Paislynne!

More pictures to come,  but here is our beautiful baby girl! Daddy holding her for the first time. She was born January the 24th and weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz and was 18 inches long! She is absolutely perfect! We are all three settled in our hotel room anxiously waiting the arrival of Tanner and my parents! Can't wait for Tanner to meet his sister!

1 Samuel 1:27 King James Version (KJV)

For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him:

Our Adoption Story Part 1

We are currently in the air, did I mention that I love flying! Actually I am trying to pretend I am not flying and that I am safely on the ground! I have a fear of flying but considering we are heading to meet our baby girl, I have faced my fears once again!

So here is the first part of our story......We got up yesterday morning and was heading to the Ministers Conference in Pigeon Forge, Tn. We were both excited about the conference, plus it was a little get-away for us. We were about an hour from home when our Adoption Consultant called me to share the shocking news that a baby girl had been born on Saturday and the Birth Mother was wanting to speak with us right away!  We pulled off the exit, stopped, and waited for her to call us, we had an amazing conversation with the Birth Mother and she expressed to us that she wanted us parent this precious baby girl, we were in total shock. We immediately headed back home, we needed to get to Utah as soon as possible. In the mean time the Birth Mother started wavering with her decision so we had no idea which way it was going to go (these Birth Mothers make a huge sacrifice in giving up these babies in hopes that they will be given the life that the Mothers dream of, we thank her for choosing life) We got home and got word that she was planning to sign in the afternoon, we rushed around and re-grouped the best we could and booked a flight out of Nashville at 6:25 pm, we left our house at about 3:20, the drive to the airport is approximately 2 1/2 hours, so you can do the calculations! We were making great time when we received the call that she didn't sign but was hopefully going to the next morning (today) so we canceled our flight, stopped, and waited again to get the go ahead to re-book a flight for this morning. We decided to drive on into Nashville to eat and wait and see what we needed to do. My Dad, Brother and Nephew had came with us so they could drop us off at the airport. I believe everyone enjoyed their supper except me, I won't even mention what I ate or have not ate in the last 24 hours, my appetite is gone! We got the go ahead to book a flight around noon with the understanding that we may need to cancel it. We have no baby items ready, we had no idea this was going to happen so fast, we knew it could but did not anticipate it. I did not want a house full of baby girl clothes and a pink room until I knew we had a baby. I had one baby outfit I had stuck in my computer bag (I had purchased that in faith, literally,) so we all went to "Babies R Us" and picked up a car seat, a couple sleepers, blankets and socks, we had several good laughs and it was great to have my Dad, Brother and Nephew along, we never dreamed we would be in Nashville together on a Monday night at "Babies R Us" buying baby items! We went and got us a Hotel and I had an extremely restless night filled with anxiety of what was to come today. I knew we would either be heading to Utah to meet our baby, or we would be heading home with no baby. My anxiety levels were out the roof, I was a nervous wreck! I wanted the perfect will of God for the baby and for the Birth Mother, I knew she needed peace and direction from God. We went ahead and had them drop us off at the airport around 10:30am, our flight was scheduled to depart at 12:05. We did not check our luggage in we wanted to wait until the very last minute we could to see if we would hear before we went ahead with our plans. We received the call at 10:55 that she had signed and we were cleared to head to Utah to meet our precious daughter! The last 24 hours have been some of the most intense times that I have experienced in a long time, we have actually never experienced anything like this before! We are so excited to meet our little girl tonight!

You learn....

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn’t mean leaning
and company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren’t contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman,
not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow’s ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn…

My Dad shared this little poem with me several years ago when I was going through a really hard time in my life,  it really is true....we learn, with every goodbye, we learn

Please Lord, let today be the day........

We're Adopting!

 

We are Adopting!!

 

Dathan and I started feeling like God could be leading us to adoption 2-3 years ago. Honestly, it really scared me at first....I don't think Dathan ever struggled with being fearful or afraid, but I know it looked like a huge impossible mountain to him, just as it did me.

