So lots of exciting things have happened since Christmas in the Oakley house. Baby Oakley received his or her first presents this year for Christmas. Gran and Paps gave us a sock monkey rocker (OBSESSED), baby blanket, and first Christmas books.
Then Blake and I did a little shopping of our own. Okay so ever since we started trying I have really wanted the Britax Cowmooflage infant car seat. So a good friend over Christmas break told me that she saw the car seat at Essex in M'boro. We were at Bristol at the time so we couldn't go at that moment to get it. So once we got back from Bristol Blake happened to go to the Essex in Mt. Juliet and (que the lights and trumpets)......they had it. We immediately went! I don't know if you have ever been to an Essex but WOW!! As soon as I got in the door an overwhelming feeling started to come over me. We found our way to the baby isle and there it was in all its glory! This is one of those moments were we became those inexperienced people standing in the middle of the isle trying to figure out the ins and outs of this car seat. We kept looking at each other and saying "Are we really going to do this" (saying this over and over again). And sure enough we found ourselves leaving the store with the car seat and a SWEET stroller. EEKKKKKKKKK!!!
Sooo suddenly this became real to us. For the rest of Christmas break we were on the GET ALL OF OUR HOME STUDY PAPER WORK AND CLASSES FINISHED ASAP mode. We spent hour beyond hour watching educational videos and filling out endless amounts of paper work.
This is nothing people........
And this is how I felt after......
But after many, many, many hours and days...we had finished!!!!! And then we mailed our little packet to our social worker.
At some point I began to work on our portfolio book for our adoption agency. One would think "okay, this is easy just putting pictures in a book and tada you have your portfolio". Think again. This has been something that has taken tons of emotion and thought for myself. These will be the first pictures that our birth mother sees of us our family and friends, the first words that she reads about us and how thankful we are for her, and the book that will help us to be chosen and lead us to Baby Oakley. It has taken much thought and time and I am still not even close to being finished. This portfolio will also contain our first letter to our birth mother. (Insert Tears...buckets if you will). I haven't been able to write our letter yet to our birth mother. I am usually pretty good with writing letters. I get that from my grandaddy who I owe every A to from any high school paper that I needed help in writing. He just has an amazing way with words. But with this, how do you possibly put into words how thankful we are for this women? We love her so much already and we haven't even met her. We are in awe of her and the difficult decision she will make to give her own baby up for adoption. All she wants is a loving family to take care of her baby, a baby that she loves enough to give him or her a loving home and an amazing future. Speechless and typeless.............
On another note.....We had our first interview this week with our social worker. To prepare for this visit our house became organizing, child proof locks, and painting central. Looking back now it is funny to think about all the crazy things we did that were completely unnecessary. I am pretty sure Blake hates child proof locks now. Love you honey!! But everything went great. I took the day off on Wednesday to tidy up the house and get ready. I woke up that morning a nervous wreck. I am not sure why because deep down inside I knew it would all go okay. But I guess I was just having a moment. Our appointment was to start at 6:00 so you can imagine at 5:30 that evening any kind of noise we heard outside or if Bailey barked I was getting up to see if it was her. 6:00 came and she had arrived. She was precious and so nice! First things first, the tour of the home. We started in the nursery and she began to tell us what she would be looking for...smoke alarm, fire extinguisher, where we kept our medicines and cleaning supplies and she wanted to see the back yard.
So it began....at the end she did not look through any cabinets or closets or drawers. And of course I wanted to open up everything so she could see how organized we are. Not necessary..AT ALL. Then she met Bailey. We were nervous about this because Bay tends to bark for a bit around people she doesn't know. Then she gets use to you and wants all 85 lbs. of her to sit in your lap. So we let her in and she did great. One little grrrrr and then moved on to her bowl of food.
After the house tour it was time for questions and answers. It went great. She made us feel so comfortable with all the questions. And it was so nice to just be "US" and open up to her. So at the end she told us we did great and wanted to schedule our last interview. We were thinking it would be a few weeks and then she said "what about next Thursday". ALL RIGHTY......awesome....great!!!!! So next Thursday will be our final interview. Then we have about two weeks after that to be approved. Which means three weeks until we apply with our Adoption Agency in Nevada and wait. We are READY!!!!
So far we have been INCREDIBLY blessed throughout this whole process. We are so thankful for the amazing support that all of our family, friends, co-workers, and preacher has given us throughout this journey. We are fulfilling God's plan that he has for us and our family.
We are humbled.........We are grateful.............. We are ready.............
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