It's a Boy

Well, the verdict is in and baby Walter is a boy! We found out Friday after waiting through a 30 minute ultrasound that we were going to have a boy. Neither of us were totally surprised. She asked what names we had picked out and if we had any guesses ourselves. We both had a hunch from the very beginning but when the nurse said, "meet Mr. Michael" we were so excited. I laughed and cried at the same time. Michael Steven Walter will be here in late January. Michael is Christian's grandfather's middle name and Steven is the name of my brother, uncle and great uncle. We are halfway through the pregnancy and January can't get here soon enough!

Now we are really getting antsy. The nursery is mostly done and we have most of the big ticket items. We suffered through the process of registering this afternoon and after 3 hours of it had to call it a day. How anyone enjoys this stuff is beyond me? It was pretty trying on us both and it got pretty miserable being on our feet for so long until we got to the glider section where we helped ourselves to a little rest and relaxation. I told the lady at the registry help desk if they really wanted to keep people in there comfortable and shopping for hours they should put out food sample people like they do at warehouse stores. This would keep moms-to-be and dads-to-be happy! At least do it on weekends?

I was pleasantly surprised to see several cute little boy outfits. Everyone knows cute girl stuff completely outnumbers cute boy stuff. Michael will be making his appearance during the coldest time of year so I was happy to see lots of cute and comfortable warm-up suits and jackets. I have never liked character clothes and I am doing my best to make sure they don't make it into my son's closet. I don't mind if my 4 or 5 year old wants a "Go Diego, Go" or "Bob the Builder" shirt, but why I would put it on my child when he could care less I don't know? Imagine he looks back at pictures and asks if he liked "Bob the Builder" at that age and I have to say, "I don't know. You were 4 months old." I would rather say, "oh my goodness, yes, I couldn't get it off of you!" I don't like when grown ups wear that stuff either. I never understand what I am looking at when I see adults in shirts with Tinker Bell or Bugs Bunny? Who does that? Who walks into a store and sees a Tinker Bell shirt and thinks "I have to have that"? I don't like "baby saying" shirts either like "Party at my crib, bring your own bottle" or "If you can smell me, change me." I don't mind words or phrases but those stupid baby sayings are not my thing.

Well, that's the update. Happy September to all!

Hey from North Carolina,

We are now officially in our second trimester and despite claims that I would be feeling better by this point, I am definitely not. Truthfully, to be going through this for our baby makes it a bit more tolerable, but not any easier. I have added to my list of symptoms the onset of migraines. Migraines are a pretty common occurance during pregnancy and assuming you were not afflicted by them prior to pregnancy it's likely they will go away after the baby is here. To go with migraines I have horrible back pain and shortness of breath. This reached a peak last Friday when I collapsed and was out for quite some time. I landed on my tummy and after an hour or so I began to feel some severe cramps and abdominal pain. Our doctor wanted us to go immediately to the hospital where, upon our arrival, I was rushed into a hospital room and poked and prodded for hours. The collapse was unexplained. The baby was fine, which was really all I cared about and after a while, I was feeling fine as well. I was on bed rest for a few days and for the next couple days the time I can spend on my feet has been limited to just a few hours.

Our doctors assure that everything wrong with me is normal because I am pregnant. I don't want to seem ungrateful for the pregnancy. It has been an incredible blessing however unexpected it may have been. But I don't pretend that this is a magical, beautiful time. It's hard and it's gross and utterly exhausting. All that matters to me is getting this baby here safe and healthy. Through all of this we are blessed that the baby is healthy and doing very well. We should be finding out the sex of the baby on Friday assuming we can get a good view but the fact of the matter is we really could care less what we have. The baby is due at the end of January and we just can't wait to meet him or her.

In the mean time Christian has been such a wonderful help to me. He keeps the refrigerator stocked with ginger ale and the pantry full of crackers. He is working overtime taking care of me and takeing care of his business. He is back in school and between classes and coaching volleyball he has been a very busy man. The most exciting thing coming up this year (besides the baby, of course) is going to be Chris starting law school in the spring. He will going in the evenings three times a week. I am a little nervous simply because between teaching and law school there is a pretty good chance I will be ready to have the baby and he will be no where in sight. Although I know he's going to be super busy, I have to say, I am really proud of him and how hard he works for our family. He wants the best for me and the baby and I am so blessed to have a husband like that.

Boy or girl? What do you think? When we find out, we will let you know.

