https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tears-of-gold-stories-of-hope/id1195223602?mt=2
We had an incredible opportunity to share our journey of becoming a family on a podcast. We would love for you to listen to the rollercoaster of our life that has taken place over the last four years. You can find our podcast on the Tears of Gold channel on iTunes. We also attached the link below you can copy and past to find it as well.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tears-of-gold-stories-of-hope/id1195223602?mt=2
0 Comments
We are loving every minute of being home with Tucker and having him as ours. We are still in awe of what an amazing miracle our adoption process has been. We have been so honored to have had the opportunity to share our story at an adoption seminar and on a podcast, which has been so much fun. It is such a blessing to be able to share our journey, with the hopes of inspiring others. We are well adjusted and loving every second of life as a family of three. We are still working to finalize our adoption in the state of California. It takes about 6-8 months to have it officially finalized. We got a packet with more paperwork to complete and send back to the state. We also will have a couple more home visits, another set of fingerprints, and a few phone interviews before our finalization day in court. Basically the only thing that will change after the adoption is finalized is that Tucker's birth certificate will have our names on it (his original one with the birth parents names on it will be sealed and inaccessible, which was so interesting for us) and he will get a new social security card linked to us. Yes, those are important things, but they are just logistical items, we do not have to worry about Tucker not being ours, just a couple more hoops to jump through, but we don't mind. Later that day the nurses came in and we got to give Tucker his first bath and dress him in an adorable little outfit the birth mother had gotten him. The nurses were in and out most of the day checking vitals on Tucker and the birth mother. As the evening started to approach on January 6th, we had been told by the nurses that due to the snow storm coming everything would be closing and we needed to be sure that we had everything we needed with us. I had already packed a bag with everything I would need since we knew I would be staying at the hospital with the birth mother and Tucker, but Joel had only grabbed his toiletry bag since he was planning on going back to the hotel at night. The nurses told us that if Joel left the base he would not be able to get back on, so he got a room at the hotel on base just a minutes walk from the hotel. It ended up being such a blessing to have him so close. Joel stayed that night until about 11pm when we were ready for bed and went to the hotel to sleep. I don't think I slept at all that night because every time I heard Tucker make a noise I would check on him in his bassinet and the nurses were also in every hour to check on us. The challenge at night was that I had to way to contact the nurses if I needed them and did not feel comfortable telling the birth mother to push the nurses button for me, since she would not even do it for herself. Tucker decided he did not want to take the bottle for a few hours which resulted him in getting his heal pricked to check his blood sugar. Thankfully it ended up being fine, and the nurse was able to get him to take a bottle. After that he ate every bottle just fine!
The next day at the hospital was similar, we got special time connecting with the birth parents and sharing Tucker. The nurses were not joking EVERYTHING was closed due to the snow, including the hospital cafeteria, gas stations, fast food, and target so we had no food, just the chocolate and sweets I had brought, which were not substantial for meals. Finally by the evening there was one pizza place open so we were able to have some pizza for dinner. The evening of the 7th we also we told that it was looking like we would be getting discharged the next day as long as the weather was good enough. We were so excited at the thought of getting discharged! We contact our casework and social worker to let them know that it was looking like we would be getting discharged the next day. On January 8th about 9am we got confirmation that we would be getting out of the hospital around noon. We knew that the birth mother had to be discharged before the paperwork could be started, so let the caseworker know to be there around noon. The caseworker arrived, but the doctor had gotten stuck in an emergency c-section so we had to wait a little while for her to come and discharge the birth mother. While the birth parents were working in a massive stack of paperwork (containing 32 tabs) we had to go wait in the lobby, leaving Tucker in the room with them. It was the longest hour of my life as we waited for them to complete the paperwork! Finally the birth father came to get us. We came back to the room to find out the birth parents had signed off all their parental rights on the spot and there was no way they could go back and change their mind. My heart skipped a beat when they told us, I could not believe it! I was so amazed at how clearly God had been answering everything we had been praying about throughout this