Kellen’s Story: Anticipation

Since Serena contacted us extremely early in her pregnancy, we had lots of time to get to know her well and get ready for Baby.

In a lot of ways it was a REALLY hard time for our family. We experienced some tremendous family trials and lots of opposition that wasn’t so much related to the adoption as it was in response to it. Without delving too much into detail, I’ll just say that I know that Satan does not want forever families and I think a lot of what we went through was the darkness that can precede events of eternal importance. I also want to mention that the difficulties our family faced had nothing to do with Kellen’s birthfamily. His birthparents and their families are awesome, wonderful, people and I am not alluding to anything having to do with them. Suffice it to say, those months were a roller coaster, but there were plenty of good moments as well and we tried to focus on those.

One benefit of being contacted so early was that we got to experience things more in real time. Like we had the experience of wondering about gender and then the excitement when Serena told us she was having a baby boy. It was so fun to guess with Serena what we all thought she was having. And Serena was so, so sweet to give us updates about her pregnancy. She sent us ultrasound pictures, told us what foods she had been craving, emailed us pictures of her and her growing belly… I was so grateful to her for including us in so many of those details. And I’ve saved everything she sent us to show Kellen someday because I know he’s going to love reading all about Serena’s pregnancy as well.

When the time got a little closer to Kellen’s due date, we decided to decorate his room. When the boys are older, I imagine there will be times they will share a room, but we decided it would be better for both their sleep schedules for them to have their own room while they’re so little, especially since with a bit of rearranging we had the space to pull it off.

I know couples approach the time between selection and placement very differently, and I know not everyone would chose to carve out a space in their home for a baby until after the baby was officially a part of their family. I can totally understand that and can definitely see where they are coming from. For me, getting Kellen’s nursery ready was one thing I could do that made me feel connected to him and the reality of the situation. It was one of the few things I could do as an “expectant parent” that allowed me to get excited for the baby that was on his way.  

I didn’t do anything major like paint walls or buy new furniture. We moved the baby furniture out of Mason’s room into Kellen’s (Mason was thrilled with his new big boy bed). I hung frames on the wall, made a quilt, and found some adorable stuffed elephants. I picked out some cute outfits for Baby Boy so he could have some things that were all his own, not just formerly Brother’s.  

I know I’ve talked about this before, but the anticipation is such a wonderful part of any good experience, or at least it should be. Adoptive couples don’t always get to enjoy that anticipation, and it can be disheartening or even hurtful when the typical fanfare and excitement that accompany most baby announcements aren’t present in an adoption situation. Or at least not present in the same way. Even though I wasn’t the one carrying him, I adored Kellen and wanted his arrival to be celebrated. 

I decided that I would more regret NOT having gotten excited for Kellen to join our family if he actually did, than having to return some baby clothes or store the crib or hide the quilt if he actually didn’t. Not that we doubted Serena’s decision, but the reality of adoption is you do not know for certain whether or not placement will happen. In any case, in our situation, what we decided was best for us was to celebrate Kellen’s arrival by enjoying getting ready for him. So we did.

I always hesitate to write about the more difficult parts of our experience because I am SO grateful for Kellen and and Mason and their birth families. I wouldn’t change the way our boys came to our family even if I could. Adoption is beautiful. It is also HARD. And that’s ultimately why I included a bit about the less rosy parts of our story.

Some people who don’t understand much about adoption think that adoption is as easy as filling out a couple papers and then going to pick your baby up. Um…no. Adoption is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Definitely the most worth it, but please trust me on this one. Adoption is HARD.

This kind of thinking isn’t just projected onto adoptive couples, but onto birthparents as well. I’ve heard a few people mistakenly say that of the options available to an unwed expectant parent, adoption must be the easier choice. Of course any birthparent will tell you that adoption is EXCRUCIATINGLY hard. Often not just hard for birthmother’s, but for birthfather’s too. Not to mention their families.

I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent there, but I guess it’s just one part of our story that I feel is sometimes misunderstood.

In any case, we planned and prepared and we waited… 

One Month Old Already!