Starting Over

We are sad to share the news that our adoption has fallen through. On Friday Christian and I made the very difficult decision to walk away from this. Beginning about three weeks ago we began to have problems with our birthmother that initially seemed to be nothing more than some emotional stress. However, as time passed her behavior became more and more erratic and it began to take a serious toll on us. Last Thursday, our birthmother had a very important meeting with her attorney scheduled and she just simply did not show up. She didn't call with any explanation as to why she was not there and failed to return any phone calls from him after the fact. This was a meeting to discuss finding the baby's birthfather. Her attorney contacted ours on Friday morning suggesting that Chris and I walk away from this. It was his opinion that we had been deceived by our birthmother regarding what the birthfather knew and did not know and how involved he may have wanted to be in the life of his child. We were advised to stop all financial support immediately and consider terminating the relationship altogether so as to avoid any severe heartache later on. We spoke to our attorney Friday morning for about an hour and came to the same conclusion ourselves. We called the adoption agency and let our coordinator, Maxine, know about the situation and seek her opinion as well. She had her own stories regarding our birthmother's erratic behavior in messages and calls she had received in recent weeks. Maxine agreed that this was on track to end very badly for us.

This was not an easy decision for us to make and we are struggling to make since of this now. I have been feeling uneasy for several weeks now and began to feel disconnected for our birthmother and the baby. It's so hard to explain, but I believe that what I felt was God telling me this wasn't going to be the baby for us. I shared my feelings with Christian who is much more an optimist than me, and he was set that this was going to be fine and it would all work out. These past few days have been harder on him. We are both feeling a loss beyond what I can convey. We are grieving the loss of that baby boy and are working through the emotions.

We did have a nice surprise come our way a few weeks ago that has become our miracle and our little ray of sunshine in the midst of so much heartache. We found out that we are pregnant. I can name about half a dozen doctors who assured us we would not be able to get pregnant. We were stunned to find out we had managed to get pregnant on our own. We were double stunned because it came after we had been chosen by a birthmother. After the shock passed we began to embrace having two little ones just months apart in age. Now that the adoption has fallen through we are looking forward to January when our baby is due. After much prayer we decided to go back on the waiting list for another adoption and are leaving it in God's hands as to whether or not we will be chosen again. If we are not picked in the next few months then we will postpone the adoption for a while so we can focus on our pregnancy. We believe that we have been chosen to be adoptive parents and this is something we feel called to do.

This is has been an emotional roller coaster for us these past few weeks but we will keep y'all posted. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Three Months to Go

Hey all,
Well, the finish is in sight. Our baby, who we have named Everett Steven Walter, is due in three months. We have been in contact with our birthmother regularly since the match a few weeks ago. We talk a couple times a week and I am happy to say she never ceases to amaze us. She has such a wonderful spirit and has made what could be a very anxious couple of months, very enjoyable. Christian and I are planning a trip to New York to meet her for the first time face to face in a couple weeks when Chris gets out of school.

In the meantime we are doing our best to get ready for baby. The nursery is coming together beautifully and Chris and I are reading up on exactly what we are in for. I am not so naive as to think we will ever be fully prepared for this but we are doing what we can. It's amazing at how much we don't know!!! I don't know how we are going to pull this off. Everyone keeps telling us that it comes naturally but I think that thsoe people don't know us very well. Hehe. We met with our adoption attorney here in NC last week and she is wonderful and is going to be working very hard for us. We feel so lucky to be working with her as she and her husband just recently adopted a baby of their own about 6 months ago. We had the priviledge of meeting her husband and new son that same day and they are a wonderful Christian family.

Everett is doing well and growing nice and big in his birthmother's tummy. The doctor's have told her that he could be making an appearance before his due date on August 23 because he is big and active. She told me the other day he gets very active when she is on the phone with us. I loved hearing that! All in all things are moving along nicely so far.

It is definately a good day!!!

Today was quite a day. This afternoon Christian called me to tell me that he was offered the head varsity basketball coach position at school today. This came as quite a shock considering former college basketball coaches applied for the position. However, thanks to a less than ideal economy the school didn't have the budget to bring someone new in and create a position for them so Chris got it. Now this is not to belittle Christian in any way. We were just not expecting him to get it. But he did and we were and are thrilled. I am so proud of him. He has waited for an opportunity like this for several years and now he is going to be able to run his own program. This was the beginning of some really good news.

A little while later I received an email from the adoption agency telling me that our profile was being put together and would be active on the agency's website in 2 weeks. I immediately emailed back to say that we were excited it was moving along so quickly and that I appreciated their hard work for us. I was very excited.

About an hour later I got a call from the agency and heard the words I wanted to hear so badly, "A birthmother picked you." I would love to fill you in on all the details of my brief conversation with her but I honestly don't remember it. She asked if Chris was home and I told her that he was on his way and should be home about 20 minutes later. She told me that she wanted to tell us together so she would call us back. She did and Chris and I sat quietly, barely breathing, listening to each detail about our birthmother, Annette. I cried more than once throughout the conversation and have cried several times since. We learned that she is expecting a baby boy on August 23 in Brooklyn, NY. The birthmother is 1/2 hispanic and 1/2 black, the birthfather is 1/2 black and 1/2 white. Our birthmother is healthy and is taking good care of herself. At the end of the conversation the woman asked if we were interested and "YES!" didn't seem like a good enough word, but that's all we could come up with. She told us that she was going to contact Annette and let her know we wanted to adopt her baby and ask her if she would be available the next day to talk with us over the phone. We waited about ten minutes and the woman from the agency called back to tell us that Annette was available to talk and that she was so excited she was crying when she was told we said "YES!" Annette told her that she had been praying Chris and I would say yes.

