Our Little Guy's Adoption Day!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just got notice in the mail of Braxton's Adoption Day! By the way, in several posts back, I talked about the best news ever.... well, his birth mom had called me and told me that she was for sure going to drop the appeal. Well, she finally did!!! The coolest thing about ALL of this, is that we get to finalize our adoption on his birthday. Hopefully we will get to seal him to us on May 17th. How cool would that be? Especially because we have had so many awesome things happen to us on the 17th. I tell all the cool things that have happened on the 17th of the month in one of my very first post's on this blogspot. Hence, the reason 17 is my FAVORITE number. By the way, for anyone that takes the quiz about me that is on this page, that is one freebie answer!!!

Anyway, I really wanted to get our adoption day on our little guy's birthday because I would really like to have a HUGE celebration for him, with anybody and EVERYBODY that would like to come. I truly just can't wait! Only about 6 more weeks now. This has been such a LONG journey. When we were taking the foster care classes I told one of the instructors that I had the feeling that we were going to adopt a little boy a few years younger then Tyra. She somewhat laughed it off, I think just so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, but then she said, "Well, you never know. Everything happens for a reason." The first little guy that we fostered was only 8 months younger then Tyra, so I had a hard time feeling like he was the one for our family. We only had him for 5 months. When our little guy came along, we actually were asked to take one of his sister's too. Plus, his grandma was working on getting a foster care license so she could foster him, so for the first 6 months of having him, we didn't think it would be him either. I think it was something internal that told us different though. As much as we didn't want to get attached to him because we knew he'd be leaving us..... how do you really NOT get attached to a sweet little one year old boy????? We just couldn't help ourselves. Well, it ended up not working out with fostering his sister and it also didn't work out having his grandma take him, so now here we are just about to adopt our little boy! By the way, his grandma is one of the neatest people I have ever met. Tommy and I both love her to pieces and are SOOOOOOO grateful to her for all that she has done for us.

Well, we have decided to put our adoption profile online with ParentProfiles as soon as our adoption with our little guy has been finalized. LDSFS did a study earlier this year. They took 50 couples who had had their profiles online with them for quite a while and hadn't been able to adopt yet and signed them up with ParentProfiles. ParentProfiles is a HUGE adoption website on the internet right now. One of the biggest. Anyway, within 3 months of being on this sight over a fifth of the couples had either adopted a baby or were chosen to be adoptive parents. Nearly ALL of the couples had had several contacts from birthmothers. I actually had almost got everything ready to put our profile on with them back in December. I only had about 2 more things to fill out, then we got a contact from a birthmom. She was one of the most AWESOME birthmom's that I had ever met. She was SO fun! Well, because of that, I thought that maybe I had better wait and see if she would happen to choose us before I put our profile on with ParentProfiles. She started to write shorter and shorter emails until eventually she quit writing to us all together. Which is totally okay, because I know that all of these spirits get to where they are suppose to go anyway. I truly do have complete faith in that, but it was really sad because I would REALLY like to know how this birthmom is doing. Whether she ended up keeping her little girl or placing her with someone else, I know that it was the best thing for the baby. She actually was originally due on April 3rd, but I have a feeling that she has had her already.

Anyway, shortly after I had decided to wait on ParentProfiles because of this little baby, that is when our social worker told us that we couldn't have our little guy's name or face on the internet. Well, that foiled all hopes of puting it on ParentProfiles. I guess the average someone's profile is seen on LDSFS's site is about 20 times a month. Well, between all of these 50 couples, from the least to the most, each one was seen about 5,800 to 135,000 times within 3 months. Health and Welfare wasn't about to have THAT happen. So, I was told that I couldn't put our profile online with ParentProfiles until our little guy's adoption was final. Either way, it all worked out fine. But I really am excited to do it! I know so many people that have adopted a baby within a few weeks or months of being online with them. Of course, I do know that when the time is right, it will happen anyway. But I figure, it could only help matters right? Plus, I absolutely LOVE having contact with birthmom's. Shonda, the first birthmom that contacted us last year in August, is now one of my absolute best friends. She truly keeps me going through all of this waiting. I wouldn't trade her friendship for the world. Heavenly Father sure works in mysterious ways. He brought us into each other's lives just at the moment when we needed each other most. I am just so glad that she kept writing to us, even after she had picked the other couple. She was surprised that I kept writing to her too. It was kind of funny!

Well, I just want to thank EVERYONE for all of your prayers. I know there has been many sent out in our behalf. Always remember that Heavenly Father only gives us trials that we are able to handle and he always makes things happen the way they are suppose to. I love you ALL and thanks again!!!