We are having a baby!!!

Yes it is true! I have waited ALL my life to say this....  We are having a baby! Actually our birth mom is having a baby but she is ENTRUSTING that sweet baby to us.  She is making the MOST selfless decision she can make for her sweet baby.  Our adoption agency, Inheritance Adoptions, really promotes open adoption a lot and at first I won't lie we were nervous.  But I am SO thankful God led us to Inheritance.  Through open adoption our birthmom was able to handpick us by looking at a profile book of our lives.  She got to see with her own eyes our family, our friends, our hobbies, our home.  She and her parents got to meet and have supper with us and we all laughed, told stories, got to know each other.  Her baby she is carrying will FOREVER know that this was not an easy decision for her but a well thought out decision on her part.  Justin and I have met her and her parents and next week I will go to meet her other daughter, our babies biological sister at my first baby dr appointment.  Our birthmom wants us to be a part of things including dr appointments and in the room when she delivers, for this I am SO thankful.  I will never admire anyone the way I do this young lady.  We met her just 3 weeks ago and 2 days after we met her this sweet girl was sending US a card.  Here she is carrying our baby and she is sending us a card.  We have so much to do to prepare for a baby.  However, we will wait to celebrate with showers, parties and what not till AFTER the little baby is here in our home.  We may not be very prepared when our baby comes through the door but we feel that is best to do.  We will have plenty of time to prepare after Baby Blackwell is here under our roof.

Our baby will be born in Wichita Falls, Texas and we won't have any family there with us.... that is kind of an adoption rule and is understood.  It will be just Justin and I at the hospital and it will be time for us to just lean on each other.  It will be hard not having family there but we can't wait to be headed down the highway with that sweet baby in our backseat ready to meet their family and friends.  That will be a JOYOUS car ride home - I can just picture Justin and I now thinking, "Is this real??! This sweet baby is coming home with us forever!" It will be along 3 hours for Justin lol - I will be a mess, but a GOOD mess haha! :) This has been a scary, enlightening, joyful process ....  I don't think we were prepared at all for the emotions we would feel both good and bad in the last year.  Several things didn't work out this year with other possible birthparents, but we have FAITH that was because God was leading us to our baby.  Thank you all for your prayers.... I am updating my blog because I had wanted to share in this experience with others in case others were considering adoption as well.  I feel its best to be honest about things always and I am not good at keeping secrets at all so there was no way I was going to hold this in till Christmas.  In adoption things do happen, nothing is a guarantee.... there is a chance in all of this we could be heartbroken, but our Faith in God, our love from our family and friends and our devotion to our marriage will get us through whatever the future has in store for us.  I want to leave you all with a beautiful poem a friend sent me....  I hope you all will remember and have respect for our birthmom at this time and the emotions she will be feeling.  She and our birth father will always be a special people in our life and in our childs life for the amazing decision they are making!!

Oh and for those wondering....  We don't quite know the sex yet.... We will be finding that out for sure next week probably.  Boy or Girl - either way they will be the greatest GIFT ever for us!


beware this made me cry! get the kleenex ready!! :)

I tiptoed into your room one night.
I watched you sleeping there.
Your tiny body looked so snug
Wrapped in peaceful slumber's care.

I thought of how you came to be
The child we'd longed to know.
I wondered at the sight of you:
"How could she let you go?"

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I
Felt the pain she must have known.
For I will have to let you go
Some day when you are grown.

A mother I might never meet
Had given me her son.
Yet, surely as you've filled my heart,
A piece of hers you'd won.

"How could she let you go?"
The question kept returning.
And in the depths of my own heart.
A question kept on burning.

"How can I ever let you go
When years have come and gone?"
I stood there by your crib until
The nighttime turned to dawn.

And as the sun peeked through the shades,
The voice of God broke through.
"I trusted her to give him life
And now I'm trusting you.

"To show him what is right and wrong,
to love him and to be
The one who teaches him the way
To come back home to me.

"He wasn't hers to give, you know.
And he's not yours to own.
I've placed him in your life to love
But he is mine … on loan."
~Valerie Kay Gwin~