adoption. Shortly after the paperwork was signed we walked out of the hospital with the birth parents hugged them then loaded Tucker into our car and left as a family of three. We went back to our hotel and sat staring at him breathing the biggest sigh of relief. Now we were praying that the paper work would get approved quickly so we would be able to go home. That night we took Tucker to Target to get a few things we needed then got settled into our hotel. We had an eventful first night between Tucker waking us up and the hotel fire alarm going off requiring us to go stand outside in the snow, but it didn't even matter, we had Tucker and knew he was ours! On Monday, January 9th we got a phone call from our caseworker outlining the prospective timeline for the paperwork, she let us know that it was hopeful to think we would be able to go home by Friday. We still were not sure how long Joel would be staying, which was kind of stressful. We were also somewhat concerned because if the paperwork was not approved by Friday, nothing would happen on the weekend and the following Monday was a holiday so it would really require us to stay in Virginia a lot longer. We just prayed and prayed about it and decided to keep busy while we were waiting to hear. On Tuesday we decided to go to Starbucks and the movies to get us out of our hotel. Joel had also contacted his academy instructors and gotten approval to take the whole week off, another answered prayer! For Wednesday's adventure we decided to go to Virginia's Living Museum and then out to dinner. While we were at dinner we got a phone call letting us know Virginia had approved the paperwork so we were just waiting on California at that point, which was so encouraging and so clearly God. Thursday we attempted to find a pediatrician to see us, since we had still not gotten to go back to the doctor, but no one would see us! We knew Tucker was eating well and we were not worried about him so had to let go of seeing a pediatrician in Virginia and knew we would just see ours once we got home. Thursday night we took the birth parents to dinner and got to connect and spend a little more time with them. Friday we went to an aquarium, while we were there we got a phone call from California asking a couple questions about our paperwork and letting us know they were working on its approval. We were excited but still apprehensive since there were only two flights out of Virginia that day and did not think California would have the paperwork approved by the time the last flight left. Fortunately we were wrong! About 20 minutes after the first phone call we got another one telling us we could go home! We booked our flights on the spot and left the aquarium to go pack up and get to the airport. On our way to the hotel I contacted the birth mother to see if we could say bye one last time before we left she said we could come by their house on our way to the airport. On our drive back to the hotel we hit the worst traffic and thought we were going to miss our flight, it was so stressful. We got to our hotel, threw everything in our suitcases, dropped by the birth parents house to say a quick bye, and rushed to the airport. When we got to the airport we were obviously frantic but greeted by such sweet people who reassured us that we would be fine, and we were. Thank goodness it was such a small airport getting there an hour before the flight was plenty of time! Our flights went so smoothly and we were greeted by the most amazing welcome home crew! *disregard any typos I am doing this on little sleep :-) Watch our amazing welcome home: https://youtu.be/ubjiYZL9sKI (short) https://youtu.be/Cz81EAGK67o (full) Thursday, January 5th, we headed to the airport to go to Virginia to pick up our baby boy. Our emotions and nerves were high as we prepared to meet our baby's birthparents and in less than 24 hours meet our baby boy. As we were getting ready to board our flight I got a text message from the birth father telling us that they thought the birth mother was in labor and he was taking her to the hospital. He said they would keep us updated once they got to the hospital and they would let us know what the doctors said (as if we needed anything else to add to our stress level). Although we thought our flight would seem like the longest flight in the world it went surprisingly fast. We arrived in Atlanta, for our layover, and somewhat expected a text message with a picture of our baby. We did have another text message from the birth father, but thankfully it was saying they thought it was a false alarm and were waiting to, hopefully, be discharged. With some relief we boarded our next fast flight and a short time later arrived in Virginia. When we turned our phones back on we had a message from our caseworker which was somewhat concerning. After speaking with our caseworker on the phone there was some concerns from the social worker at the hospital because the birth parents had not mentioned anything to anyone about giving their baby up for adoption. I felt an immediate sense of panic, but at the same time was able to reassure myself because the birth parents had been in contact with us throughout the day keeping us informed of everything going on. The panic was still there, but I didn't expect it to go away until after the baby was born.
