I finally admitted I need reading glasses and went on a crazy multi-week journey to find just the right contact lenses to deal with it.

Guess what? We ended up with my exact old prescription and a pre-made $10 pair of reading glasses. Which I don't use. Because I learned that the only time I need reading glasses is that moment before bed when I want to read my Scriptures or a gripping novel.

My arms are currently long enough for the need for reading glasses...will reassess when the arms get too short.

My $10 reading glasses are useless when my contacts aren't in, so I took my frames in to be updated. I had a choice between glass for $450 and plastic for $210. Plastic, please.

Got a text on Friday that they arrived. Woo hoo!

Threw the baby in the car and went to get them right away.

See, my husband is gone for work for a few weeks and I've had some 3am disasters:

Injured dog.

Baby needing comfort, but my inability to trouble shoot what the baby needed because I couldn't SEE.

Baby projectile vomiting all over my side of the bed and the side table.

Every time, I've had to stop what I was doing, put my contacts back in, and then figure things out. Usually, I'd just reach for the bedside table and put my glasses on. But I don't have them. They are getting the update with bifocals.

So the glasses' arrival was great news! I got to the eye place and they were closed. CLOSED!

But they just texted me?!?! At NOON!

So I left an angry voice mail telling them that I was waiting outside, with two other ladies as well, and they darned well better open the door.

Then I noticed their posted hours were only until 10am on Fridays. Go figure. It was Friday. I left a new voice mail apologizing for my cluelessness.

So I have to wait a few days to get those glasses. So much for them having "arrived."

I've taken to sleeping in my contacts, which I hate, but I'm tired of not being able to instantly know what's going on when I'm awakened at 3am. And the emergencies are all right at 3am. Must be some kind of witching hour.

So that's my glasses saga. Can't wait to pick them up on Monday.

  We went to "the club" on base for Easter Brunch.

It was so moving to see our reservation in print on our table. This year, God made us a Party of 3.

The Easter Bunny was well over 6 feet tall and pretty creepy. No wonder most kids were shrieking.

Sebastian was really popular with the wait staff at the club. One lady, who knows Steve from his regular lunches there, asked if she could borrow Sebastian. She took him on a private tour of the kitchens. We stayed late at the brunch and saw the staff having their own Easter Brunch together. It was like a lovely work family. Steve asked if the ladies with the bunny ears would pose with Sebastian. This is such a cute shot:

After brunch, I planted geraniums while Steve washed our cars and Sebastian bounced in his bouncer.

Then we did a photo shoot in the front yard.

I call this one, "Go Suck an Egg."

And this one, "Things That Make You Go Hmmm."

The Easter Dogs came out to roll around and give Sebastian kisses:

Have a wonderful Easter Season!

I just mailed off our new application with Sebastian's adoption agency.

I'm full of excitement and trepidation.

Excitement, because I know God has another son or daughter in mind for us. Sebastian's adoption was clearly hand-chosen for us by God and the head of this adoption agency says that she hasn't seen a single case in all the years she's doing this where God did not hand pick each child for each family and vice versa. And this lady runs an agency that places 40-50 babies a year. I know it's God's timing and I know I'm praying for it to happen this year and to finalize this year...which means it will be soon! I just can't wait to meet this baby!

Trepidation because timing is key. Steve can't leave work in the month of July...it will be the biggest, most critical and stressful month of his career so far. He will be the pivotal player in a base-wide event that will last for weeks. Also trepidation because of the cost. We had savings to pay for Sebastian's adoption. Now it's going to take loans. Debt is not something we would go for, but we feel the timing is God's. He will provide.

I'm so excited that we can touch another child's life with all God has given us. I'm thrilled that we can give Sebastian a sibling so close in age.

I'm ready to see what God has in store for our family!

I'm teaching two English classes at the local community college.

I just got this message from a student today. Before you get the urge to go off on the youth of today, this particular student is much older than I am.  I've always wondered when I'd use the acronym SMH. Now is the time.

[Edit: I guess I should point out some of why I was shaking my head over this yesterday. It wasn't the atrocious writing as sent to her English teacher, though that bugged me later.

It was the audacity of asking to take the exam again and the whiner-ness of her reasons. It was a silent test taking environment. SHE was the student shuffling papers and flipping back and forth. She had removed the staple from her exam to better see things (the exam was printed double-sided) and I thought that was brilliant of her if it would help her.

Also, I taught a study style to the students to maximize their study time and then offered up to 10pts of extra credit to the students who brought  in proof of having followed the efficient study method. 10 pts on a 100 pt exam is a whole letter grade! She didn't do it. I replied to this note that she can show me the proof later...I'm a softie for that, but I bet she doesn't do it.

