Get the BABY Already!

It is TIME to meet that baby boy!

Kelly and I headed down the hall and before we knew it, we were in a small reception room with a baby...OUR baby! I remember seeing him through the doorway before we entered the room. My brain thought "there's a baby" but my brain had not yet caught up with it all yet and I hadn't really thought "that's our baby."

Baby Blake was in this room with his foster mom, Danna - "Nanna" to Blake. His foster dad was unable to get away from work.

OK....so the last picture I saw of this little baby was probably taken when he was about 2 days old.

As you can see by this picture - he is all scrunched up, red, puffy - very fresh looking. I knew he wouldn't look like this when I saw him, but I had not imagined how beautiful he would be. I had not seriously thought through what he would look like and how much he would have changed. Boy was I surprised!

My first thought about my son...he is so beautiful. I knew he was the same baby as we had seen in the picture - I guess you could say I recognized him, but just imagine how much prettier a 5 week old baby is compared to a 2 day old baby. I just stood there half laughing and half crying (OK, make that 10% laughing and 90% bawling my head off!) looking at him in amazement. I just couldn't not believe that HE WAS OURS! Danna finally had to sort of hand him to me and say "do you want to hold him?" I couldn't believe that I hadn't just ripped him out of her hands to start with! I think I was in shock.

I think Kelly and I spent about 5-10 minutes in that small room before we went to introduce him to the world. Danna gave us a bunch of stuff for Blake - papers and goodies from the hospital. Danna had made a scrapbook for us from the time she got him through this day. She had tons of pictures of him - many times laying on the scale she had. She had many notes about things he liked and disliked and how his health had been for the first 5 1/2 weeks. It was so awesome to have this record of events. It made taking care of him easier and it also made such a precious gift to let us know how Blake had spent his first few days. After reading Blake's story over several times, it finally sunk in on me how much work Ken and Danna had done for us. They had gone through all the tough times of figuring out his schedule, finding the best formula for his tummy, all the tough stuff. They say that babies don't come with instructions - but ours sort of did! (I wish I had a set of instructions for the toddler years!) Our case manager gave us a few more instructions and told us how the next part of the day would go. Several other staff members wandered in and out of the room with congratulations and well wishes. It was an amazing moment.

I held Blake first, then Kelly, then Kelly let me carry him into the big room where everyone was waiting to see him.


Here is the picture of when we walked into the conference room. The door we came through is back in the corner of the room blocked by Kelly in this picture. One of the funniest things I remember is hearing a "whoop" of some sort when we were first spotted through that doorway before we ever came into the room. I think it might have come from Mary Chris, but I'm not sure. Following the "whoop" came lots of happy sounds and many sniffles. I introduced our son "I'd like you to meet our son, Blake Andrew Morrison...(sniff sniff giggle giggle)....and he's just perfect!" Danna had him dressed in a precious little outfit that was white trimmed in blue. It said "Angel Baby" on it and had a pair of wings sewn into the back. Blake having been her 53rd foster baby - she knew what an angel a baby is to an adoptive family, so it was a perfect outfit.

We walked to the grandparents and let them get their first hugs and kisses then Blake was passed around to our friends. After the first wave of all that settled down, we sat down with Blake and had a ceremony of sorts. Both of our case managers talked to us and shared thought and blessings with us. Several other staff members spoke and then everyone there (I guess there were about 30 or so of us there) gathered around our famiy of 3 and prayed for us. It was a very special moment. I'm thankful that Wade was there to video tape it because I know that I zoned out a few times! What a day!

Our fellowship time continued while Kelly and I did our last bit of paperwork. When we returned, I gave Blake his first bottle...or should I say OUR first bottle. Thankfully, Danna had made up a few bottles for us for our trip, so I didn't have to mess with too much on that. But talk about an audience! My word! I had the world critiquing my every move! You've never heard so many people tell you how and when to burp a baby. It was hilarious. How many other moms are on such display for their firsts with their new baby? Before we left, Trey wandered in (since he was in school out there) and Chet and Anne Bogle also were there as they were in Abilene doing family stuff. That was just that much nicer having more friends from home there with us.

It was time to head home, so the entourage followed me to where I changed Blake's diaper before leaving. OK...so..this is the first time that I will have been able to actually do my own confirmation that this is a boy baby. I wanted to take longer than 2 seconds to confirm my siting, but the "oh watch out he's gonna spray you" jokes began and so I really didn't get to look at Blake's boy stuff very long - other than to just see that it was there! I know that may sound odd, but it's a critical thing to check out! Again...the "helpful" hints continued as I changed his diaper. Off we were to Fort Worth.

More later.

(Earlier tonight, I had typed up this entire post, with many pictures inserted, and finished the story, only to mess it up and lose it all. I hate being dumb! I was so upset that I couldn't recover my work, that I'm not going to finish tonight. Sorry to draw this out another day.)