mom's contractions were 5 minutes apart. Amy began scrambling around in circles until she realized the car was packed and that she had already created a checklist to use when that call came. Once Chad arrived home from work and packed ( Amy still cannot believe he was not packed yet!) really?... Amy has been packed for 2 weeks and had the car packed for a week. Anyways, once Chad packed, we got in the car to head down. We were updated once about our birth mother's progress but the next call was to tell us Selena Kate had been born!

As we were on I75 headed towards my parents and then the hospital, we were reminded that God's timing is His own and not ours. Through an emotional and joyful ride with the amazing news of our daughter's birth, we kept thinking of the grief that would come for others for our joy. The grief that our birthmom would and is feeling as she recovers and prepares to entrust her beautiful daughter with us! On a bigger picture note, we are calling to mind that one year ago today, there was a devastating earthquake in Haiti and all of the lives lost. After this earthquake, Amy's faith was renewed again in the greatness of God. How you might ask would Amy think God is good in all of that mess and devastation? Just like some may ask how can the sadness that all biological parents who make a life plan of adoption be something positive? But during that time one year ago today, we saw the amazing people who put their lives, jobs and safety (including Amy's father) on the line to travel to Haiti and help those in need. We call to mind the orphans and widows that were left to fend for themselves and the pain they felt from that deep loss inside. What does any of that pain have to do with the joy and excitement of our travel to meet our new daughter and we say...everything! James 1:27 states:

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."

We realize the word "orphan" does not always apply to the circumstance or the meaning that most think. We realize that Selena Kate is NOT an orphan, she is LOVED by twice as many people than a child born biologically to us because she will be born into two families that have a covenant with one another to raise her with as much love from as many people as possible. But there are orphans out there, even still in Haiti one year later. There are orphans affected by AIDS in Africa, who have lost both parents. There are orphans in America as well. There are children in foster care, who may never know the love that Selena Kate will experience from two families. Then, there are orphans from God, people who have lost their way or Faith in His power. We can assure you that He calls us to lead them to a place of safety and unconditional love. Strive today to find a moment to reach out to someone who is orphaned from God or consider getting involved in the many orphan ministries or adoption domestically or abroad. 

And today we give praise and Thanksgiving for the blessings in our life! 

Pics to come :)

Our wait for Selena Kate!

On Veteran's day 2010, we were contacted by our adoption agency (also Amy's company) Bethany Christian Services to be given the news that we had been selected as a match to an expectant parent in South Florida. As we were walking on the new pier on Navarre Beach, we realized we would be parents by 2011. At that moment, we decided to pray and give thanks to God for blessing us with a match with a birth mother. By the following week, we had driven to meet our birth mother Michelle and were in awe of how amazing and smart she was! By December, we had an ongoing email contact with her and went to spend time with her and her family again before Christmas. During our time in the fall, we completed Selena Kate's nursery with Amy's parents and readied ourselves for the one thing we have wanted for the past 4 years!

As we approach Michelle's due date, we anxiously await the news that Selena Kate has been born. There is a sense of nervousness in our home as we try to wait patiently (most of you reading this know that patience is not a virtue Amy has). No matter what will happen when she is born, we remind ourselves of the great way God has made this adoption process so very sacred and meaningful. For example, we knew even before we tried to have children that we would like to name our son or daughter after a family name. When we were contacted by Bethany Christian Services to be told we had been selected as a family, we were asked if we would consider the name Selena. We of course said yes, why would we not honor the wants and desires of the woman who would give birth to the child we would raise! Yes yes yes! Little did we know that Selena was the name of Chad's great grandmother. We would only later find this out as Amy begun a family ancestry project online. So as we "patiently" await Selena Kate, we keep this and all of the other blessings in mind!