On top of it all, there was an oral presentation a week earlier and this student's group members had let her down. They didn't even show up to class. I gave her the opportunity to make up the points with no penalty and gave her a week to do it. So when it came time to let her make up the presentation, she lied and said she forgot her visual aid. I told her she could still earn the points if she wrote her facts on the board while she shared her research with the class. She declined to do so.

Upon reflecting on her reasons, maybe I should suggest she be tested for Attention Deficit Disorder.]

I just saw my grade on the midterm I did study for that exam I
think that there was too much noise , lots of sneezing , papers
flipping back and fourth whispering it just thru me off if there
is anyway that i can retake that test by myself or give me
something to get extra credit to bring my grade up I would
really apprecitate it . 

 

Now that he's 6 months old, I finally made the time to post Sebastian's adoption story. Forgive me, but he's going to wakt up at any moment and be HUNGRY. So I'm not proof reading my work.

Here goes:




Sebastian’s adoption story.



We were matched with Sebastian in early August, 7 weeks before his due date. His birth mom’s name is Angela and we got to talk to her over the phone in mid-August.

We fell in love with her. She reminds me of a long-time friend of mine who is also the single mother of several kids. She loves her kids but is too overwhelmed for another one. Angela loves dogs and was excited that we planned on always having dogs for our kids. Angela was also a precocious reader as a child and tested at college level reading while in 6th grade. Because Steve and I are so bookish, I loved knowing that Sebastian could inherit the book-loving gene.

Steve and I both informed our jobs that he was due in late September and that we were braced to receive a call that Angela was going into labor. We anticipated meeting a relative or two of hers at the hospital, though we knew we had a two-day drive ahead of us when we received the call that she was in labor.

Things didn’t happen as planned.

We celebrated Labor Day Weekend with good friends who drove in from Austin and Albuquerque. We had no idea that Sebastian had already arrived.

That Wednesday, just as I walked through the door to start my shift tutoring at the local community college, I got the call that would rock me to the core. A lady from the adoption agency launched straight into news that didn’t compute. The baby had been born on Friday, September 2, nearly a week earlier. The baby was in the NICU because of a traumatic delivery and had also swallowed meconium. The agency worker went on and on about the fact that the baby was expected to be in the NICU for a few more days, but they assured us that the baby would be fine.

I was a bit in shock. This was not the scenario we were ready for. Finally, I came to my senses with the question we’d been wondering about for weeks, “Is the baby a girl or a boy?”

The adoption lady was shocked at my question. Hadn’t she said it already? Well, if she had, I didn’t hear it!

I didn’t know how to tell Steve or to ease him into the news, so when he answered the phone, I blurted. “The baby is here. He was born on Friday. Angela didn’t call the agency until late Tuesday, a few days after she’d been released. He’s in the NICU, but they say he’s going to be okay. We have to go to Nevada. When can you leave work?”

We left the next morning. We each scrambled all day to line up people to cover us at our jobs. We called the friends who were going to house sit and dog sit while we were gone and they were happy to be here on short notice. They asked how to pray for us. I have no idea how I answered! We packed into the night and I did all the baby laundry that hadn’t been done yet. We left for Nevada after breakfast.

On the drive, I read What to Expect in the First Year out loud. We had no clue what we were doing and I hoped to have a clue by the time we arrived. The book helped!

We had a lovely dinner at an Indian restaurant in Flagstaff. I’m amazed we could savor food in the middle of our universe changing like that! It was so yummy that we ate there again on the drive home.

We arrived in Las Vegas after lunch on Friday. The plan was to sign the paperwork, go meet Sebastian at the hospital, and then hang out all weekend until they released him from the hospital. Angela was going to sign her relinquishment on Thursday, but we got a call that morning that Angela had asked for another day to let the adoption soak in. We were told this was common and that it was best to let the birth mom have a day or two. They feel like they want to control something because they sometimes feel cornered into the adoption by their circumstances. Allowing a birth mom to postpone for a day gives her a sense of empowerment and helps her come to grips with her decision emotionally. We weren’t worried; that was fine. It would give us a day to get used to our surroundings and find a place to stay while we waited out our time as the interstate adoption paperwork was processed.

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the adoption agency to sign, there was new news. Angela hadn’t shown up to her signing that morning. In fact, she’d disappeared. The agency wasn’t sure why she wouldn’t answer her phone or return any text pages. They thought she may have changed her mind. We couldn’t sign our paperwork until she signed hers, so we left, we called friends and family for prayer, checked into a hotel on Nellis Air Force Base, and then Steve gave me a tour of “The Strip” just to keep ourselves busy.

Late Friday night, Angela called her case worker. She wanted to sign. It was now going to have to wait for Monday.
Steve and I spent the weekend praying, touring Hoover Dam, watching movies in our hotel room, exploring the Strip, and going to church. Meanwhile, the friends who were house sitting for us had activated two prayer chains. Our families were praying. My Bible study leader was a great source of support and prayer. My facebook page was exploding with support. Still, we trusted that Angela would show up on Monday.

