Forward Motion

04/19/2012

Some days it feels like nothing is happening with our adoption finalization or with our new home build…like we’re stuck in a holding pattern. The truth is, things are moving forward—just at a snail’s pace. I’m ready for Precious to officially be part of our family forever. I’m ready to have a home of our own again. Someone else is eager to move forward, too. Precious has been great at sitting up on her own for over three months now but she hasn’t figured out how to get from here to there yet. I can tell she’s thinking about. She has started lunging for things. It’s amazing how far Precious can reach when she puts her whole self into it.

I know how you feel, baby. I’m ready to move forward!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Easter 2012

04/12/2012

I had every intention of getting a photo of the three of us all dressed up for church on Easter…but it just didn’t happen. After church, we had lunch at Cheesecake factory with both sets of parents plus Jason’s brother Dan, our sister-in-law Ginger and Precious’ cousin Eliza.

These two couldn’t be more different but I hope they grow up to be great friends. This photo just cracks me up:

After we all had afternoon naps, it was time for a quick photo shoot of our beautiful baby girl. (Jason and I had already changed into our comfy clothes.)

These two have a special relationship. Jason can make her giggle and laugh more than anyone else. She says “Dada” 30x a day—that’s 30x more than any other word. He adores her. And she adores him. It’s almost like she knows she came THISCLOSE to growing up without a daddy, but he fought hard for her—we both did—and Father God did a big miracle for our family in allowing us to stay together.

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(Adopted) Baby Buddies

04/09/2012

We’re grateful that our daughter has three cousins within 6 months of her age. We’re also really blessed to have close friends Jeremy, Leila and Jaron right around the corner from us (from our old house and our new one). Not only is their son just 4 months younger than Precious, he was also adopted. They’ll have each other for support and encouragement through the ups and downs of these journeys, just like we have our friends.

We live close enough for spontaneous trips to the park together.

Paratroopers?

Enough evenings are spent at their house that Precious practically has her own bed set up there. She falls right to sleep in the pack ‘n play, which allows us to hang out and visit as late as we please. Right after these pictures, we put the babies to bed and ate a late dinner together.

They’re starting to hug, kiss, and grab each others’ hands. Cutest thing ever!

He’s such a handsome little fella.

Aren’t baby feet some of the best things in the world?

Thank God for good buddies!

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Mother-Daughter Time

04/05/2012

Precious and I don’t end up with a lot of hang time with just the two of us. When I’m working at home, I’m not paying much attention to her. She just hangs out on a blanket with her toys unless it’s time to eat or she needs changed.

When I’m at the office and Jason spends the day with Precious, they do fun things, (he doesn’t like to be stuck at home) like go to the coffee shop or the bank or the hardware store. He loves taking her around on errands. And of course, the three of us spend time together in the evenings and weekends. But last weekend, Jason was out of town so it was just me and the babe. I decided we should go shopping when I got home from work.

She was getting sleepy and I may have pushed her bedtime back just a little bit that night, but we still enjoyed some nice quality time together.

Nothing a little thumb action can’t soothe.

I don’t mind being alone—actually it’s refreshing sometimes to relax in front of the TV (watching whatever I want) or fall asleep early (and no one questions it) when Jason is on the road—but it’s also nice to have a sidekick. Spending a Friday night shopping date with my daughter was fun. I couldn’t help but remember all the shopping dates I’ve had with my mom, not just in my first 18 years, but even now as an adult. I’m looking forward to lots of mother-daughter time with my girl in the years to come.

This was the day before. The quality is worse, but Precious loves seeing herself when my iPhone is on self-portrait mode.

I’m extremely thankful that I get to be this little girl’s mama. I think about her birth mom just about everyday and my heart breaks for her. I know she thinks about her babies everyday, too. I’m not sure what is down the road for all of us but I hope we can have some kind of continued relationship with her.

