We are excited to share that we are adopting a child!
The standard questions we are asked often are, “Do you have children? How old are they? Do you want more children?” We are usually pretty honest with our answers and let people know that it wasn’t in the plan for us to only have one child at this point in our marriage. Through our honesty and confession about the stirring to adopt, God brought specific people into our lives to give us a word of encouragement and others who pointed us in the direction of New Life Adoptions. Through these friends and Rachel's medical diagnosis, God has made the path toward adoption very clear to us. We are eager to follow His lead.
Adoption is very expensive. In order to make adoption a reality for our family, we are inviting others to financially and prayerfully partner with us. The exact amount required by the agency is $24,000. We also have up to $1,750 in additional fees that will be given to the attorney once adoption is finalized.
Any money donated beyond this amount will go towards formula, diapers, clothing, and other expenses related to the needs of our adopted child.
We appreciate your financial partnership greatly.
Thursday night, Rachel noticed some slight chest retractions while baby N breathed. We took him to the pediatrician the next morning who suggested we go to Texas Children’s to get further evaluated for heart problems. Because we’re under supervision by our agency, we had to call DFPS to file a report on the situation. Adoption has all kinds of different elements to it that are vastly different from having a biological child, but every bit of it is worth it.
We spent 27 hours in the emergency room monitoring him and getting a plethora of additional tests done. It’s still crazy to say that we were stuck in there for 27 hours!!!
EKG normal and echocardiogram normal. Negative for Covid, RSV, and both types of flu. He was on a heart rate/oxygen monitor the whole time and all numbers were continually solid whether crying, feeding, sleeping, or awake.
We concluded that he either has a random virus and is going to be well soon or his baseline breathing looks different than typical but is fine for him. He’s been sneezing a bit and coughs on occasion but nothing significant. He is a big time belly breather and has a uniquely shaped chest which also makes his breathing look worse than it actually is.
We are so tired but truly thankful to know that he is okay. We hope to never have to enter a pediatric emergency center ever again but are so glad to live near Texas Children’s.
Please pray that if it’s a virus it doesn’t progress. At this point since he was monitored for so long, the likelihood of it getting worse is low. We’ve had some amazing opportunities to practice loving on and bonding with this little one which is good for our souls. We pray that he will grow up knowing just how much he is loved by us. We’d do anything for him.
In contrast, we’d been a bit hard on Hudson since coming home the first time due to exhaustion and being cooped up for so long. Going back to the hospital was a good time for us to reflect and reset our approach. In a way, we are thankful for the grace filled opportunity to try again. We are all better for it.
Ironically, Hudson fell off his slide and hurt himself. He’s going to be okay, but we were concerned for a bit. He’s not one to milk situations so when he said it really hurt, we knew he was telling the truth. Grateful to be avoiding the ER with this one. What a week we’ve had!!
Hopefully our next update will be all positive things. We haven’t had a chance to write down Hudson’s reaction to meeting baby N. It was so precious.
Please continue to pray for us. This hospital bill will set us back a bit. We know God’s got His hands all over us. It’s all worth it. 🩵
Here’s the FULL story 🩵
We arrived at the hospital at 8:30am on Friday and waited nearly 3 hours before Rachel was called into recovery to meet birth mommy A and baby N. She was the only one allowed back, but birth mommy A felt it was taking too long and baby N needed to meet Rachel to start the bond ASAP. She is so kind and intentional and truly loves baby N. Her aunt was with her and took Rachel aside to thank her for giving baby N a loving home. It was another moment filled with joy amidst sorrow. Her words were incredibly touching.
Chad and a case worker were finally able to meet him an hour later. We were given our own room and even got 3 free meals a day (each!) The awesome people at our agency also got us and birth mommy A some Chick fi A and Cane’s.
Baby N spent most of the time with us. He is just the sweetest, chunkiest little bundle of joy! Our arms ached because they were empty for so long, and they are now aching (literally) because they are SO full! There’s a lot of him to love. We are overjoyed that we get to be his mom and dad.
Birth mommy A spent several hours with him alone on day 2 and feels peace and confidence in her decision. However, it’s still very hard. She’s walking through a season of grief. We were grateful to speak with her, meet her brother, and hug her. We witnessed firsthand just how much she loves him. She was so appreciative of the time. She handed him back to us and told us “congratulations” while we all shed tears together.
Birth mommy A didn’t give him up- she gave him life, love, and a family she knew could care for him in ways she couldn’t. She holds a special place in all of our hearts. Little fun fact- it’s best to say “made an adoption plan” rather than “gave them up”!
