It is finished!

Today we went to the courthouse and the judge finalized our adoption. He declared legal what God ordained as a plan. It was very short, very sweet, and precious. It was a huge sigh of relief. No one can take her from us. She cannot be ripped from our arms (not that I would've let them). She officially has our last name and is finally legally part of the family she was created for.

I've never been to a courthouse to sit in front of a judge for a good thing. :-) So this was a welcome change. Funny how when you're in right standing with the judge and fulfilling God's calling, you can't wait to see the judge. There.....make a Sunday lesson out of that. :)

Here are some pics from today. Now zzzzzzzzzz......zzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzzzzzz.........zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

The End is Nigh....

We are still scheduled to go to court on Monday, December 19th to finalize our adoption!!! Yay! In a week she'll legally be ours. It's hard to believe. We are still pinching ourselves.
The whole process to get her in our arms took 9 months and a few days. That is quick in adoption world. And we are uber thankful.
The finances God provided. Still just taken back at His provision and faithfulness.
And now, we are a week walking towards the finalization. Unbelievable!

If all holds up and we finalize on Dec 19th, I plan on buying one of those "daddy's little tax deduction" onesies. Ha!

We have only heard from birthmom once (this last week) via the agency, that she wants pictures of Mya. It makes us glad that she wants to see her. And we are more than proud to show her off to her bmom! We printed up a bunch of cute pics that will surely warm their hearts and know they made a great decision choosing us.

Mya is doing great! She began sleeping through the night with out waking up at 8wks! Ava didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months!!! So we are in heaven! Mya will be 10 weeks old tomorrow!!! 11 weeks at her finalization! Ah, it's been so great. We are so blessed.


So at what point do we stop referring to her age in weeks and begin giving months? Anyone know?

We have Mya!

So on Thursday, October 27th, surrounded by family and friends we received Mya Rose into our family. It was a very emotional but much anticipated event as you all can imagine.

In the days leading up to the event, there was much last minute planning and prepping and shopping. We were and continue to be showered by family and friends with gifts, money, clothes, and baby items to support and welcome our pink addition. It was overwhelming. We were baffled at the level of provision. There just aren't words to describe our gratitude and affection and thankfulness. So if that's you and you're reading this.....heartfelt thanks and hugs.

We have been inundated with emails, cards, calls, gifts, text messages. We've loved them all.

Mya is a very sweet and very good baby. She eats every four hours which means she sleeps most of the night. She usually only wakes once! Yay! Much much much thanks to the precious family that took care of her. They made a precious photo album including pics of them with her. It was so precious to see her first few days and how she grew the 3 weeks they had her. They are a precious family and we hope to keep in touch.

I'll answer some questions that I've been asked:

1.) How much did it cost? a)The final cost is not complete. We still have more legal fees coming our way. b) we are keeping the final digits to ourselves. I will say that the estimate of $20-30K is a good estimate. But God is faithful and blew open the floodgates of blessing and we adopted debt free. Quite the accomplishment considering when we began the process 9 months ago the $250 application fee was a step of faith. :-)

2)Is she legally yours? No. Currently we are technically babysitting. Lifeline actually has legal decision making for Mya. We would take her to the doctor and make decisions for like minor colds and such but all other decisions including leaving the state, etc we would call Lifeline. We have a tentative legal finalization date scheduled for December 17. Which as of tonight I realized was a Saturday. Hmm......but that's what they said so, we'll see. The state of GA is still messing around with the putative father rights. But God has been faithful and we don't feel nervous. But we'd like to have it final a) because she's ours and we'd fight to the death for her(legally) and b) we'd get a nice tax write off this year! :)

3) Have you bonded with her? Yes! For me it really happened in the midnight feeding. On the day we got her, it felt like so surreal. Like we were temporarily taking care of someone elses baby. But that night she felt like mine. And in the days to follow she is looking more and more like Ava as a baby. She fits right in with us. For Paul, it happened a couple of days later. Since I take her more of the nights and hold her more, it took a little longer for him but he says he feels like she is ours. He loves her and takes care of her so sweetly. She adores sleeping on his chest just like Ava did!

4) How is Ava doing? She's been great! She loves Mya, takes care of her, alerts us of spit ups and tears, and falling out passy's. She loves holding her, helping with diaper changes, and wants to do everything. The care taking began on the ride home from the agency as Mya was crying and Ava began to sing to her a sweet lullaby. Mya listened and is enamored with Ava talking to her. She occasionally acts out wanting attention from mommay and daddy simultaneously. That has tapered off a good bit though. She tells everyone she knows about Mya and how she is big sister. She's very proud of Mya and her big sister status.

I'll answer more later, but now, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........zzzzzzzzzzz.

Just know that we are totally in love. She is doing great.

We've nicknamed her Pudding. Ava thinks it's cute and if we call her Mya, she reminds us her nickname is Puddin'. Nicknames are super important to us as we all have them.

Here we go!

After gallons of tears, hundreds of hours logged in prayer, and many hours of hoping and daydreaming, we are about to meet our sweet little girl.

Her name is Mya Rose. Today she is 3 weeks old. She weighs probably about 7lbs 10 ounces. We have been told she has very dark hair and fair skin. We have not seen a pic yet.


We get to receive placement(fancy for taking baby home) on this coming Thursday! All the paperwork is done for baby to cross state lines.

