Briar's first party

Briar attended his first party on Sunday which he was the guest of honor! We had a "welcome to the family" celebration, we opted for this in lieu of a traditional baby shower, which was alot of fun! Dan and I were amazed at the turn out and were so touched by the support and love we felt from everyone. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives and now a part of Briar's life as well. During the party I took a step back and just took everything in, what a truly happy time in our lives. I felt so filled with life and so blessed that we can now share in "family" event with friends, participate in play dates and just talk about parenting techniques with all of our friends that have children. We've waited so long for this, I just don't ever want it to end!

I want to send a special thank you out to my Mom(Sue), Jill, Kerri and Ron for hosting this event for us. They did such a fabulous job with everything! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Also a big THANK YOU to all our family and friends who attended and/or sent their well wishes!

Firsts

This last week has been filled with firsts! So I thought I would share these:

• We sent out our first ever baby announcement! I thought this day would never come, it was so great to put these in the mail. (Those in Canada, they have been mailed but we all know how slow postal mail can be.)


• Briar has slept through the night! Offically the first time was on September 6th but this past week he has done it 3 times!!!! On Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday. He goes down at 10pm and wakes up at 5am. Mommy is so happy :)


• IB came for a visit on Sunday. Our first visit were we were officially the parents of Briar and not her. It was a great visit and he was very awake and talkative with her. It was wonderful to see him interact with her, they definitely have a special connection.


• We went for our first visit to Mommy's work on Monday and was very well behaved. Everyone just loved him and thought he was just the cutest thing ;-)


• Briar had his first almost successful thumb sucking on Monday (see picture below) and then last night he actually was successful for about 1 minute. I was not able to capture that Kodak moment :(


• Mommy and Briar spent our first night alone without Daddy in the house :( Dan is gone on a business trip to CA, he will be back on Friday afternoon. It went pretty good, however I think Briar could tell something was different since he woke up at 2am for a feeding and was up for the day at 6am. I guess he thought Mommy was lonely and needed his company ;-)


• And last but not least, Briar did his first blowing of a Raspberry last night! He has been pretty good about getting the spit built up for a couple of weeks but last night was the first time he actually did the full blown (ha ha ha) Raspberry.

So there you have it, my little guy is starting to grow up. What a wonderful year this is going to be for us!

(I just had to add a few other pictures besides the thumb sucking)

A weeks gone by

Has it already been a week since I was pacing the floor and jumping every time the phone rang?! Wow, this week has gone by so fast! Now that I don't have the fear of Briar leaving us I can enjoy every single minute with him without wondering if it is my last. All week I've been hugging and kissing him every chance I get (he probably feels smothered, LOL!). I can't get enough of looking into his eyes and face, he is just so beautiful and what a blessing!

He is starting to coo a lot more, he loves carrying on a conversation with me and thinks it is just so much fun. I just wish I knew what he was saying! He loves to smile and has giggled once for me, it was so cute! He is now down to only one feeding in the middle of the night. YAY!!!! And is finally on a set schedule which is just wonderful.

Grandma and Grandpa are going to baby sit again on Saturday night so we can have a date night. My mom offered the other day and I said I would have to check with Dan. When I asked Dan he said "Why are you asking me? When ever they offer to baby sit we should always say Yes!" It was one of those rare moments where Dan made sense and I wasn't thinking straight, he was pretty happy with himself for that one! Now we just need to find something to do on Saturday night.

100% ours

It's been almost 24 hours that Briar has been 100% ours! It still hasn't sunk in fully. I think it will once Raechel calls on Monday to Congratulate us.

We went out for a celebratory breakfast, unfortunately Briar probably didn't know since he was asleep. However Mommy and Daddy sure did enjoy it! Especially Daddy, he is a big breakfast fan. I can see it now, Briar and Daddy ganging up on Mommy to go to breakfast when all she wants to do is get an extra hour of sleep.

Today the words Mommy and Daddy certainly took on a whole new feeling for Dan and me, now when we say them to Briar it is 100% true! Can you see me smiling from ear to ear?????

What time is it?!?!

Not Morris Day and The Time! However, now I have their song in my head ......aawwwhhh the days of Prince and the Purple Rain ;-)

It is 9:00pm CST and we have not heard anything! This is great news since the other day Raechel said that no news is good news. That she would not call us tonight unless IB revoked. It has now been 4 hours since the deadline and I would think we would have heard something by now if she had.

Dan and I think it is pretty safe to say that Briar is forever our Son! We have already started our family celebration :)

Thank you! To every single person who took the time to say a prayer for us, no matter how short or long, God has heard us all and granted Dan and me this wonderful blessing.