Baby N had challenges with a fast respiratory rate but tended to settle when lying on our chest. As of Sunday, he showed some improvement but wasn’t able to be discharged. Rachel had a long and much-needed cry over this. All his other stats were totally normal so he did not need to go to the NICU. Our awesome agency reminded us to try to cherish the extra time with just him as we will never get it back when we go home to Hudson. It was helpful for bonding, too. Grammy and Grandpa Chris came by to meet baby N and bring us more clothes and Torchy’s Tacos. We had a nice visit with them which lifted our spirits.
We were so eager to go home but were told first thing on Monday morning that we would not be going home yet again despite his breathing being in the normal range. He received a chest x ray and blood work which all came back normal. His breathing rate continued on a downward trend, and with the reassurance of the tests being normal, we were finally discharged on Tuesday by our favorite pediatrician- Dr Garcia. We prayed so hard for her to come see us, and we literally cried tears of joy and relief when she walked in the room.
Our hospital experience was overall amazing, and we are so thankful for the amazing staff and especially the nurses who were all in kahoots doing all they could to help us get home!! We are so thankful to be home as a family. To say we are exhausted is an understatement. We are praying we will be able to feel some reprieve now that we are home.
He spent some more time with birth mommy A before she was discharged on Sunday, too. She did terminate her rights, and he’s officially placed with us. However, our agency is considered the conservator until finalization in July. When the agency visited us after going to birth mommy A’s home to sign the papers, they brought us the sweetest wrapped gifts from A’s mom and aunt. They bought gifts for baby N AND Hudson. The agency said it’s very rare to receive gifts from a birth family. We can’t tell you how touched we were by that gesture.
Baby N makes the sweetest newborn sounds and is just so precious. We hate to cover up his sweet face, but we will get to share his face, birth stats, and name once we finalize in July!
We have many more things to share including baby N meeting Hudson, N meeting one of his biological siblings, his home visits, and more. We will continue to share the remaining adoption happenings through finalization.
Please continue to pray for God to provide for all of our needs and to comfort birth mommy A as the first week is often the hardest. We are still blown away at her sacrifice. Choosing to carry him in her womb for 9 months knowing off the bat she’d have a c-section is truly brave. Words will never express our gratitude and admiration of her.
We’ve been blown away by God’s provision thus far and are continuing to trust Him to provide for the remaining balance. We’re still waiting to hear back from 5 of the 9 grants we applied for. Thus far, we’ve only received 1. Despite that, this page has paid a huge portion of the adoption already, and we seriously cannot thank each of you enough. Baby N coming to our home was not possible without you. Our hearts are filled with more gratitude than you know.
Well- we won’t be going home today. We are getting conflicting info based on which pediatrician is here.
Despite him clocking in at 48 breaths this morning and having only 1 higher reading (68) at 3:30am in the past 24 hrs, she wants him to have a bunch of tests done and won’t release him today. She hadn’t even checked him when she said it which frustrated me. This is a photo of him getting a chest x-ray done.
Doomsday thinking has me (Rachel) feeling like we’ll be here til he’s 8 months old. He’s continually making progress and overall seems fine. I’m okay with having tests done, but this is overall discouraging.
Pray for the situation and for our hearts to have peace. Also pray for my neck, back, and shoulders. He was almost 10 lbs at birth, and I’m hurting so much from holding him I’m a little shaky. Being so small myself is making it harder. I love him so much and am not letting it stop me from caring for his needs, but it does add a level of hard to this overall frustrating situation.
Please also be in prayer for Hudson as he’s really missing us. He sounded sad on the phone today when I told him we couldn’t come home yet again. He said, “okay. I love you” in the sweetest sad voice. Broke my heart.
On a lighthearted note, the little baby sticker we put on baby N’s face has given us a good laugh.
Baby N arrived in the morning on Friday but is still having trouble keeping his respiration rate in the normal range. We really hoped to go home today but will not be able to.
Everything else is fine, and he is not in need of the NICU, but until he consistently stays in the normal range, he can’t be discharged. Please pray for God to touch his little body and make his respiration settle. We are so thankful to have him with us, but we are so very tired and discouraged.
We’ll post a longer update with all the fun details soon.
We wanted to thank y’all for praying over our last requests. Not long after posting, Chad finally received the insurance info.
Today is the day we get to meet our boy! We are currently waiting for baby N’s arrival alongside Sandi from New Life.
As we reflect on all that’s happened to make this possible, we are filled with many emotions. Joy and sorrow are both felt.
Adoption is beautiful, and yes, we are gaining a new baby. But our gain is birth mommy’s loss. Baby N also experiences this loss. We shy away from acknowledging that newborns experience emotions beyond “feed me” or “change me”, but they do.
Our biggest prayer requests are for birth mommy to feel comfort as she transitions away from being so close to baby N. We also ask for prayer for baby N as he wonders why the comforting voice he’s known for 9 months is no longer present.
We will update again on Monday as we want to be fully present with baby N through the weekend. 🩵💙🩵
