more about friday with the birth family

It's been a crazy week. Thank you to all that sent emails, texts, and messages. Thank you to anyone that has been praying for us. Please keep it up!

I had such a great time getting to know our birth family on Friday. I am thankful for the time I had with them and look forward to more time together. It was funny because on Friday I was definitely in the hot seat. They wanted to know more about me that they didn't know. They asked how we planned to handle different aspects of the adoption. They wanted to know names that we had picked out. I just kept answering them the best I could and then thought, "I have no clue if that what you wanted to hear, but that's the truth so I hope you like it."

A match meeting is like a job interview but way worse. It's like a first date that you are really into and you have no idea if they even think you're cute. Well, it took them 2 weeks to decide they wanted a "2nd date" with us. We are all committed to each other at this point, but it still isn't final until relinquishment paperwork is signed and that cannot happen until 72 hours after birth of the baby (at the earliest). There will probably always be a little bit of caution we use when talking with them. Things feel really comfortable though, which I think is a really good sign. We look forward to moving further into our relationship with them.

It sounds like they want the adoption to be really open. We do too. I think the sound of "open" can freak people out at first. It did with us too. A year ago we would have told you we wanted more of a closed adoption with minimal contact. After taking classes, reading books, talking with others we will tell you now that it doesn't scare us for them to have visits with us. It doesn't bother us one bit that they want to be part of her life. It doesn't make us nervous that they love her a lot already. In fact, we are thrilled about these things. We know how amazing it can be for our baby to have access to her birth family. It can be healing for baby and birth family to know that the other is growing and well. It gives us an opportunity to love God's people. The benefits far out-weigh the negative aspects.

We believe that we are called to this ministry of adoption. We look forward to building relationships with people that are connected to our children by blood. We will navigate those waters as they come up and will have to rely on God for strength to get through it. We are excited about having a very strange and uncommon relationship. Isn't God great!? Clearly this is not us talking from our own strength, but rather His encouragement that our lives can impact a whole family of people.

Big Week!

This week has been: tiring, scary, exciting, encouraging, , wonderful, etc. etc. etc.

Wednesday we got a call from the pregnancy counselor. She told us that the birth mom we met that wanted more time to think and consider her decision wanted to match with us. She said that she definitely wants to place for adoption and she loved us. What? Did that just happen? Yes. It did.

Recap: We had that wonderful match meeting 10 days prior and thought this was our dream come true, happily ever after with a birth family. Then we waited and waited and waited. Then we got news that she was struggling with the decision to place for adoption. Then we found out she does want to place for adoption with us. Yay!

After getting that news we were in disbelief. We were also very guarded. We already felt hurt by the situation because we want this so badly. It took a lot of processing and talking about it with each other. Cameron and I spent time reading the Bible together and trying to wrap our heads around it. For us to match with this birth family means that we have to be vulnerable again, which felt scary since we knew the decision has been hard on them.


Before I go any further I'd like you to consider how huge this decision is for this family. They are deciding to choose another set of parents to raise their child. Of course that is hard for them and they have every right to struggle through that. They even have every right to decide to parent her when she comes into this world. That would, of course, be devastating for us but it's the truth and we're being honest here. 

Moving on with the story... we decided to match and move forward with this family. Then they invited me to a girls day out with the family so they can get to know me better. Cam wasn't allowed to get his toes painted with us!

I spent the day with birth mom, birth grandma & great grandma, & birth mom's little sisters (so I guess aunts, but they are really young.) We went and got pedicures. Then we went and ate a huge lunch and dessert at Applebee's. Then we went for coffee at Starbucks. When we headed out to get coffee I called Cam and he met up with us. We also got to meet birth grandpa for coffee too. (We didn't meet birth dad since he was at home with the two little ones while birth mom got to have a girls day out.) The whole day's events took about 6 hours. It was an amazing day.

We talked about what things will look like when baby girl is here. I heard countless stories about the baby's big brothers and sister and what they were like as infants. I heard family back grounds and things that are important to them. I learned about what birth mom's other pregnancies have been like. We chatted about traveling, church, movies, football (that was more Cam than me), walking/exercising, and anything else that came up. Today was a good day. We love that we are getting to know these people that will be where our child has come from and that she'll grow up knowing them too. There are so many people to love this baby. There's so much I could say about today, but this is long. If you're still reading- thank you for hanging in there.