She didn’t.

She disappeared again. No one knew where she was and she didn’t answer her cell phone.

We found out that Child Protective Services had some old, outstanding issues against her from a few years ago. They caught up with her when she was in the hospital. The baby was put on a police hold, and it would take a judge to release him. He would either be our son or put into “the system” as they called the foster system. Prayers increased.
Then we also found out that Angela’s biological mom had shown up in her life a couple of days after she gave birth to Sebastian. She hadn’t raised Angela. She hadn’t been involved in any of her grandchildren’s lives. And yet she was trying to talk her daughter into keeping this baby. When Angela finally insisted that she needed to give him to an adoptive family, her mother tried to get custody of him herself. She tried to get him out of the hospital. She tried to get the courts to give him to her.

We stuck around to wait for the Tuesday hearing that would decide Sebastian’s fate. Our adoption agency got permission to attend because the adoption was all but complete and they wanted to speak up if they had the opportunity. Angela did not have to be at the hearing. We prayed she would be.

She showed up in court! And she publically stood up to her mother, which took a lot of bravery.
We were going to leave Las Vegas after lunch on Tuesday if Sebastian was going to be a ward of the state. One o’clock rolled around and we still hadn’t heard. Friends are family were texting like crazy. All wanted the news. We got a call around 1:45. It was short and to the point.

Angela had signed. We needed to get to the hospital IMMEDIATELY.

We thought we were meeting the baby and signing paperwork. We didn’t know they were sending him home with us. He’d been out of the NICU since Saturday and they needed us to take him. The hospital tested him in his car seat, taught us infant CPR, and sent us on our way. I think you could describe us as shell shocked!

We became his parents when he was 11 days old. Our son.

We were staying in quarters on base that didn’t allow children. The housing for families was booked through the end of October, and it was early September. Still, Steve asked the people who ran the quarters if something opened up. It had. Just for us. And they were so touched that we were adopting that they gave us the first night for free! It was amazing. $40 a night was a huge help compared to the costs of a suite off base. Go God!

We fell in love with Sebastian right away. It started with that sense of awe, "You mean, we're responsible for this amazing little human being?!" And then grew. Within a week, a bond grew. Within two or three weeks, there's no way you could have known that life without him had ever existed. We simply can't fathom life without Sebastian.

Getting used to parenting was an adventure. Bathing him in the tiny efficiency’s kitchen sink made for some hilarious photos. People commented about there being a toaster in the shot labeled, “Sebastian’s first bath.”

We read in the “What to Expect” book that it is healthy to have outings daily and not to hole yourself up with a newborn, so we ate out once a day and went for walks at twilight. There was a lovely walking trail on base.

Steve has an old high school friend who lives in Las Vegas these days. When she got home from an international business trip, we went out to eat. Steve mentioned that I was craving Asian noodles, so she chose the noodle restaurant in the Bellagio, a huge, gorgeous hotel/casino/resort. I was new to the whole diaper changing thing at diaper changing stations, and Steve’s friend Lisa wanted to help. So she jumped up from our dinner table and scouted the bathrooms around us to see if she could find one with a diaper changing station, so we’d be prepared when it came time. She returned successfully from her mission just in time for me to need to take care of a dirty diaper. I stood up, and she directed me to cut across the casino to the restroom with the diaper changing station.

As I cut across the smoky casino, newborn in my arms and diaper bag slung over my shoulder, a middle aged man was heading straight towards Sebastian and me. He was weaving. He was visibly drunk. I was ready to give him a wide berth when I saw him spot the baby in my arms. He was so stunned to see a newborn that he tripped. As he recovered, he got a huge grin on his face, peered at Sebastian and said loudly, “VEGAS, BABY!” And so Sebastian had his first nickname: Vegas Baby.

After a week or so, we went to lunch with Angela and her grandmother, Sebastian's great grandmother. Angela didn't spend much time with us. It was very difficult for her. I respect that very much. But her grandmother, who raised her, was an utter delight. She had two adopted sons herself and she knew better than anyone at the table what was up. We still keep in touch with her via letters and phone calls.

Parenthood is an amazing experience. It’s every bit as wonderful as we imagined. Before, I understood the wonder in theory. It’s entirely different in experience and reality. We pray nightly that we will be good parents to Sebastian and we trust that God will help.




Note: Though a birth mom can change her mind and keep her baby, what we went through to adopt Sebastian isn't normal when you adopt through an agency. A birth mom receives unlimited counseling with an agency and they won't match a baby with adoptive parents until they believe a birth mom's decision is very solid. There's always a chance she'll back out, but it's not usual. When adoption happens with a baby broker, there's a greater chance that the birth mom will be all over the place because a baby broker just connects pregnant girls with adoptive parents, but does nothing else for the birth mom. It must be the toughest decision on earth.