Sweet Baby Boy

I realized that as of yesterday, we've had our sweet baby boy for exactly a month and I'm just now updating the blog! But let me tell you, there isn't much time for blogging with an infant in the house! He's sleeping peacefully now but its almost time for him to get up - so I'm going to make this quick!

After being licensed for 2 weeks, we received a placement! We had always believed the call would come in the middle of the night, so after we were licensed we went to bed each night wondering if the phone would ring that nigh and we'd wake up as parents!

The call for baby boy came around 12 noon on the Friday before Labor day! Titus was on his route and I was picking up lunch with my assistant principal. They called Titus first and then they called me. I ran out of the restraunt so that I could hear what the placement worker was saying. She asked if we would be interested in caring for a 5 month old, African American baby boy. She gave me some information, I asked a billion questions and finally I said, "Yes! bring him!" (I knew without talking to Titus that he had definitely said yes).

Seven days later (we had 7 days to prepare!), baby boy arrived at our front door with a big toothless grin and we've all been smiling ever since! He is super cute, full of energy, and very loved by us.

It has taken some adjustment entering the world of Foster care/Adoption and also becoming parents. We have lots of visits by our agency and by CPS. Lots of appointments and lots of paperwork. All of this in addition to still maintaining our jobs and both of us taking our grad school classes. But God is our strength! Every night we collectively thank the Lord for each other. Our family is uniquely designed by God and right now, all three of us are just basking in His love!

I can not tell you how many times I look into Baby Boy's big brown eyes and think to myself, "Oh, Lord, now I understand why" . I feel like I can not adequately or poetically express what I mean, so I just have to say it bluntly. If Titus and I had been able to conceive a child, Baby Boy would not have come into our lives. Having him here is worth all the pain and confusion we struggled with  through our infertility.

Now, I have to warn you. I have turned into a very protective Mama Bear, and Titus is worse than me. We legally can't publish his name or photos on the internet and I will not share his personal information or the details of his case online. But I do want to keep you updated on the general process as much as I can.

Baby Boy's birth mother has a year to follow the parenting plan CPS has made for her. In the meantime, CPS is actively searching for family members who can care for Baby Boy.  If his birth mother's rights are terminated and they can not find family to care for him, Baby Boy will be legally free for adoption and our prayer is that as his foster parents, we will be given the chance to adopt him.

I know that this all seems extremely hard and, believe me, it is. A day doesn't go by without me thinking about the possibility of him not being with us permanently. But as much as I love him, I also want what's best for him. I don't just think of Baby Boy as he is now,  happy and content in his new home with us. I also think of his future and the pain and confusion he will likely go through as he gets older and begins to understand that he is adopted. Adoption is a wonderful thing but it is still a result of loss and although Baby Boy will know us as his parents, he will also likely feel some pain or confusion as a result of his loss.  As a parent, I want to spare him from pain as much as I can.  So we are trusting in GOD to do what is best for Baby Boy and also what is best for us.

I know that many of you have heard Laura Story's song, "Blessings" - I can't tell you how many times I'd be driving home from someone's baby shower or a dissapointing doctor's appointment and that song would come on  the radio. I'd just cry and drive and by the end of the song, I had hope to get me through the next one. So I thought it would be appropriate to end this post with the lyrics to her song.

We love you, and we will keep you updated!!!

Blessings - Copyright © ℗ 2011 Laura Story

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We're Licensed!!!!

We received word from our agency today that we are officially licensed!! Yahoo!!!!  I haven't been able to write about the past two weeks but if you are among our church family, you already know the full story and prayer request about getting the fire inspection completed by August 17th. We were concerned that we wouldn't make our deadline.  First the Fire marshal didn't receive the request, then it was resent, then our payment couldn't be found. It was all very frustrating but through the prayers of friends and family, God intervened and we had the inspection done within a few days!! Everything in the house was in good shape and we passed! Praise the Lord! 

After the fire inspection was completed on Friday, we received a WONDERFUL surprise on Sunday! The members of our Sunday school class gave us a SURPRISE baby shower!

We just thought we were going over to another couple's house to hang out and have dinner but when we walked in the door, our sweet sweet class jumped out and yelled, "SURPRISE!". They showered us with toys, clothes, diapers, wipes, dishes, bottles, books and lots of love! We were so blessed by everything they did for us and for the children who will come into our home.

We were shocked!

The cake was delicious! 

They showered us with toys, furniture, clothes, diapers, wipes, dishes, bottles, books and lots of love! 

At work on Monday, it was so hard to concentrate!  I couldn't stop thinking about the shower and I kept planning out in my head how we would arrange everything. We rushed home from work and put everything in its place! These are the most recent pictures of the nursery. We have tons of stuff from the shower that we still haven't put away.

WE LOVE YOU IRONSMITH CLASS!!!!! 

So what happens now???

We wait. 

We will keep you posted...

Love, 

The Browns :) 

Home-study....Done!