Today was a great day.

So, friends, get ready. We are expecting our baby girl in a few short weeks. She is due September 13th, but will more likely come a few weeks early since this has been the trend with the other two little ones. 

busy day

On Monday I was waiting for the roofing guys to get here to get started on our brand new roof. Woo! Funny, the things that excite an adult. But while I was waiting I thought I'd bake something. I have been making blueberry scones this summer that are DELICIOUS and I love scones. I fancy myself a scone connoisseur. They have been requested several times by my husband. I decided to make scones, but that wasn't exactly what I had in mind while I was stuck at home waiting for them.

Then I remembered that my sister, Lindsey, sent me a link with a recipe for english muffins that she has used before. I figured that since I had never made english muffins at home that I should definitely give it a try. I am not very experienced with baking with yeast. In fact, I have ruined entire recipes requiring a lot of ingredients and hours of time (we refer to that as the "orange roll fiasco of 2010") because I guess I killed the yeast or something. Who knows. It irritated me and I haven't tried using yeast again in 10 months.

Monday was the day though. I ended up using my Joy of Cooking recipe for the english muffins.

Rising... I don't like waiting for them. 

Cooking on the griddle. 

Cooling on a rack. 

 mmm.... delicious. 

This was definitely my first time doing this and there are things I'll do differently next time. I'm so glad my sister got me thinking about doing this.

While I was waiting for the dough to rise I had time to whip up some simple and tasty blueberry scones. I use this recipe and add blueberries. The possibilities are endless as far as the types you could make.

I love that it uses things you have on hand already, except the blueberries. 

I like to make the scones small so I divide the dough in half and make 2 rounds. That way I can eat two scones and it's really only one. :) Also it's better for sharing them if they are smaller. You can give the love to more people when they are small and you have twice the amount. 

These are dangerously yummy. Just ask my brother in law, Dain. I think he ate four or five in about 10 minutes when he had them with us. 

In case you're wondering, the roof didn't even get started on Monday due to the 40% chance of rain. Go figure that I'd plan a whole morning at home for nothing. Well, I guess it wasn't for nothing. Baked goods are something. Have a lovely day! 

sad but hopeful

We have been patiently awaiting the news of whether or not we would be getting matched with the birth mom we met last week. We knew there was something wrong considering she kept needing more time to sort through things. As far as we have been told, she liked us. She really liked us. The connection we were feeling was felt by her as well. I have found rest in that fact.

Well, birth mom wants to do some more "decision-making counseling," which means she wants to receive counsel from the agency and explore what it would look like for her to parent her baby girl. They will go over budgets and look at all areas of life to help her decide if she can parent. This counseling will take a couple weeks for them to have meetings and for her to make any major decisions. We are thankful that she didn't "match" with us and then decide to explore parenting when baby girl is in the world. That would have been far more traumatic for us. So, what does this mean? It means that we move on. I say that with sadness in my heart. There is a chance that if she decides that she wants to place her child for adoption that we could be called if birth mom wants us to parent. It's never over until relinquishment papers are signed.

At this point, we have to move on. I know that may sound harsh or seem like we didn't really care about this baby in particular. You have no idea the amount of love we feel for each baby that might be ours. With that we also feel a tremendous loss and heart ache when the possibility is taken away from us. It's exhausting. This adoption is unlike anything we could have prepared for.

We are hopeful. We know God knows the intimate details of how our family will be built. He is faithful to us and we are trying to do all we can to be faithful to Him. We are hopeful. We found out that there is a Sedona birth mom that will be getting our match letter this week. Her baby is due in August, in less than 3 weeks. Who knows... maybe that baby will be ours.

thanks for reading. thanks for praying. thanks for caring.

A Day Not About Me

The day started with banana walnut muffins from Luci's. We piled into the car and headed up north. 

We made a pit stop to see the World's Largest Kokopelli. 

Clearly, this was a must. 

Then, about 3 hours later, we found ourselves in Williams, AZ. 

bex, gabby, and me

I think that train would take you to the Grand Canyon if you wanted it to. That is why a lot of people go to Williams. The other reason is the awesome Young Life camp that is there. 

We made our way to the YL camp, Lost Canyon and checked in.  