Today I spoke with the Interim care mom who has been taking care of her. She actually sent me a couple of pics of Mya sleeping. :) She told me all the little details and stuff. I'm SOOOOOOOO excited. My dad, mom, stepmom, mom/dad in-law, sister, sister/brother n laws are so excited and supportive. Our friends who some are as close as family, are amazing and so supportive. We just have been overwhelmed by the goodness and provision of our friends and family and certainly(actually firstly) our God.

If you ever want to know how much God loves you, adopt when you don't have the money. Adoption is His heart. When we submit and ask Him to change our heart to match His, we never need to worry about the provision to carry out His hearts desires. We just need to take the first step in faith and watch Him work.

I've cried so much the last few days tears of joy. I know God is greater than I ever could have imagined, but HE. JUST.BLOWS.ME.AWAY!

So many emotions and feelings. I CANT BELIEVE this is finally about to happen! Will she take to me well? Will I know what to do, it's been 4 yrs? Am I ready? Is Ava ready? How will I be able to love both enough? Will we bond better than Ava n I did(hopefully)? Will Ava's feelings be hurt? Can this old gal survive on less sleep? Will my neighbors drag me back inside my house if I fall asleep while fetching the mail and they find me leaned up against the mailbox? :)

Much anticipation. But still much will be provided. God has never left me. He's never ever failed to provide what I need physically, spiritually, emotionally, and financially. He's so indescribable.

Paperwork-(needs to)A-Go-Go

This weekend, we went to the pumpkin patch. It's our family tradition. We all had a great time and even got to take the little girl I mentor from an inner city school. It was a great day.
On Sunday after church, Paul and I worked tirelessly(total lie, we were wiped out) and cleaned out his office, set it up in the guest room with the guest bed still in there. We put up the cute new crib, slapped a sheet on the mattress and voila! Oh and we moved a dresser(to be used as changing table) in there with a recliner. So far so good.

Nothing else to report. No paperwork back. I heard on Thursday that GA needed more paperwork. So i ran around like a headless chicken and turned it in w/in an hour of that phone call. Whew! But......still no word.

Here's to hoping that the paper work will get going. Fast. Now. Pronto.

I realize there is no incentive for govt workers to rush things, but in the words of Michael Jackson "Sha Mone!!!!" I want to meet my daughter!!!
Blahhhhhhhhhbhalkdjflaksjd;lfkahsdjkfhaouiwehfpawhefopiuahwipfuaipswuefhaisdnuf!!!!!
(there is no translation for that)
Looking forward to good things this week. And enjoying Ava as an only child for a bit more. :)

Update on the Update

So, things are looking promising!

On Sunday we met the birthmom and her family. I can tell you that they are wonderful people who truly love this baby so much. Their hearts are broken to place her in adoption but they know that this is the best decision for both birthmom and baby. There were many many many tears and it was very emotional. But it was so wonderful to meet them and they were thankful to meet us and it helped cement their decision. It was wonderful to have the birthmom's grandmother hug me and cry and tell me that she knew that I was suppose to be this baby's mom.
(sigh of relief and smile)

Today we signed paperwork to send to GA and AL for baby to cross state lines. Yippie! This could take a 2-3 weeks. Once that happens we will have to evaluate how much of a risk the paternity situation is and decide whether or not to take placement(custody) of the baby, leave her where she is at, or place her in interum care in AL. Very tough decision. But honestly, we do not currently feel like the birth father poses a huge threat. We will talk to our lawyers this week to help us evaluate the risk and where we are at. :-)

I do not think it has hit us yet. We prayed for so much protection of our hearts that we may have to begin to pray to bring em down!

So.......we are beginning to prepare our house for baby Wagar to arrive! We are rearranging rooms/offices, thinking of how to decorate, taking inventory of what little baby stuff we have and what we need to buy. We are trying to remember what sleep deprivation feels like to prepare. We are trying to remember how to swaddle, diaper, soothe, feed, burp, and take care of something that can't talk. Basically, we feel like we are new parents starting ALL OVER again. When we had Ava we were used to staying up til 11pm and hanging out with friends. Now, 11pm sounds like torture. We go to bed between 8:45-9:30pm. Adjustments a'comin! But we're so excited!

We may just have her in our house in a few weeks. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I get it

I had an epiphany today. This morning I was running and thinking about our adoption. In the same way that we are watching time drag while waiting on our birthmom to release her child into our hands, God was once waiting to adopt us. There are no words that can describe what this feels like, only tears mixed with occasional smiles. I recently was praying and asking God to reveal Himself to me. I wa...nt to know His personality more. Today, I feel like I am experiencing a little of what He goes through. I see Him sitting on the edge of the throne watching the ones who refuse to acknowledge Him/Jesus. He's waiting with such anticipation and hope. "C'mon, choose me today. I'm a loving, kind, good hearted father and I'm ready to adopt you and give you a loving home with unconditional love and endless forgiveness." He's waiting on them to release custody of their lives from their fallible hands into His capable ones. Just like Paul and I are sitting her biting our nails, and waiting for custody to be released to us. We know we are capable, with God's help to meet beyond that child's needs and shower them with help and love. God know's He is beyond capable to meet the needs of the lost, shower them with unconditional love and forgiveness daily, and bless their socks off, if they will just hand over custody of their lives. Amidst the tough waiting, we are able to look at Ava and the love she gives back to us. We value her so much more and love her more daily, especially having to go through all this. I hope while God's heart is suffering waiting on the lost to turn to Him, He can take comfort and joy in looking at His children who do love Him and absorb the praise and worship and love we honor Him with. Kinda makes me want to pray and let Him know that I'm thinking about Him and totally, forever, in love with Him and grateful to Him for this relationship and His Holy parenting.