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.