This week at Lost Canyon, they were hosting YoungLives, which is the teen mom ministry. My good friend, Veronica, is a leader with YoungLives and that's how I knew about this opportunity for me to go up there. The scenery is beautiful and the camp is relatively new, so it's really nice up there.

   

The girls spend the week up there with their child(ren) and with their leader. They participate in all the activities from the ropes course to messy games to zip line and everything in between. They take childcare workers up there so the girls can leave their children to go have time to... be kids, I guess. They also listen to a speaker share a message and then they have "cabin time" to discuss in a small group about things they are learning and going through. All these women heard about Christ's love this week and had an opportunity to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. (I think all the girls that Veronica's group had up there accepted Christ, which is amazing!!!!)

After almost a week of playing hard, getting messy and having tough discussions with mentors, these ladies got to enjoy a spa day experience. They got facials, massages, manicures and pedicures. This is something many of these girls would never get a chance to experience. I got a give manicures to some of these girls and chat with them for a half hour. It was an honor to be up there. It was an honor to spend the day doing that. I hope they felt God's love for them through people serving them in this way.

Was this the best manicure someone could have given them? No, I'm no professional and won't claim to be. I tried to be kind, gentle, and do the best I could. I think I gave 10 manicures yesterday and I was abundantly blessed by the end of it. The day wasn't about me. It wasn't about how I was feeling about our adoption situation. It wasn't about the things on my to-do list at home that I felt like I should be doing. It was a nice reminder that everything is not all about me. 

We ate dinner at a pizza place and met a bear. Then we headed home. 

On the way home we sang 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and made it through the whole thing. I'm not sure I've ever done that before and maybe you haven't either. So, if you're wondering how long the whole song takes to sing I'll share that with you. It takes 16 minutes from start to finish. I thought that would have taken up more of our 3 hour drive, but I was wrong.

It was a wonderful day full of reminders that God is big and great and He has so much going on in this world. Things are not all about me. Have you had a day like that where you were reminded of how things aren't all about you?? Please share, I'd love to hear about it.

So... we got a call today from the pregnancy counselor. The call wasn't the great news we were hoping for. It wasn't terrible news either. I guess it was just news (maybe a little bit "bad"). I'm rambling, I know.

I guess birth mom needs more time before making a decision to move forward. I'm not sure why. I am not even really sure about what she was saying on the phone because time started standing still and I couldn't really gather my thoughts enough to ask all the things I really wanted to know. She also was being very vague on purpose. I did manage to ask if they were questioning whether or not they wanted to make an adoption plan. She said that was not the case (phew) but they need time to work some things out. I think that's what she said. It doesn't really matter exactly.

I know what you're thinking: How dare her make Kim wait longer. I know you're thinking this because I thought it too. (notice how cam wasn't included in my thought... it was all about me.) I'm not really sure how I took that news that we would now have to wait until Friday to maybe get an answer. (My thought was, & I think I said it out loud, "You have got to be kidding me!) So, I'm not sure how I took it. I guess I just took it. I have a lot of choices in this whole adoption thing, but when it comes to getting semi-bad news, there are only a few choices to make: head up and take another step OR freak out. You can't move forward while freaking out, so if you choose the latter then you are just prolonging the movement. It's a nasty cycle.

After getting the news today I was cleaning my house and just thinking about things. I felt very strongly that the Lord kept reminding me of a verse and I just kept repeating it as I vacuumed.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 
Philippians 4:12 

We are trying to have God's perspective and focus on His will for our lives. We may not understand it, but we trust Him. Please continue to pray for us. We need a whole boat-load of peace right now. Birth mom needs guidance in making her decision on this. By the way, we are thankful if birth mom wrestles through these decisions and figures all this out before we become formally matched, so we know that this part of her process is very important, even though we don't know exactly what the hang ups are.

On a lighter note... Tonight we celebrated an anniversary. It has been 1 year since we met our best adoption friends, Whit and Ally. They are the wonderful people that listen when we complain.  Ally is the wonderful person that listens when I complain. They have been very special to us since they seem like they are the only ones that understand exactly (or close to) how we are feeling. We celebrated this anniversary with a dinner and chocolate pie at our house. It was wonderful.

Our 1st and hopefully last picture of us before becoming parents. Whit and Ally are matched with a birth mom that will be having her baby in 2 weeks from now. 