After getting our rental car and checking into our hotel we contacted the birth parents to see if we could bring them dinner. The birth mother was sleeping after receiving some medication at the hospital to calm her contracts, so we told the birth father to let her sleep and we would touch base later. A couple hours later when she woke up they requested McDonalds for dinner. We picked it up and went to their house. We got to spend a couple hours with them and were able to come up with our plan for the morning. We had decided that in the morning, once the she called the hospital and got confirmation to come in, we would meet back at their house and I would drive the birth mother and Joel would drive with the birth father so we could all get onto the military base where the baby would be born. We left about 9:45pm and went back to our hotel to attempt sleep before our 5am go time. On January 6th, at 5:15am we left our hotel to meet up with the birth parents. We arrived at the hospital, got checked in, and went to our hospital room. The birth mother explained who we were to the nurses as the nurses went over the plan for the morning. There were a lot of nurses and doctors in and out of the room for the first couple hours before they finally took her back to get things started. While they were getting her set up I got to put on scrubs since I got to be in the delivery room during the c-section! A few minutes later a nurse came to get me to take my back to the delivery room. I cannot even express or explain the emotions I was feeling at this moment. I got into the delivery room and got to sit next to our birth mother. As I was sitting there it seemed like time had stopped, I had no idea how long things were supposed to take, but it seemed like things were taking forever. Finally, the anesthesiologist told me it would be just a couple minutes, then I heard the doctor say time of birth 8:03am, and I saw our baby boy for the first time. My heart froze as I watched his little body wiggle as he worked out his first screams. I watched as a team of nurses were assessing and situating this new little life. They allowed me to go stand with him and take pictures as they were finishing up. They had me cut the cord and stay with him for a few minutes, while they continued monitoring and assessing. Once he was situated I got to push his little bassinet back to our ("our" hospital room being the birth parents, which they offered to let us stay in) hospital room, while they finished things up with the birth mother. As I got back to the room Joel and I got to have a few minutes with just the three of us before the birth father came into the room and the birth mother made her way back to recover. Joel and I spent some time cuddling and staring at our precious baby then offered the birth parents some time to hold him. The birth mother held him for a few minutes then passed him back to us. We gave Tucker his first bottle and snuggled with him for a long time. We would periodically pass him to the birth parents and they would hold him for a few minutes then pass him back. I could not believe how comfortable everything felt and how smooth/easy everything was going. I had not been able to comprehend how it would be okay passing the baby back and fourth or how it would not be awkward, but being there everything was perfect! The rest will come soon.... We are so happy to introduce Tucker Cole Brandt to you! Born January 6, 2017 @ 8:03am 7 pounds 13 ounces 21 inches long We saw God's hand guiding us throughout the whole process. Thank you for every prayer, they were all answered so clearly! More details about our adoption story to come. We are just a week away from the baby's arrival! I think we are ready, just need to organize a couple last minute things and pack. We are trying to make sure we have everything possible that we will need while at the hospital so we will not need to go run a ton of errands in the first couple of days (we know the hospital will supply us with a lot too, which is nice). We are praying the hospital has enough rooms open so we can stay in our own room there with the baby. If the hospital does not have room, we will have to leave the baby at night or try to all fit in the room with the birth parents (which they so kindly offered). We are so ready to go meet the birth parents and our baby! As we think about traveling to the East Coast we laugh. We are going to look like a circus with so many bags and baby items and no baby, but it will be fun! This will definitely be the trip of a lifetime! We have been checking the upcoming weather and are so relieved to see only some rain/slush/snow and temperatures in the 40s, which is not nearly as cold/bad as it could be. It is interesting that the majority of the time the first thing people want to share with you when you tell them you are adopting is their story of a friend whose birth parents changed their minds, leaving them heart broken. We understand that people tell us this because they care, don't want it to happen to us, and it is a normal fear to have, however throughout this process we hadn't really been thinking about it too much. Although it has always been in the back of our minds it did not really cause anxiety until this week. Now that it is so close and we have put our hearts and finances fully on the line the panic has started to set in. Please pray for our birth parents to continue to have confidence and stand firm in their decision. Pray for all the emotions they will be facing as they make this difficult decision. Pray for us to have peace as we go through these last few days and prepare to leave. Pray for our time in the hospital and with the birth parents, especially in the first few days before the paperwork is signed. Also be praying that the paperwork gets processed quickly so we get approved to come home fast. Psalm 34:4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.We are just a few weeks away from the babies arrival! Over the last few weeks we have been regularly FaceTiming with the birth parents and building a relationship with them. We have become so comfortable with them and they have eased our minds so much as we get so close to meeting them in person and getting our baby. Although we know it will still be an emotional time, we feel that because we have connected with the birth parents so regularly, it will make it a very special and different kind of emotion. We are ecstatic to be in the final preparations at home before we will get to go to the east coast for the babies arrival.