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6 Month Familiversary

03/28/2012

Typically not long after a new baby is born at the hospital, a family photo is snapped. When a new child arrives through foster care, things aren’t so … picturesque. The night Precious came home was a bit chaotic. I called my sister-in-law Ginger before she arrived. “How much does a 2-month-old baby eat? And how often? What kind of bottle should we get? How much will she sleep? What’s a typical sleep schedule for a 2-month-old?” After the frenzy of questions and some encouragement from my sweet sister-friend, I bolted into a flurry of last minute nesting. I put a clean sheet on the crib, found a package of wipes and the box with infant clothes, set out blankets, found a nightlight. We had an hour to prepare. Once Precious was in our living room and the case worker was driving away, we fed her a bottle—she had come with one and a container of formula. My parents came by to meet her and see how they could help. We took off her cigarette-smokey sleep gown and put a clean shirt on her. It’s one Jason and I had purchased a full year before Precious was born, just because it was cute with two little birdies on it. For our future daughter. We washed her gown along with all the rest of her clothes. Then we went to Target. Our first shopping excursion as a brand new family of three. I carried sleeping Precious in a baby carrier and kissed the top of her stinky head as we tossed diapers, bottles, burp cloths and pacifiers into the cart. We got home at 10 pm and put our sleepy baby girl down in her crib. An hour later Jason left for a 4 day trip. I turned on the baby monitor and tried not to think so that I could get some sleep, assuming I’d be up a few times during the night. My first night at home with an infant. A stranger in the room next to ours. She slept like a champ, not waking up until 5 am and then going back to sleep until almost 9 after a bottle and a fresh diaper. The first night:

Precious arrived on a Wednesday night. The following day, my mom babysat so I could go to work.

The next day, my mother-in-law babysat. I was so thankful to have our moms close by and willing to jump in and help!

Precious has been a great sleeper since the beginning.

And so full of joy, too!

Here I am looking a little tired, but it’s the first photo I have of the two of us on our third day. She was so tiny!

When Jason got home, I took this first picture of them together.

It’s hard to believe that was 6 months ago. Last week we celebrated our half-year familiversary, six months since the day Precious became a part of our family. We’re looking forward to finalizing her adoption in the next few months, hopefully before her first birthday in July.

I just noticed we put the same shirt on her for our ice cream familiversary celebration that she wore on her first full day with us. (Second picture from the top.) She’s filling it out a bit more now!

Happy Familiversary, Choongie! We’re so thankful God brought you into our family. I can’t imagine my life without you. Thank you for bringing us so much joy and love everyday.

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Precious: Monthly Portrait 8

03/26/2012

Our little Ali-gator is 8 months old. Precious girl, you are getting bigger every day but most noteworthy is your hair—you seem to have had a hair growth spurt! We love playing with the fluffy wad of thick black curls on top of your head, and so do you. The hair on the sides is even getting long enough to curl up when it’s wet, typically from drool when you’re sleeping on your belly. I don’t think you prefer to be a belly sleeper but you’re still only able to roll in one direction. We put you on your back and you immediately roll on to your belly and then fuss until you fall asleep, someone rolls you back or sits you up. I’m sure you’re going to learn to crawl very soon with all the unwanted tummy time you’ve been inflicting on yourself these days. You have been trying all kinds of new foods at the dinner table, including meat, eggs and gasp—brownies. (I know…we’re horrible parents…) Your favorites seem to be fruit, carrots, and sweet potatoes—but only if they’re thin enough. Too chunky and you gag. You’ve also been learning to drink water out of a sippy cup and we can tell you’re excited about your independence, though the mechanics can be frustrating with your 8-month-old coordination. You met your baby cousin Eli this month. He’s exactly 6 months younger than you. Cousin Iris was also visiting for Grandpa’s 60th birthday along with Aunt Jessica, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Laura and Uncle Aaron. You love hanging out with other babies and Grandma L and Grandpa loved having all three of their grand kids together. The weather is getting warm and the flowers are blossoming everywhere. You’ve added a few new words to your vocabulary: dada/dad/daddy, mama (finally!), uh huh, hi/hey/ha, hun-gee (hungry). You’re also starting to randomly repeat words. A few days ago as I was buckling your car seat I said “click,” and then you said, “click.” I’d think I was imagining it but Daddy heard it too. We’ve been taking lots of walks and trips to the park to go on the swings. We love putting you in summer dresses, onesies or shorts so we can squeeze your chubby thighs and nibble on your delicious baby toes. Speaking of delicious, we couldn’t resist introducing you to Jeni’s Ice Cream shop right down the street. Can you believe babies aren’t supposed to have ice cream? We tried to tell you, but you’re very determined to sneak a taste with your extra long tongue. How could we resist your cuteness, anyway? We may have difficulty not giving you whatever you want. Love you, baby girl!

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Phone Photo Friday

03/23/2012

@mahlbrandt on Instagram if you want to follow

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Phone Photo Friday

03/16/2012

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My Lovely Girl

03/15/2012

Everyday I’m in awe—not just with how stinkin’ adorable my daughter is (of course, I’m biased)—but that I get to be her mom. I’m fully aware that things could have turned out very differently for us all. Thankful doesn’t seem like big enough of a word.