Chocolate pie is yum. 

Cameron couldn't wait for them to arrive so he sat at the table and began sneaking appetizers. I had to cut him off, but I did think it was funny that he was sitting at the dinner table by himself. 

We are so thankful for Whit and Ally and our friendship. I know you'll read a lot more about them because they are so important to us. It's late now and I wanted to post since I knew you'd be wondering. 

We are so glad you wonder. 

magical...

We had our match meeting with an awesome birth-mom today. Her mom was there too, so we met birth-grandma as well. We don't know the outcome of the meeting yet (matched or not matched) since birth-dad wasn't able to be there and she wants to include him on the decision. We felt really good about that and admire her for showing him respect in including him. We are anxiously awaiting the outcome to see if we will be matched with her and start growing our relationship with her.

I said that we were hopeful for a connection with these people that surpassed our wildest dreams. I wanted it to be so wonderful that we could only call it magical. If you joined us in praying for that, you can consider your prayers answered. It was unreal how many things we had in common. We laughed a lot, shared a lot, and found out that there are lots of things that overlap and intertwine between our family and theirs... more details on that if things move forward. I didn't know how to ask God for this connection in words, but I believe that He knows my heart and knew all the things I truly desired from this.

We met her in the waiting room since we were all a little off schedule. I was so nervous and then I looked up and she shook Cameron's hand and smiled at him. Her smile calmed me down so much. She went in with Christine (the pregnancy counselor) and we got called in 10 minutes later to begin our meeting.

I can't remember all the details of how the meeting went or all the questions that were asked from both parties. I do know that leaving the meeting, I learned some really important things:

• Her children are loved deeply by her. This leads me to believe that she is taking wonderful care of sweet September girl. She spoke proudly of the children she has at home and we got to see pictures and everything. Again, lock up your boys. This girl is going to be gorgeous! 
• Family is extremely important to them. Both birth-mom and dad are very close with their families and see them regularly. Birth-mom has a close relationship with her mom. The fact that our families rock was one of the reasons she chose us. Way to go, fam! 
• Birth-mom has a big heart. She shared some really sweet and wonderful things. It was really special for us to spend time with her and hear some of her story. We feel blessed to have had the opportunity to be a part of what went on today. 
• It is important to her that the baby is raised in a house that loves the Lord. She had been working with a family through a private adoption and didn't feel comfortable because they didn't love Jesus. This was really important for us to talk about as well. We thought, "Love Jesus and raise your kids in an environment where they get to know God and understand His truths.... CHECK!"

To conclude the meeting Christine prayed for us and in her prayer she thanked God for the connection we were having. That was neat that she saw it too. Her role is to facilitate conversation, if needed. Well, she really wasn't needed for that purpose since we were hitting it off so well. I was really glad that she felt the connection in the room. We left telling Christine that we definitely want to move forward with this birth-mom. Two hours went by while we were in there and it felt great. 

So.... what did we do next? We went and got a margarita! This match meeting it was much more celebratory than last time. We enjoyed some delicious dinner at America's Taco Shop and it was happy hour... bonus!! 

Keep praying for her decision. We can't wait for Wednesday and will keep you posted on what we hear. Thank you for the time you have put into this up to this point. We are thankful things went well today and we take a step forward hoping it brings our little baby home soon. 

Just a reminder about this baby: it's a girl due September 13th. 

Graveyard Shift

This week Cameron is starting his new shift for the year. He will now be working in a different part of the city and his hours will be from 8pm - 6am. That means my low-man-on-the-totem-pole husband got the lovely graveyard shift. It's really strange to wake up or be awake for my new day when he hasn't yet slept for yesterday. I think it makes him mad when he comes home and I'm up already. What can I say? He's the one that married an early bird. If I recall correctly, when I married him he was an early bird too. I know he'd rather have a daytime shift over graves, but we are going to make the best of our reality.