Our birth mother has a c-section {officially} scheduled for January 6th. It is such a blessing that we know when the baby will be arriving so we can be there for the birth (although we are still praying she does not go into labor before then). We will find out our birth plan and what the birth mother's desires are for us at the birth this week. We know we will be at the hospital, but are not sure if we will be more involved than that at this point. We would appreciate continued prayer of this portion of the adoption, prayers for our time at the hospital, and of course for the baby's health. We also have been talking with our case worker a lot. She has been filling us in and keeping us up to date on the legal side of things. It is kind of comical, since we have never done this, we are learning and figuring it all out as we go (with the amazing support of our adoption agency). We know our birth parents have met with their social worker and are almost completely set up with the paperwork side of things on their end. We also discussed the fact that our birth parents are traveling out of state in the next week, which could be troublesome if she goes into labor while she is traveling, so are continuing to pray that she does not go into labor while they are out of town. As we are getting closer there have been minor anxieties starting to creep up, which we are trying to let go of. Please pray for every unknown that we will still face and pray for continued peace. We know God is in control and His perfect plan is best for us. We pray for faith in God's perfect timing and every detail. I am sure it is normal to be stressed and anxious throughout this whole process and we are so grateful we have mostly been filled with peace, but am ready for it to be here so we will not be analyzing the whole situation constantly. Now that we are officially matched there is a lot to be done, but at the same time nothing to do except wait (hope that makes sense). As far as the adoption agency is concerned we are just waiting for the baby's arrival and building a relationship with the birth parents, but from our perspective we have a lot to do to ensure we are ready to bringing the baby home, we have everything we need packed to take with us to the east coast, and not to mention figuring our the trip back home with a newborn. We have been beyond blessed with so many sweet baby gifts and items! Now it is time to set it all up and bring it all out of storage because this is really happening! In less than a month we will have a little boy.
It has been so amazing to be facetiming with the birth parents. We have gotten to spend a lot of time talking and getting to know each other better. It is amazing how comfortable we feel with them. We have found it so easy to talk with them. It has been really great getting to hear more about them and their background. We have been cherishing these special conversations, knowing that we will get to share them with our little boy one day. The most exciting part so far has been seeing God's hand so clearly in every aspect of this adoption. Every detail is working out so perfectly and we know that it is all God. We have been filled with continual peace throughout this portion of the process. We had been praying about the timing with Joel being in the academy. I had specifically prayed that the baby would come on January 6th because it is a Friday which would make it easier for Joel (and would help ensure we will be back in time for my brother's wedding), then in talking with the birth mother she told me they had scheduled a c-section for January 6th. I know that the date could still possible change, but it is crazy that is the date as of now! Another answered prayer is that we were able to pay for our Phase 2 expenses with what we had been saving. We are completeling trusting God that we will have enough saved to cover Phase 3 (the final phase of the adoption) once we are expected to pay that. We are so blesses by each answered prayer! The one thing we are still continually praying about is our trip and how long we will be on the east coast. We are praying for all the paperwork to get done quickly so we can bring our baby home fast. We are praying for our time on the east coast and our interactions with the birth parents. We cannot wait to be on our way there so we can share the sweet baby boy we will be bringing home. I cannot believe this is really happening! We got matched with a baby boy who will be arriving in mid/early January! On November 16th, I was at work and my students were out at PE when an unknown number called me. I had been getting many calls from random numbers, so I did not think much of it. When I noticed a voicemail and picked up my phone I got kind of excited, but then saw that the voicemail was only 22 seconds long, so just thought it was another telemarketer. The voicemail started to transcribe and I saw the first part of the voicemail, which made my heart stop. I put the phone to my ear and heard, "Hi, Samantha, this is Adopt Help calling to let you know we have some very exciting news for you..." That was all I heard. I did not hear anything else. I immediately stopped