We just finished our home-study and we think it went really well! The home-study worker was extremely open, honest and nice. She was close to our age, married for 8 years, no children of her own, but she and her husband have fostered over 20 children! So you know I asked her a gazillion questions and she was so gracious to answer every one of them.  She was so encouraging to us - she understood our desire to adopt and gave us so much hope. As she was leaving she said, "Ya'll take care, and I'm going to look for YOUR names on the list the next time I'm on call to place a baby!" So I think that maybe, hopefully that means we passed...unless something comes up when she submits our interview to the agency. The home-study wasn't as bad as we thought but they do ask a LOT of very personal questions! They even wanted to know about some of you! What a blessing it was for us to be able to brag about the closeness we share with our family and friends. We have a GREAT support system and we thank God for all of you!


If everything goes smoothly, we are getting really really close to being done. We have submitted all of our paperwork and now we're waiting for a fire inspection (with Dallas county...who knows how long that will take) and we SHOULD know by next week if we passed our home-study.


For those of you who don't know, we have opened our preferences to a sibling group of 2, ages 0-3. So we could have TWO kiddos running around here. PLEASE PRAY FOR US! Seriously - please pray! When the excitement dies down and the reality hits, we're gonna need those prayers!


Thankfully, I can finally rest for a minute .... we've been cleaning up and organizing since we got the call on Sunday. Titus put all the child locks on the cabinets, only to find out they weren't the right ones! So we had to store all our cleaning supplies on a top shelf in the laundry room. So now, any time I wash a dish, I'm going have to stand on a step stool (you know how short I am) and grab the dish-washing liquid from way up there! All Titus and I could do was look at each other and say...our life sure is about to change around here! Other than that, she was so thankful and impressed at how prepared we were! She doesn't have to come back to check a thing!


We'll be on vacation soon  - maybe our last "childless" vacation, so we plan to enjoy ourselves! Please pray for traveling grace and safety! We want to come back well and ready for a placement!


We love you all and we'll keep you updated!

Announcement

Dear Family and Friends:

Many of you are well aware of the struggles we’ve had trying to conceive.  We laugh whenever we reflect on this story but seven years ago, after being married for about a year, we purchased a home with a ready-made nursery (how convenient)!  We bought a crib, filled the room with stuffed animals and proceeded to go about our happily married, busy, kid free life, enjoying every moment while also looking forward to the day God would send our little Baby Brown to us.

So we waited…and waited…and waited.  At first, we were never really “trying” to conceive, but we definitely weren’t doing anything to prevent it.  Then, after about a year of not getting pregnant, we started wondering if something was wrong.  

To make a long story short, here we are seven years later  and after many tests and consultations, a couple of surgeries,  lots of hope, lots of frustration and LOTS of prayer, we have made the decision to extend our family by fostering to adopt -  and we couldn’t be more excited about it!

You may be asking, “Are you giving up? Have you tried this remedy…or that procedure…or this treatment”??

We were advised to try In Vitro Fertilization, as it would be our best strategy. However, the two of us never felt a sense of peace about going in that direction. We want to make it abundantly clear that we make no judgements about the use of fertility drugs or fertility treatments to help a married couple to conceive. Every couple’s circumstances are different and each couple has the right and a duty to follow God in whatever opportunities He provides for them.

We wholeheartedly believe that God can and does work miracles through the brains and hands of doctors. But we didn’t feel that IVF was God’s plan for our family.  In fact, after our last conversation with our doctor, we simultaneously said to each other, “Let’s just try to adopt” – and that sealed the deal. God had long since placed adoption on our hearts: in a soft whisper at first, then a gentle nudge and finally a strong yearning.  

We don’t consider adoption to be our Plan B. Our adopted child will never be the “next best thing”. Adoption is God’s Plan A for our life.

Once we honestly opened our hearts to the possibility of adopting, it seemed that God began to reassure us (almost daily) that this is the path He chose for us.  Everywhere we looked we noticed something that directed our attention to adoption…a TV ad, a radio commercial, a song, a book, an adoptive parent, an adopted child.  

I (Gabby), have a need to know the ins and outs of anything before I’m all in! So I started reading books on the subject and after each book I would give a brief synopsis to Titus. He didn’t need convincing, he was in 100% - but I could tell that his heart was happy to finally see a smile on my face and to know that I was excited about it.

We didn’t share our thoughts with very many people, as we wanted to be sure that we were clearly hearing from the Lord and were not swayed by the opinions or concerns of the well meaning people in our lives. We know that our family and friends love us and want the very best for us, but we also know that we are called to be obedient to what God has asked us to do with the gifts, talents and resources that He has given us.

So here we are! One day after our 8^th wedding anniversary and about a month into the foster to adopt process. One of the suggestions from our agency was to keep an adoption journal. So we are using this blog as a way to document the entire experience while also keeping our family and friends updated on the process. We hope this blog will answer many of the questions you have.  We also hope that through our story, other couples who might have been considering foster care or adoption will be inspired by our journey and pray about whether or not the Lord is leading them in that direction.

Please check back for updates and prayer requests!

Love,

Titus and Gabby

This was taken at our 2nd Pre-Service Training Class