When preparing for this shift change, there was quite a bit of frustration over it on Cameron's part. He was frustrated mostly over the part of town he'll be working in because it's not quite as busy with "fun" stuff. I took that time to think of a list of positives for this graveyard reality. I was really proud of myself when I could come up with one he couldn't refute. Here's what I came up with, in no particular order:

1. We get to eat dinner together. With his last schedule we only ate dinner together 3 days a week. 
2. He gets to come back to Sunday Dinner. He couldn't come for over a year and this is a really special family dinner we do with my mom and that side of our family. Our niece, Taylar, has been asking for a long time when he'd get to come back since she missed him. A few weeks ago she asked her mom when Uncle Cam would be coming back and she told her "just 2 more weeks." Taylar said, "That's not a lot!" We are all pretty excited to have him back at this family tradition. 
3. You don't have to wear sunscreen. My husband shaves his head, which leaves him susceptible to major sunburns on his head in the AZ sun. He liked this one. :) 
4. It won't be as hot. He liked this one a lot too since he wears so much gear. 

I think those were the only ones I could come up with that he couldn't find something wrong with. He's worked 2 nights of it now, and he's had a great time. I'm thinking he'll really like it when he's into the swing of it. The only concern is how his body will deal with the wacky sleeping schedules. We'll just have to figure out the details as we get into it. 

Lots of people look at me really concerned when they know that my husband works at night. They often ask me how I deal with it. To be honest it doesn't bother me. I rarely get spooked by noises in our house. I am a great sleeper, so that's not an issue. I always tell people and remind myself that we'll just make it work. We can't worry too much about how many issues an opposite schedule could bring up. We just have to take a step forward and work with it. I do, however, wonder how it will work when we have a little one. I will be braving four nights a week alone with the little one. That will be interesting but I can't wait for those sleepless nights. 

***Tomorrow is the big match meeting day. Don't forget to pray for us and the birth mom. I think it would be really strange to sit on her side of the table and try to decide on parents for the little life inside of you. I know this meeting can be is always stressful. I know that I will be sweaty and red-faced and shaking. What a lovely sight for the possible mother to your unborn child! Thanks to Christina for buying me deodorant before our last match meeting. Her daughter, Bailey, tells her that "Miss Kim needs deoder." You two are so thoughtful. 

I'll keep everyone posted about how it goes, good or not quite as good. 

crib sheets

I went to help my sister in law paint her living room a while back. As we were setting up to paint she got out old sheets to put down as drop cloths. I looked over and she was opening up this gorgeous Pottery Barn flat sheet that they used to have on their bed that I had always loved. I'm pretty sure I gasped and grabbed it from her hands. I then told her I would be taking that home.

I decided that I would make a crib sheet out of this queen size flat sheet. I used these directions and got to work. The one queen sheet made 2 crib sheets so I was even happier. Having lots of sheets will be nice when they need to be changed often, but we also have a toddler bed in our nursery for our little friend, Bailey, who comes over during the school year while her mom is at work. This way we can put the sheets on if we want it to match or we can mix it up with the white sheet with orange stripes that we have. Which is more likely for me to do: match the sheets or mix it up? Always go with random in my house- mix it up is much more likely and way more fun!

Here it is with some little friends in the crib. The owl was something I made as well (Thank for the idea, Pottery Barn Kids). The frog is one my Grandma Pat made many years ago. I know it looks a little loved and that's because it was. I think it's wonderful. The pig is an awesome JellyCat from Melissa to our little baby. More nursery project pictures to come!

phone call

So, we have a little bit of news. Our match letter went out last week (or the week before- hard to keep track) to a few birthmoms. Cameron and I didn't think it was very likely for us to be chosen by 2 of the birthmoms due to details that we knew about them and the situations (use your imagination since it isn't important why some wouldn't choose us). We thought that if any of the 3 would choose us it would be the one who has a baby girl due in September. 

Earlier this week we got a call that we were chosen by that birthmom. Can I get a WOOO HOOOO!!?? That means that she wants to meet us. We have a meeting on Monday, July 18 at 2:30 to meet this new birthmom. This meeting will be for us to sit down and talk, get to know each other and then decide whether we will move forward as "matched" with one another. 

A lot rides on this meeting and we couldn't be more excited about it. We are also terrified, nervous, happy, giddy all at the same time. We continue to remind ourselves to trust God in what He is doing. We continue to hold our heads up and take the next step each time something comes our way. 

