For S.

On the eve of the anniversary of one of the most amazing days of my life, (go here to be reminded) I have to stop and reflect on all that has passed. It's hard to believe how far we've come. I have composed so many posts in my head about how life changing and amazing our journey has been. From the years of infertility, to the moment we decided to adopt, to the moment he was placed in our arms...I have tried to process it all but I don't think it will ever really all sink in. Even now I pause everyday because something triggers an emotion or a memory that causes me to reflect on the journey that we took to get Camden into our family.

The thing I think about most, is our birth mom. I know her name, it starts with an S. This post is going to be deep and personal. I'm feeling a little exposed already, but I gave our birthmom my blog address the day we got Camden and maybe, just maybe, she will read this and I need her to know these things. So this is for her...

Dearest S.,

I have written or talked to you so many times in my mind. Not a day goes by that I don't think about you. Camden looks exactly like you. The older he gets the more I see you. His eyes especially...they are definitely yours. When I look at those giant brown eyes I feel gratitude, sorrow and joy, mostly joy...all at the same time.

I feel gratitude for my knowledge of God. That he is a loving Father who loves each of us deeply. He held both of our hands through our own separate trials of grief and pain. He brought us together so that both of our hearts could be healed and that we could both find peace.

I will never forget the first time I saw you. Even now I see your face so clearly. Your spirit was bigger than your body...something else Camden inherited from you...I felt your strength. It helped keep me together. I was so worried that I would say something wrong. I knew our time together would be short and I chose my words carefully just to make sure that you knew how grateful we were. I wanted to assure you that you made the right choice. I wanted you to feel our love so deeply that it would always be a part of you, as your love will always be a part of us. Your voice is also recorded in my mind, the phrase I hear most is "...now I have peace."

Another thing I remember you saying is "...he will grow up with snow!, I've never seen real snow." Here is a picture so you can see him in "real" snow.

I am grateful for you.

I feel sad when I think of how you must have felt all those months being pregnant wondering how things would all work out. I hate thinking of you alone in the hospital when you gave birth, I wish I could've been there for you and for Camden. When I watched you walk out the door, knowing that would be the last time I would probably see you in this life, there was a part of my heart that was breaking. I can only imagine what that moment was like for you, I hope you know that I was aware. As joyful as that moment was for me to have you place Camden in our arms, I was so aware of how painful that must have been for you. I know that it is possible to feel peace and pain at the same time and I ached for you.

I feel joy every time I hear C's feet run across the floor...every time I hear him laugh, talk, or sing, I smile. Every day at nap time we lay in his giant bean bag and I read four books to him, one of them has to be "Llama Llama Red Pajama". The best is when he "reads" it by himself. Here are some pictures that capture Camden's hilarious personality and bring me so much joy. I hope they bring joy to you...

I wonder if 20 years from now I will still have these feelings as strongly as I do now. I pray that I will. I don't want to ever forget how it felt to be with you, it truly felt like we stepped out of this world for some time and experienced the peace that only heaven can provide. I hope you have continued to pursue your education. I hope that your other son is doing well and that he is getting the proper medical attention that he needs. Most of all I hope that the peace that you felt that day is still with you.

I want you to know that Aric and I have kept our promise. We are doing our very best to give Camden the best life he could have.

We adore him.

His sisters adore him.

His extended family adores him.

He has more friends than any two year old I have ever met. He is healthy and happy. We are teaching him that he is a child of God and that God has a special plan for him.

When he is old enough to understand, we will teach him about you. He will know how deeply you love him. He will know how strong, beautiful and courageous you are. He will know how truly blessed he is to have two mother's who love him with all their hearts.

This song comes to my mind from time to time and the lyrics move me every single time.

"If you chose to tell him, and if he wants to know, how the one who gave him life could bear to let him go. Just tell him there were sleepless nights I prayed and paced the floors, and knew the only peace I'd find was if this child were yours...

So maybe you can tell your baby, when you love him so that he's been loved before, by someone who delivered your son, from God's arms, to my arms to yours.

Now I know that you don't have to do this, but could you kiss him once for me, the first time that he ties his shoes or falls and skins his knee. And could you hold him twice as long when he makes his mistakes and tell him that he's not alone, sometime's that's all it takes...I know how much he'll ache.

This may not be the answer for another girl like me. And I'm not on a soapbox saying how we all should be. I'm just trusting in my feelings, and I'm trusting God above. And I'm trusting you can give our baby both his mother's love."

I want you to know that I do kiss him twice, once for you and once for me. I do hold him twice as long, and always will. I am doing my best to give him "both his mother's love".

Thank you for following your heart. Thank you for having the faith and courage to trust me and Aric. You are never far from my thoughts and you are always in my prayers.

With So Much Love,

j

Still processing...

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that C's adoption is actually finalized. I just knew that going to the temple would be the icing on my yummy chocolate cake...and it was.

(For more information on temples, and why this was such an important event for me and my family you can click here to read more.)

