The One Where We Adopt A Baby

Remember when acrostic poems were cool? Well I'm bringing them back!

Surprise! Last month Joey and I received an email from a father telling us that his daughter was expecting a baby girl and that she wanted to place the baby with an adoptive couple. She had asked her parents to help find the right couple, and after looking through hundreds of profiles they saw ours and knew they needed to meet with us. Within 2 weeks of meeting with them and with the birth mom, Baby Sadie was born on Wednesday, July 23. We got to meet her two days later, on July 25, and an hour after holding her for the first time she was buckled safely in our car as the three of us headed home to Heber.

This is the first picture of Sadie we saw.

 Adoption is when a child grows in its mother's heart instead of her tummy. It's pretty miraculous. If it weren't for the sacrifice of Sadie's birth mom, Joey and I wouldn't be parents right now. That's not to say that her birth mom made the sacrifice for us- she just knew that she couldn't provide the kind of life that she wanted for her baby, and Joey and I were fortunate enough to be the recipients of such an enormous blessing. The magnitude of her sacrifice has not escaped us.

The first time we held her

Deprived of sleep is what we are. She is a newborn, after all, and with her tiny tummy she needs to be fed every 2-3 hours. But only during the night. For some reason she can stay asleep for stretches of up to 5 hours during the day without food or diaper changing. Go figure.

If only Sadie could grow up knowing how much she is loved and how many people she has already influenced. She is surrounded by aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, and neighbors who prayed for her and loved her before she was even born. When only the dream of her existed. Not to mention the love her birth mother and father and birth grandparents have for her and the effect she has had on their lives.

Sadie with her great grandparents

Eternal families are possible through blessings of the temple. In 5 months, once the adoption is finalized, we will be able to take Sadie to the temple to be sealed together as a forever family. We can't wait!

Rambunctious dogs can't even wake her up! Our dogs love Sadie and she is already starting to react to them when they get 8-12 inches from her face. We are excited for her to grow up on our little homestead with the dogs, the chickens, and the cows (yep, that's plural cows- we have two of them now).

Pia is already her best friend

Annoying that there are so many car seats to choose from. With only a couple of days to get our home ready for Sadie, figuring out what one needs to keep a baby alive could have been overwhelming. We are so grateful for everyone who gave us clothes, blankets, food, diapers, toys, and furniture within a couple weeks of bringing Sadie home. Thank you for the dinners, the baby showers, the visits, the advice, and for sharing our excitement.

Thanks for the blanket, Aunt Joanna!

Every tear I cried, every doctor visit and every round of fertility treatment, every sleepless night, every meeting with our caseworker, every prayer we prayed, and every dollar we spent were worth the tremendous privilege of having such a perfect and precious baby girl in our family. We could not be more happy and feel more blessed for this miracle.

Sadie with the owl blanket her birth parents made for her

Cow #2