Our new SON!

I'm kind of shaking as I write this, but, my wonderful blog readers...I have a new son! Well, obviously he's not officially ours yet--we haven't even accepted the referral in writing, but we intend on doing just that. It's only been a few days, but we've already mentally added him to our family. He is a healthy, 9 month old (with huge cheeks!), who was born the day after Carson's fifth birthday. (Carson is thrilled with this fact!)

We are going to name him Asher, which means "happy and blessed" which is our prayer for him! (It's also one of the tribes of Judah, by the by.) We love his Thai name, and it will be his middle name--probably will be used interchangeably for many months (forever?) after we bring him home. I don't know if I'll change my mind later, but for now I'm gonna keep his Thai name on the private posts and just refer to him as Asher here.

We only have a few pics so far, but I'm sure you want to see them! The pictures are from December, which is a bummer, b/c he's surely changed so much since then. We have been told that the March pictures should be arriving any day. I put what we have on a protected post and the password is my maiden name (all lower case letters this time). If you don't know the password, please feel free to leave a comment on how I can message you privately, or email me at brazenlilly@gmail.com. If you want the rest of the story, come back and read below! But for pictures, CLICK HERE.

So....THE CALL. I had successfully crammed our month so full that although I daily thought about the call and carried my phone everywhere, I wasn't frantic about it like I was in March. I think that being confident we would get a referral was a COMPLETELY different feeling than the torture of wondering and then being disappointed. On Thursday, Sydney and I were at Michael's craft store when my phone rang. I had a cart full of party and cupcake supplies when I saw who was calling. It was the Holt office in Portland, which was a surprise, b/c I was expecting our contact in the Eugene office, but of course my heart starting racing. In fact, I later realized that in my freak out, I must have been holding a package of paper cupcake liners--because I found them in my purse! Holt has made me a shoplifter! (Don't worry, I returned later and paid for them.)

Our social worker, K, was the one calling. (We are fortunate to live in a Holt state, where the same agency can do both our home study AND all the international stuff.) She was super casual, and her small talk threw me off. I had completely abandoned my cart in the cake aisle and pushed Sydney into the little classroom near the front of the store. I finally said, "Should I be getting excited right now?" and she said "Yes." I was pacing the room at an alarming rate by this time. She told me she was sending me a file on a sweet and healthy baby boy. She told me the birthdate and that's when the tears came. We hung up and I rushed Sydney out of the store, b/c it was 12:15, and Trent has lunch until 1pm. We had agreed to only open the pictures if we were together, and I could NOT WAIT until 5pm. I needed to get to him! Sydney started pitching a fit that we were leaving all her birthday goodies and I broke all parenting rules and just said I would buy her a treat if she hurried. It worked. We headed to the hospital to meet Trent.

To make a long story shorter--we had some complications but finally saw the pictures together...all four of us crowded around the screen at Trent's work. The setting (kids in my lap, Trent controlling the computer differently than I would, kids pushing buttons and moving the screen) did not lend for an ideal first viewing. But when we got home, I put the kids down for nap/quiet time and finally had my mommy moment. I read over Asher's file and had a good long cry for his birth mom. We will not be publicly sharing even the little information we know about her, b/c that is Asher's story to hear first and share. But just knowing some small facts and details made me feel more connected to her and I just grieved. I wept that her loss is now my gain, and what an aching there must be in her young heart. I finally took time to look at the pictures at my own pace and tried to grasp the fact that (because there seemed to be no reason we would not accept) this was OUR SON! I will be the mother of 2 sons and a daughter. Carson and Sydney have a baby brother. He is in Thailand right now, being raised by his foster family. He has no idea what is coming. He's going to be so sad. But then, I pray, he'll be "happy and blessed." So many emotions!

Wow.

So, that's the scoop. In a couple days I'll write about how we kept it a secret from everyone so we could do a big, dramatic, surprise REVEAL (my favorite!) for both of our families at Sydney's birthday party--which was also a costume party. I think I'll wait a few years to show Asher the pictures of Trent and me in blue wigs holding his picture. It might scar him more than necessary.