Saturday was amazing. I'm still not sure how to put all of my feelings and thoughts into words. I'm still not sure how much I want to share. So for the time being I will just share pictures.

I made Camden's overalls, his tie...

...and his shoes.

I had great intentions on making myself a new temple dress but when I was half way done with it, I realized it just wasn't that important. It was just adding more stress to my life so I let it go. The cool thing is that I did make the dress I ended up wearing, like ten years ago...I also made Maya's dress, it was the one I made for her baptism. And Eden is wearing the dress my mom made me when I got baptized eons ago. I hemmed Aric's pants, so technically all of our temple clothes were extra special.

My darling girls were so thrilled to be in the temple with us. We had been preparing them for months. They were ready. The vision of them in that room will be forever burned in my mind.

We had so much love and support from our family and friends. Our sealing room only held twenty...so we had most of the men standing. For some reason my mom, Joe and Evelynne were missing from this photo but they were there too. Ev was Camden's escort.

 

And yes, Karen was there...

It was the most glorious day. The rain stopped just long enough for us to take some pictures. My friend Kerry did a great job as photographer. You should check out her blog. She hardly ever posts anything, but she did do a post about our special day.

    
On Sunday Aric blessed Camden. In my church we don't baptize babies when they are born, instead they are given a name and a blessing. Aric gave Camden a beautiful blessing.
(I think Aric looks rather dashing in this photo...)

Eden took this next picture. Photographers were limited due to the time...we were late leaving church.

We eventually did find someone to take this family shot.

Like I mentioned before I'm still processing the amazing events of the past twelve days, but really I have been putting the past five years in perspective. It's been quite the journey. It was hard...REALLY hard, but, oh, so worth it!

I know that God is aware, his peace is real. The love and gratitude I feel is indescribable. My joy is full.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for your love and kind words. I hold them dear.

Happy Tears

There were many happy tears.

I will share more later.

And...It Is Finally Done.

Today is Friday. At 5:07pm last night we got the call that we have been waiting for...our papers were approved and our attorney scheduled an 11:00am court hearing.
So with only 18 or so hours notice all of these wonderful people showed up to share in our joy.

We were quite the circus going through the security screening...We had to wait about 15 minutes for our case to be heard.

Behind this door is where my baby went from being "Baby Boy S" to Camden Kiner Albrecht.

The girls were thrilled to be there for many reasons, but I think missing the first half of school was number one.

Here we are being sworn in...notice Seth in the background...

This is our attorney pleading our case...

This is Aric answering his questions.

 

This is our judge.

These are some more shots from the proceedings...

 

When the judge asked if there was anything else we wanted to say, my emotions took over and I literally couldn't speak.

There was so much I wanted to say. I thought about it all night but at that moment my words escaped me. Aric says that my silence spoke louder than any words I could have said. I suppose he is right.

So at 11:37am it was done.

The judge was kind enough to let us go up and take a picture with him.

Here we are after our hearing.  We are standing in front of the court house doors. We are officially a family of five now.

 

Only one more door to go....

We will be there next Saturday...

Adoption 440

So in case you haven't figured it out...the names of my posts are supposed to be like college courses. This is because I didn't realize that I would be receiving an education when I started this journey. I remember thinking when we started this whole thing that I wish there was a handbook to read. There was no one in my immediate circle of friends or family that had been through this that could give me some guidance. It would have been very helpful to have some  idea of what we were getting ourselves into. Even though every adoption journey is different, there are still things that you can be prepared for.
So this is my last lecture in this series, it is titled...
Getting Home
(I know this post is long, but keep reading, there is some good news at the end.)
In my mind I had decided that once we got the call that our baby was here then the drama would be over. This, however, was not the case. Clearly our situation is not normal, but there is still a whole lot that needs to happen before you can bring your baby home, especially if you are adopting outside of your state.
When we left our home we had hopes of being home in nine days, but once we got to South Carolina we were told it would take a miracle. It all depends on the state you are adopting from, SC happened to have some strict laws on interracial adoptions. The paper work was ridiculous and we were at the mercy of attorneys and judges. We, of course, were blessed to have the best people on our side of the law down in Charleston.
What is important to note is that when we first got to SC, we had no attorney. No one wanted to take us on because our case was so messy...no consent, adoptive parents already there, agency not doing their job, etc...etc...The attorney that ended up taking our case only did it because "God nudged him five times" to do it. Thank heavens he listened because he had every connection we needed to get out of Charleston in nine days. We later found out that what he did should have taken at least TWO WEEKS!
The nine days of waiting and wondering definitely took its toll on me. From the beginning I was the one that was having all the conversations with the people involved in our case, so Aric really couldn't do much, except take care of Camden and make sure that I ate.

 

The stress was more than anything I had ever experienced. I was constantly on the phone or on the computer. What I learned later was that everything I was doing was what the agency should have been doing. Instead of enjoying every second of my brand new baby I was stressed and scared. There was constant drama, but with every wall we hit, there was someone who came in a rescued us.
Meet some of our rescuers...