 

 

There is a bad word that so many couples don't want to use (including us) infertility, it becomes our little secret and we don't really want to talk about it. I really struggled with the idea of even including this subject in my post, but I know that there are 1000's of couples going through the same heartache that we have experienced. Perry and I struggled with infertility, Tanner was our miracle baby....If it was not for God I would not have Tanner,  I believe that God can work through Doctors and I believe that He did in our situation. When Dathan and I married I had this idea in my head that I wouldn't struggle with infertility and that we would be able to have children. In the Fall of 2010 I made the exciting trip to town to buy a card to give to Dathan to announce the exciting news to him, you are going to be a Dad....we were due July 2011. What an exciting time, I was not going to struggle with infertility, just as I had imagined! Within 24 hours of the "big announcement" to my husband, the dream of the new one on the way was gone, our child had joined Tanner's little brother in heaven. We didn't tell anyone anything, we suffered quietly at home. Dathan finally convinced me that I should tell my mom, they knew something was wrong with me and he felt my family had a right to know my real problem, and they did. So we told my family and he told his parents and we just done the best we could to accept it. A couple months after the loss Dathan's brothers called him on a 3-way call to announce that they were both fixing to be fathers again, one being due in August 2011, the other in September of 2011, his brothers had no idea that we had lost a baby due in July 2011 and he didn't tell them. I became very bitter during that time and had a really hard time coping with it all, I knew it wasn't anyone's fault but I didn't know how to deal with it. My doctor eventually started treatments and after months and months of that, I gave up, I felt like if God wanted us to have a child, he would give us a child without having to go through all of that. There were several times I really thought I had the faith and I thought I knew that God was going to change things for us only to have my hopes dashed over and over again. What I didn't know was that he had a completely different plan for us...........                                            

The idea of adoption to Dathan was great, the idea was only an idea to me, it seemed like an impossible mountain. I've read so many stories of how hard it is to adopt and I just had a hard time leaping out in faith! I started gradually accepting the idea of it to the point that I got us into some classes, those classes were a huge disappointment to us and the avenue to adoption seemed almost impossible, we left the meeting with our hopes a bit crushed. We had no clue where to go from there and became discouraged and just basically gave up. Late Fall of last year everything changed, God sent us our answer so unexpectedly, we knew the avenue we were supposed to take and who we were supposed to use. God also done such a work in my heart and let me know that this is his will, I honestly could not be any happier with the plan that he has to grow our family, I can say this from an honest heart that I don't want it any other way, I feel like God is having his perfect way and I am so glad I opened my heart up to his will. I am already in love with a baby I have never even met! We do not know when we will get to meet our baby, but we know that when we do it will be perfect. My devotions today were so fitting to our situation. I was reading in Genesis chapter 22 about the story of Abraham when he took his son Isaac up for an offering before the Lord, and right before he slew him the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and commanded him not to do anything to him for now the angel knew that he feared God, and behold there was a ram caught in the thicket God had provided for the sacrifice. Abraham called that place Jehovah-jireh, when I read the word Jehovah-jireh it jumped out to me and I dropped down and read the commentary on it and I felt the Lord speaking to me. Jehovah-jireh means "the Lord will provide" From Abrahams situation we learned that God sometimes tests our faith, this kind of testing is an honor in Gods kingdom. We can trust God to provide whatever we need to work out his plans and desires for our lives, even when we do not understand what he is doing. God so often works his purpose through the death of a vision or our own ideas. He may allow things to happen in our lives to destroy our hopes and dreams so he can fulfill his hopes and dreams for us in a greater way than we ever imagined. After testing our faith, God will encourage, strengthen and reward us. We can find the true meaning of our life by fully surrendering our life to God and being willing to do whatever he asks of us. Doing so does not mean that everything is going to suddenly become easy, or that we will get what we want today, but when we fully trust him he will work everything out for us just like he wants to and in the end we will be so happy, there is no feeling like being in the will of God. Adoption is not easy, it is extremely stressful. The hours of waiting, all the paperwork and wondering if she will choose us. I have surrendered to the fact that who ever God has for us if its today, tomorrow, or next month, whenever it is we will be chosen in his perfect timing! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue this journey, pray that we can show God's love to the Birth Mother, this will be our great joy but it will be a great sadness to her.