And Then There Were Four

Wow, it's amazing how fast your life can change in an instant. In the past it had been awful heart breaking events that changed our entire world. There have been moments of pure happiness mixed in with those awful times but for the most part it had been just plain hard. For the first time in a long time we've had something happen to our family that I wouldn't have dreamed for years to come!

The Story

After praying our guts out for a birth mom to notice our adoption profile, we only had a terrible experience. What we thought would be our happily ever after, turned out to be a joke. Someone wanting to play a game with our hearts to get personal satisfaction. A made up story for a family whose hearts were aching to hold and raise a baby of their very own. I was so upset, the words, "Haven't we been through enough?!" Often entered my thoughts. I felt so sorry for this women who needed to cause a gaping wound to be reopened for whatever personal reason.

Well, although we were hurt we still raised our heads high and had faith that some day, maybe not even in this life, but some how and in some way we would be blessed with another baby. That faith and our endless prayers were answered when Jason got a phone call out of the blue. It was then that we heard about our little Daxton for the first time. He was told that a birth mother had seen our profile and wanted us to take care of her baby boy that would be born in a few short weeks.

We still were cautious to distance our hearts as we knew that there could be other possible out comes. After speaking with the birth mom through texts, and filming out lots of paperwork, we felt at peace that whatever was meant to happen would happen, and it would be what it needed to be. So that's when the waiting started. Only the month we thought we had turned out to be 2 weeks!

My little sidekick

Sunday August 26th, we woke up just like any other day. This time Jason was home and the commencement of preparations for one more family breakfast with other family members began. I hadn't had my phone with me all morning and amazingly neither did Jason. We were just enjoying our time together as the 3 musketeers. When I went to grab my phone to look up a recipe I noticed Jason's phone was ringing, but I didn't answer it and went down stairs to tell him and look up the recipe I needed. As soon as I opened my phone, I saw the words..."birth mom is in labor!" With a big smilie face. It was then that I yelled out the happy news and the crazy packing and scrambling to change all our plans, find a place for Carter to stay, and book a flight for me to fly out ASAP. An hour later we all got in the car and started our journey for our lives to completely change.

Daxton was born before we even got to the airport. Suddenly my thoughts were racing all over the place and I said a silent prayer that everything would work out for this little angel to be a part of our family. We wanted nothing more than for Carter to have a little brother and experience the happiness that other children can bring into a home.

The first time I held Daxton 

To spare you from reading this post for hours, I'll skip all the details of the trip to Arkansas and everything that happened in those 10 days. Just to give you a brief summary, Jason and I stayed in a hospital with a brand new baby. We met his birth family and couldn't adequately tell them how thankful we were for their sacrifice. I know what it's like to come home empty handed and it's the worst feeling in the world. To know what his birth mom was going through hurt my heart yet she was making the ultimate sacrifice so our family could be happy. They were an answer to so many prayers and we weren't able to express the happiness we felt to have a little boy to take home to be a part of our forever family.

A moment in the hospital

The first time daddy got to hold little Daxton

If you're wondering why I'm so white in all these pictures, I must tell you that Daxton comes from a very neat heritage. Both of his birth parents are from the Marshall Islands and he has a hint of Japanese from his grandpa. Yes, I'm sure one day little Dax will be curious as to why his mom is so white, but I will be so excited to tell him the story of how we waited and prayed for him to be ours.

Spending time in a hotel room

Well, now that we've been home for almost a week (Carter and I), we've started getting used to a new little boy in the house. Sleepless nights for mommy but totally worth every second! Carter finally got to start kindergarten. He was so excited on his first official day. He could hardly wait to get there and show off his baby brother. He walked away first before giving me a hug and that's when the tears started flowing. My little sidekick is now in kindergarten. The California days are going to be hard. He'll be gone for a full day at school. What will I do without my little buddy?! Two and a half hours away from him is hard as it is. How will I ever manage 6+ hours?! I guess it'll be good to have little Daxton to keep me busy.

The first time Carter met his little brother

Carter's first official day of kindergarten

He was so excited to show off little Dax

We move in 1 week. I was hoping this day would never get here. It's going to be so hard to leave this place. No only because it's where our little girls are buried, we are attached to the house because of all the hard things we went through and all the incredible memories with all our babies, but also because the people here are the most caring and loving people in this earth. Not only were they there for us when we lost each of our girls, but they all celebrated when we were able to bring a healthy baby home. I could not believe what I saw when I pulled into our driveway. An out pouring of love with hearts all over the front of the house, chalk drawings all over the driveway, and sweet gifts left on our table. As soon as I saw it my heart burst at the seams. The hardest part of moving is that we're leaving this amazing neighborhood family behind. I don't know if there's a more kinder people, and the people in Visalia have big shoes to fill. I hope this bond we have will never break. Here's to hard change that only means more adventures ahead!

He loves holding his baby brother

He's officially ours!

One of the surprised on our driveway