Christian and I are still overwhelmed by all of this! Our profile was not even up and running on the website. We still don't know how she found us or why she picked us! We have only been on with the agency for 5 weeks. We are excited and scared and anxious and happy and antsy and peaceful all at once. Tuesday evening we are going to talk with her via conference call and get to know her and let her get to know us. We were happy to hear that she is open to us being as involved in the pregnancy as we would like even up to the birth of the baby. Our baby boy. With 3 months still to go we understand anything can happen, but we are optimistic. The picture was taken 4/1 and is the baby at about 20 weeks.



I also have to extend a congratulations to Evan and Aubrey on their house. Chris and I are so excited for them! I can't wait to hear about it and see some pictures... hint, hint...

Thank you everyone for all your love and prayers. We will keep you posted.

Waiting....Sort of....

Hey everyone,
As you know we are in the process of adoption, the very long process of adoption, and we are finally nearing the end of the paper road. We got a call from our adoption coordinator on Monday afternoon telling us that pending a confirmation from our home study people verifying that our home study report is in fact in progress, Christian and could be put on the waiting list for a birthmother. The following day, that confirmation was sent so I guess that means we are on the waiting list. However, because our paperwork is not completely complete and will not be completely complete for another 3 weeks or so, we cannot be matched with any birthmother due within that time frame. That does mean that we could get matched any time with someone who has at least 3-4 weeks left in her pregnancy. This was good news for us! Although I have no idea when God is going to bring a birthmother to us, it's nice to know that it could happen very soon.

On Saturday my mom followed Chris and I around taking pictures of us for our adoption profile to be shown to birthmothers. As neither Chris or I are picture takers we don't have any of us. We have pictures of maybe one of us somewhere...although it's usually him because I am the camera holder, or we have pictures of scenery but we aren't in those pictures. We have beautiful pictures of trees and lakes but no people. So we grabbed several changes of clothes and drove around taking pictures changing outfits in the car. Some pictures were very silly, like the one of me baking cookies. I wasn't baking cookies. I do like to bake cookies but I wasn't doing it that day. So my mom grabbed a cookie sheet and lined up rows of chips ahoy and handed me a spatula. We went to the speedway and took race car pictures however, the stadium was empty, but maybe no one will notice or think we got there really early that day. There were others that to us are funny but thankfully look like exactly what we wanted them to look like.

Christian and I with the help of my Mom....that's not entirely true....my Mom along with help from Christian and I were able to get most of the nursery in order. It's still missing a few pieces but is coming together beautifully. When we get it all together we will post pictures. In the meantime Christian and I are sorting through the last little bit of paperwork and will be very relieved when it's done. Thank you all for your kind words and prayers through this process. We love you and we will keep you posted!

Love,
Kelly

Big News

Some of you already know this but we have an official announcement. We are going to be adopting a baby. Before we got married we talked about what we saw our future family looking like. Naturally that included children. We took for granted that when we were ready to have them, that we would simply have them. Ha ha! Not so. After we were married we talked about having children and had a very "if it happens, it happens" attitude. Well, it didn't happen. And it kept not happening every month. After several months of unsuccessful attempts we sought the advice of a doctor. The treatments we went through were also unsuccessful and quite frankly, our hearts were not into it. We began to focus our prayers on what God would have us do, and He began speaking to us about adoption. Once the Lord began speaking to us about this we met four couples in our church in a matter of a couple weeks who all had adopted children. It seemed as though God was trying to tell us something and He wasn't particularly discreet. We got the hint.

We began searching the multitude of adoption agencies for a good fit. Initially we settled on a local agency called Christian Adoption Services. The preliminary application was long but we muddled through it. This was followed by the formal application which was even longer. After reviewing their formal application we noticed several red flags that caused us to put the breaks on the entire process. We were both so discouraged and began to lose hope.

Several weeks later Kelly was talking with her cousin, Sarah, about how difficult it was to walk away. Sarah encouraged us to do a little bit more research and try to find an agency that was a better fit. That's exactly what we did. Kelly came across Adoption Network Law Center (ANLC) and contacted them immediately. Their application process was more streamlined and the people there could not have been nicer or more helpful. We knew this was the way we wanted to go.

Within the past week we have submitted our application and fees and contacted the home study people for an expedited home study review. This process should be completed in the next two weeks and we will begin what we anticipate to be the most difficult part, waiting for a birthmother to choose us. In the meantime, we have been asked to get ready for a baby as the process to be matched could potentially be very short. Couples like us who do not specify a gender or race can be matched within a matter of days. Although we don't necessarily think that will be the case here, we do want to be ready when it comes.

Each day seems to bring yet another challenge in the form of paperwork or money or questions. We have been encouraged by the support of our friends and family and just ask for your continued prayers as we move through this process. We are both so very excited about what the future holds for us and evn more excited to see what else God has in store for us.