One of my best friends here in my neck of the woods is Kerry. And the picture above is of her brother Jarom and his wife Liina. Jarom just happened to be doing his residency at the same hospital where Camden was born. Because they are so kind and generous, they let us stay with them for six days. They were out of town when we got there, but as soon as they were home they welcomed us into their two bedroom apartment. We slept on the floor in their daughters nursery. It may not have been the most comfortable of arrangements, but we loved their company and the spirit of their home.

The best part of staying with them is that they had skype so we were able to talk to the girls and they were able to see Camden. My sister was able to capture the first time they saw a picture of their baby brother.

A neat surprise that we had while we were in SC, is that Aric's parents came up from Florida to be with us. They drove six hours just to be with us for a day.

They came at the perfect time. I was at my wits end. I am so grateful that they made such a huge effort to be there for us. It was exactly what we needed.
The day after they got there, everything came to a head. It was Friday, the afternoon before we were supposed to go home. We were waiting for some very important papers to be reviewed and signed. Those papers were going to allow us to leave the state. The problem was that we were dealing with two different states with a three hour time difference. We had to everything ready by 5pm Eastern time. Our papers had gotten lost in cyberspace. I had two different cell phone conversations happening at the same time. I just kept watching the minutes pass. Finally at 4:50pm I had given up. At 5:15pm we got a call from the head guy at ICPC in Olympia, Washington saying that our paperwork had just popped up on his screen and even though he didn't have time to review it all, he was going to let us come home anyway.
Once again my emotions are all over the place. I was so thrilled to be going home. I was so aware of God, and his help. I was so grateful for the people He put in our path who went above and beyond to get us home. I was angry that our agency was not there for us. I was over the moon happy to see my girls again. I was a mess! But mostly I was, once again, humbled and I was more than ready to get home and sleep in my own bed.
So the next morning we got on a plane and after 15 hours and four layovers...we were home. It was well after midnight when we got home. Amy picked us up from the airport, thanks Aims! My sister was at my house anxiously awaiting our arrival.

After about fifteen minutes I heard a knock on my door, and there were four of my friends. They had been stalking my house waiting for us to get home.

One of the hardest things about this situation was that we were all alone in Charleston. Our friends and family who had been there for us from the beginning, were not there physically to experience our joy or buoy us up in the dark moments. This is when I really came to understand the power of prayer. The prayers that were given on our behalf, were the reason why we got through those nine days and the year that came after.

This past year has been R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S!  We have been dealing with paternity issues so we haven't been able to finalize. Our state has extremely liberal laws concerning paternity and we couldn't get passed them. South Carolina has their own set of laws that were keeping us from making any progress. On top of that we were dealing with the agency because they wanted us to pay the rest of that money even though we had to pay other people to do their job! Oh and Aric decided to pass three kidney stones... totally unrelated to the adoption, but still a source of serious drama.

The good news is this....are you ready...

Yesterday we got a call from our attorney telling us that the agency is going to accept our offer...the offer we gave them back in September. Just like that. We have been praying and fasting for them to soften their hearts for literally a YEAR! ...

...AND......oh yes, it gets better!

Last night at midnight EST and 9pm my time, our thirty days is over. What does that mean? You ask. Well that means that we have been publishing for the past two months. What does that mean? That means our attorney in SC has been running a notice in the paper down there, letting the birth father know that if he wanted to stop our adoption and claim Camden, he had to do it by November 30th. We still have to wait for the court down there to accept this termination, and we are still waiting to see if we are going to have to go down there to testify, but at least tonight I can sleep a little easier.

It looks like there is a good chance we might actually be able to finalize soon. I am not doing the happy dance quite yet, not until we actually have a court date. It feels like a dream, I feel like for the first time in a year I can look at my son and not be scared that he could be taken away. I can feel a little more secure with our finances, knowing that we aren't going to have to go to court with the agency.

For a moment I thought that life was finally going to be normal, but then it hit me...I don't know what normal is anymore. This experience has changed me. There were many days in the last twelve months that I wondered if this was ever going to end. I wondered if God had forgotten about us. I knew He was holding my hand while we were in Charleston, but once we got home I couldn't feel Him like I did before. Now I can see that He never left me, I was just too distracted to notice his influence all around me. Because of that, I am more prayerful, I try to be more in tune with the spirit. I am more aware of who God puts in my path. I want to be someone that He can count on when he needs extra hands to lighten another's burden.

To those of you who have stuck with me and read these four posts, consider yourself schooled. Thank you for hanging in there. I know these posts have been pretty heavy, but it was time for me to get it all out. My friends out there in blogland have been a huge source of love and support during this past year. Sharing something so personal with the world has been a little bit strange, even for me, but I hope that our story might benefit someone out there. Whether you know a birthmom who needs to know there is another option, or an adoptive hopeful who needs some encouragement. Maybe you yourself have considered adoption... whatever the case may be, I know my journey has been a whole lot a crazy...but it's been worth every single moment.

Thank you all for being on the ride with me.

xoxo