the voicemail to call Joel. I was so ecstatic I could not even form my words. At that same time our caseworker was calling Joel, I hung up the phone so he could answer his other call and get all the information from our caseworker. Meanwhile I ran to share the amazing news with my team. In complete shock, shaking with excitement, Joel called me back to let me know some of the details about the amazing birth parents. He also let me know that we would be getting a precious baby boy. So many thoughts were running through our heads and we could hardly think. Our caseworker sent us an email with pages of information on the birth parents and our next steps. From here we would set up a phone call to talk with the birth parents. After the phone call we would both need to agree we felt it was a good match to continue moving forward. The timing of all of this was crazy with Thanksgiving and our caseworker being out of town, so some of our questions would not be able to be answered for about a week, which felt like an eternity. A couple days later we called the birth parents who asked if we would like to face time, of course we said yes! The conversation flowed so smoothly and it was so nice to be face timing, so we could see each other. It was an amazing conversation and made things seem so real. They are the sweetest couple and were already talking about when we come to get our baby boy. We are so excited, but still know there are a couple months before we officially will get our baby. There are so many questions and unknowns that started to stress us(mostly me) out. My mind could not stop running through all the "what ifs" and unknowns we would be facing. After a day of stressing, Joel reminded me that there is nothing I can do about it. There is nothing I can do to make time or paperwork go faster. There is nothing I can do to ensure the parents don't change their mind. There is nothing I can do to organize exactly how our time on the east coast will go. The only thing we can do is pray and trust in God's perfect plan. Our caseworker emailed us a few days after our phone call with the birth parents to let us know that they were excited about our phone call and were ready to move forward with us in this process. We were beyond ecstatic to receive that news and officially be moving into the "matched" phase. Our next step will be to talk with the accounting department and see what our Phase 2 adoption expenses will be. We will be given an invoice from the accountant at our adoption agency, which we will need to pay in 24 hours. This is somewhat stressful, but we are continuing to pray that God's hand be in this aspect of our adoption as well. God has so clearly been involved in every aspect so far, and we know he will not leave us know, but for some reason this part is still stressful. We are continuing to pray that we will be able to easily pay for the adoption with what we have been saving. We are also praying for God's perfect timing and plan. Joel will be in the middle of his fire academy when the baby is born, and we will be having to travel to the east coast to get him. We are paying for all the paperwork to get done quickly, since that will determine how long we have to stay on the east coast. We are praying for Joel to be able to get the time off and for there to be minor stress for him during this time. We are also praying for the birth parents as they continue to prepare their hearts for us to adopt their baby. We are praying for all the little details that may be causing us stress as well as all the unknowns we will face. We could not be more excited, and cannot wait to bring our baby boy home. We are beyond blessed by the support of our friends and family. We are so excited that we will be parents in such a short amount of time! 1 CHRONICLES 16:34 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.It is amazing how time can go so slow and so fast all at once. It has been three years since we started our heartbreaking journey of trying to grow our family. Three years ago this month is when we found out our baby girl had Trisomy 18. In some aspects it seems like just yesterday, but then thinking about how long we have been trying to grow our family seems like an eternity. This month has been an emotional one. We have come across three families that all lost babies recently, one who also lost a Trisomy 18 baby. Seeing other couples walk through the same thing has brought up so many emotions for us. We have relived our whole pregnancy and journey. Our hearts have been aching for these families as we remember what a difficult time it was. It is nice to have others who we can connect with, even though we are connecting because of such tragedy, because it is so usual to find people in the same life phase going through the same difficulties as us. We are excited to see how God uses this for the better. We are also excited for the connections we will make.
Pray for these families in their heartbreak and us as we connect with them. Pray for our hearts to be full of joy and peace as we are longing for our baby. |
Joel & SamanthaSharing our journey to encourage others. Archives
October 2016
Categories |