Please join us in praying for our Monday meeting. Pray for us that we would portray us and our lives in a way so that she can see who we really are. Pray for birthmom that she would feel peace about placing her child into our arms. Pray for God's provision and His will in the whole thing. Of course, we are praying for a magical connection with her and that it would be easy, seamless, wonderful, etc. Obviously we realize that our situation is bred from brokenness and we will continue praying for God's healing and miracles in our lives and everyone involved. We are hopeful for magical. 

summer fun

We (Cam, my mom,  my step-dad, and I) went on another hike. We didn't get lost this time. It was great! We went to a Kachina trail, which is north of flagstaff. It was a beautiful day and the trail was gorgeous. See for yourself. 

Hiking this trail reminded me of a few summers ago when Cam's buddy, Mike, was visiting us. We hiked a trail that meets up with this one. We hiked for a long time (13 miles or so) and we were starved when we were finished so we went for a victory dinner at the Flagstaff Oreganos. We have such fond memories of this trip with Mike, so when we did this trail (only about 8 miles) we planned to go to Oreganos again. It's a great tradition, if you ask me. Any reason is a great reason to go to Oreganos. We love that place!! 

Hiking this summer has been a lot of fun and has given us some quality time with one set of our parents. Plus it's just a nice change of pace from the regular routine. 

bassinet

We have a great family. That is no mystery. It's big and messy and wonderful.


We have a very generous family. It been awesome to be second or third to have babies. We get awesome hand-me-downs and things to borrow from our siblings that have children. Check out our amazing bassinet that we are borrowing from my sister. 

It is adorable and I cannot wait to put our little pumpkin in here. I also love that I'm borrowing this big piece of furniture and then it can live at their house again when our baby is in the crib. This is just one of the many things they've lent to us. Love them!! 


Yay for borrowing! Yay for family that buys awesome stuff! 

the ending of an era

I've been very blessed to have wonderful friends in my life. There are two in particular that have a very special place in my heart. We have known each other since 7th grade at Phoenix Christian. We went to school together for 6 years. We parted ways in college and went our separate routes while keeping in touch. We now all live in the back in the valley and are all married. We run in different circles, but make time to have our famous "girls breakfast" at the marvelous La Grande Orange. 

It has been a blessing to know such loving, kind, creative, smart, funny, genuine, God-fearing women. There is something sweet about a long friendship. A special bond is formed when your history is long and your memories are many. That bond is set in stone going through braces, boyfriends, Young Life, bad hair,  and the list goes on. 

I mentioned that it's the end of an era, and I did because our Jessica is getting ready to become a mother. She is the first of this trio and we had our last official "girls breakfast" this week before she has her beautiful daughter. Our chats will be forever changed as we become moms, but our connection will only deepen. 

Jessica (&baby), Bex, and me at LGO 

there's no place like here

I saw this quote today: There's no place like here.

Where I am right now (pre-mommyhood) is a place I will never be again. I have tried to really cherish the moments of being a married couple, being free of most responsibilities, and just being myself. I have even tried to "enjoy" not having what I have desired to have for such a long time, a son or daughter. I'm not sure that enjoy quite fits what I'm trying to communicate so don't think I'm doing any dances about it over here.

Cam and I have reinstated the date night, which is just one way we have relished the fact that we are not yet parents. We have been going on dates again for the past several months. This got tossed to the wayside when we bought our house in January 2010 and then I went half time at work that fall. There were more dollars going out and fewer coming in. Well, we have taken it back and it's been amazing. We have tried restaurants we've always wanted to. We get dressed up. He even has gone and bought me flowers and then came to pick me up at the front door. It was really sweet. I often look over at my husband and tell him that I'm so happy it's just the two of us. I remind him that I'll long for these days when they are gone.

I have also really enjoyed my summer of being just me. I definitely don't have to go anywhere in particular most days. I have some money to do a little shopping since I'm not buying diapers and formula. I have spent several days lying on the couch reading books. (my favorite of the summer so far has been Divergent.) I have been working on lots of projects around our house, which I'll post pictures of soon.

It's been good to be right where I am. I am continually trying to remember that. At times I do give that over to they way that I think my life should be, rather than walking in God's will for my life. There's no place like here. One day it will change and I'll never return to right where I am.

ps. We had our matchletter go out to a couple birthmoms at the end of last week. If any of them choose us, we will hear. If they don't choose us, we won't hear anything. We are praying for some phone calls. Please join us in praying for these women as they make life decisions. As always, please pray for our baby.