This journey hasn’t been easy. We had some really trying times back in October and November. But everything now is so…easy. And fun. Do you see that giant smile? Everyday we get to soak up that joy that oozes out of her and we could almost forget how difficult things were at the beginning with the DCS drama. And like her older half-sister, she could have been bounced around from foster home to foster home before being adopted. But we are thankful for the way this chapter is turning out. We are thankful for her. And thankful for this season of fun and easy.

I’m eager to get back into foster parenting. Having our home “closed” is hard. Even though it’s the easy road. It’s hard because we signed up for the challenge; and now we’re not doing it. I suppose in a way we’re still doing it. Precious came to us through foster care (though she ended up being removed from state custody and put into our custody) and we still haven’t finalized her adoption…but it just doesn’t feel like we’re doing enough about the foster care situation. There are so many kids still out there in our city that need good foster parents. And I want to help.

I probably need this forced break more than I want to admit. It’s time for the three of us—me, Jason and Precious—to bond as a family. We were still reeling from the situation with Ladybug in a lot of ways and this break from foster parenting gave us time to process all of those feelings. By the time our new home is finished and we’re ready to reopen (late summer or fall, hopefully), Precious will be over a year old. We will be a very different family than we were last July (when we were first certified) and it was just Jason and me. There are a lot of things to think about and different ways to prepare this time. We have our daughter to think about now—what is healthy and safe for her—when we consider welcoming new kids into our family.

Sorry for the rambling. I’m sleepy and I was just going to post pictures to publish in the morning. Then I decided to pour my thoughts out and try to make sense of them here. I don’t have a neat little conclusive bow for this. I’m very thankful for our daughter and I’m thinking a lot about our future as foster parents.

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Hanging Out: Spring Swings and an Adoption Update

03/06/2012

We took Precious to the playground for the first time last week since the weather has been reaching into the upper 60s and low 70s more frequently here in Nashville. She seemed to really enjoy the swings. Not much reaction to the slide and that’s about all she’s big enough for yet. So lots of swing pictures pictures…

I haven’t given an update on our adoption situation in a while, mainly because not much is happening. Later this month we’ll be celebrating our 6-month familiversary (a term I got from the Foster Parent Podcast) and Precious will be 8 months old. We were anticipating being able to finalize her adoption around the 6-month point but now it seems we’ll be waiting two more months…until the beginning of May. At the earliest. We did everything we were supposed to do. Got our home study done in less than a month and our attorney submitted everything to the court. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the judge’s clerk got back to our attorney to let us know they would start the process of publication* in order to terminate Precious’ biological father’s parental rights. This week. And the process takes 8 weeks. It feels like the papers were just sitting around in a stack in the courthouse for over a month. It’s frustrating to be stuck in this waiting period—just hanging out in limbo—for an indefinite amount of time.

But we could be in such a different situation that we’re in right now, and that perspective keeps us in thankful mode rather than impatient mode. We have full custody of Precious, she’s with us everyday, we’re her parents, we’re not in any real risk of losing her—we’re very blessed. Situations don’t often turn out this rosy. But that finalization is going to feel so good. Everything will be permanent and official then. We’ll get a new birth certificate for her with our names on it as her parents and a new name for her—which I plan to reveal here once it’s a done deal. She’ll take our last night, get a new middle name and keep the same first name. We’re just changing the spelling of her first name slightly because her biological mom gave her a beautiful name and we’d like her to keep it. But a little modification will allow us to incorporate in our favorite family name as well as honoring her original name and her history.

*In case you’re really interested in adoption and foster parenting technical processes, here’s an explanation of “publication” as best as I understand it here in Tennessee. When a biological parent is unidentified or his/her whereabouts is unknown, every effort needs to be made to find him/her. There is a Punitive Fatherhood Registry in Tennessee where a father can post that he is looking for a biological child. A child’s information is submitted and if it matches a father on the list, more information/testing can be done to see if they’re a match. If there is no match there, the next step is to run an ad in a public newspaper for 4 weeks. I think the ad says something like, “If you are looking for your child, born on blank, please contact blank for more information.” Pretty vague for the child’s protection. The parent has 30 days to respond to the ad. If no one comes forward and no match is found any other way, the adoption process moves forward and the biological parent’s parental rights are terminated.

So that’s where we’re at. We’re just waiting. Hanging out. Having fun. Going about our day to day lives with our precious 7.5 month old little sweetie pie. And being thankful everyday. She makes my life much richer, messier and so much more joyful…

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