I wasn't expected, I was selected!

please stop ringing

UGH! Would the phone please stop ringing today! I've had at least 5 phone calls so far today, which is out of the norm around here. The nerve of people to call today, especially a certain best friend (not to mention names, oh but I have too! Ron) who wasn't thinking. I don't know if I can handle having my stomach up in my throat anymore today.

Only a few more hours to get through. I can do this, I know I can. It must be like labor but without the physical pain, waiting anxiously for good news.

P.S. You know I forgive you Ronnie! ;-)

Events over the last few days

A couple things have happened over the last few days. We did hear from IB the other evening that she was able to get a hold of her Mom. She said the conversation went pretty good, once she was able to talk with her. The first call the Mom did not answer so IB tried the next day. She said that her Mom was mad that she did not tell her about her pregnancy but that she will support IB in whatever she decides to do (parent or adoption). The fact that this is an open adoption really helped her to not be closed to this option; that she can meet and be a part of Briar's life. I could tell when I was talking with IB how relieved she felt but also got the sense that now she might be considering parenting.

IB also asked if she could take Briar for a visit with the Aunt. We of course could not say no since we are in the legal risk period; not that we would have anyway but we are just concerned that the Aunt will continue to pressure her to parent and try to make her feel guilty about her decision. When she dropped him off we asked how it went she said "good", however we were not sure if that had meant he was good or that the Aunt wasn't giving her a hard time. Briar started to fuss so we didn't talk long.

Then last night we received a call from Raechel....FINALLY!!!!! She was able to connect with IB yesterday to discuss how things were going and how she felt. Raechel said that she sounded like a different person and very happy. I had to know, so I straight out asked Raechel if IB was thinking about parenting or going through with her adoption plan. She said that IB was planning on going through with the adoption. WAIT....don't get too excited just yet. As we know from past history (previous failed match) we should not always put 100% faith in what social workers say, since people can change their minds.

I am feeling pretty good though, I would have to say I'm about 80% confident that this adoption will happen(this is pretty good coming from the girl who's glass is always half empty, LOL!). IB has until 5pm on Friday to revoke, so if we don't hear from the agency on Friday evening (I would give them until 6pm to call us, if she revokes) Briar is ours forever!!!!

Please keep sending those prayers our way until Friday evening. THANKS!!!!!

New twist

Our meeting with IB yesterday went great! The discussions were very heart felt, open and honest. At times I teared up and so did IB. She stayed for almost 4 hours and Briar was awake for the majority which I know IB just loved. We did give her a white gold pendant, it is a shape of a heart and key. We wanted her to have something to reminder her of Briar and the importance she has in his life; that he is the key to her heart. She did give us both hugs when she left, which was a good sign.

However we did find out that now there is an added twist to her decision process. I think I had mentioned this before, IB kept her pregnancy a secret and moved away from her immediate family (several states away). She does have an Aunt who lives here in MN and she was able to hide it from her as well. However some how the Aunt found out (IB thinks it was her roommate snooping) and is not supportive at all of IB's adoption plan. The Aunt decided to intervene and called IBs Mom. So now IB has the added stress of having to face her Mom about Briar and her decision.

We did ask if this will change her mind, she sounded somewhat firm in her decision to move forward with the adoption. However we all know what family pressure can be like and she could succumb to their request to parent him.

If the family wasn't involved I would say that I was 99% confident she will go through with the adoption after yesterday's visit. But they are involved so it's a 50/50 shot.

Still holding breath

Briar is still with us :)

We did get some more information yesterday from Raechel, IBs social worker (she is back from vacation thank goodness). Raechel spoke with the other social worker that IB met with on Wednesday. Apparently IB has concerns about our openness relationship and how it will look in the future. Currently it has been pretty formal however she would like it to be more open and us sharing more information on how things are going with Briar. We totally agree! However every time she has come to visit she has brought a friend which is very hard to open up when there is a third person there.

She also wants to hear more from me, how I'm doing with bonding with Briar. I guess I've been holding back in fear that I would hurt her or make her feel bad if I shared too much on how things were going for me and him. Time to start opening up!

She knows in her heart it would be hard for her to parent Briar since all she really has to offer him is love. She is struggling with the question of "is that enough" and what really will be her future role if we parent him.

She did call last night and she is coming over on Sunday for a visit to discuss these things. We found out also that Raechel did not connect with her yesterday and when we told IB that we talked with Raechel yesterday she sounded surprised/disappointed (that she didn't get to talk with her but we did). We are pretty pissed that Raechel did not make it priority to connect with IB especially since she sounded pretty depressed. Raechel has been IBs sole support and I would think no matter how busy she is that it is her job to check in with her even if she had to do it after hours.

Anyway, this is somewhat encouraging but we are still holding our breath and need to see how Sunday goes.