This past month has been the fastest of my life. Easily. I felt Mason’s babyhood went by so quickly, but I’m discovering that Kellen’s is going by even faster. So I wanted to record some details about what Kellen is like right now before he gets any bigger and I forget what it was like when he was only a month old.

Temperament- Kellen is just the sweetest, calmest baby. He was like that right from day one and while we were in the hospital we wondered if it would last. He obviously is little yet, and I’m sure he’ll be a fiery little busybody in no time, but in the meantime he is the most mellow newborn I have ever seen. He is so content and so easy to calm. He is very patient and slow to cry when he’s waiting for us to mix his bottle or when he’s experiencing something he dislikes (like a cold wipe for a diaper change). He obviously loves to cuddle, but recently loves to be facing outwards. He likes to see what’s going on around him and has grown to resist being tucked under my chin like he used to love so much at first, preferring to rest in the crook of my arm the better to observe Brother’s antics.  

Other attributes- Kellen is actually quite strong and can resist diaper changes or folding for burp with a strength that is surprising for such a little guy! And he can bust out of his swaddles like nobody’s business. Seriously, there’s no Velcro that can hold him (which can be problematic because he sometimes whaps himself in the face and then gets sad). He can hold his head up really well and seems to somewhat enjoy tummy time. He is already losing some of his hair, and the very little peach fuzz he has on his head actually has some curl to it. He has very light hair, eyebrows, and lashes which surprised us a bit since fair coloring is obviously a recessive trait and Serena has very dark hair and eyes. He has very very dark blue eyes that are almost grey and we wonder if they’re going to change color.   

Sleeping- Kellen is a good little sleeper. For the first several weeks he slept a lot during the day, but still slept well at night so we didn’t have much of a schedule going. Only recently has he started trying to wake up for longer stretches at night (the four o’clock hour seems to be his favorite party time), so we’ve been trying to have set nap/wake schedules during the day. This seems to have helped, and he’s sleeping awesome at night again. But it is NOT easy to keep him awake during the day. He can sleep through anything, he really can (the vacuum. Lizzy barking, Mason yelling at the top of his lungs etc…). It’s actually a really good thing that he sleeps so soundly (especially because our house is pretty dang noisy a lot of the time), it just makes it harder to keep him awake for more of the daylight hours . We have taken to doing bath time in the morning because that wakes him up a bit and he seems to like kicking in the water. All in all, I know we’re really lucky that he sleeps so well and it’s been nice that so far we’ve been able to align schedules so that both boys take a nap at the same time.


Eating- Kellen is a good eater as well, but we do have to work to keep him awake to finish his bottles! He is up to eating about four ounces about every two and half hours during the day, and he goes longer than that at night. He is a good burper and rarely ever spits up. This was so surprising for us because Mason was such a spitter-upper-kid! Kellen can wear the same outfit pretty much all day, whereas Mason would go though half a dozen outfits or more. It’s not a bad thing either way really. It’s nice to not have to change Kellen so much, but I have found he’s outgrowing clothes he never even got to wear because he only wears an outfit a day usually! It’s just interesting for me to notice and remember differences between my boys because really all I have to compare my current experience with Baby Boy to is what I went through with Mason. Perhaps that’s another post for another day.

Kellen takes a sensitive brand of formula since he does not seem to tolerate regular formula. We knew that his birthfather had a reaction to regular formula when he was a baby, so we weren’t surprised when Kellen had a reaction to regular formula as well. Once we switched, he was able to eat without any problems. And he is developing some very adorable chub.

Oh and he used to do this adorable thing where he would only open one eye and look at you while he was eating his bottle. It was kind of like “I want to see who’s holding me right now, it’s just that I’m not sure I can muster up the energy to open both eyes.” He doesn’t do that as much anymore, but it always made us laugh when he would just open one little peeper.

Visitors- Kellen got to meet so many birth family members while he was in the hospital, and since we’ve been home Kellen has had many visitors (and more still to come in the very near future!). It has been so fun to introduce him to friends and family. We’re excited to introduce him to many more family members in the coming weeks and months.

Kellen meeting Grandma for the first time (my mom came out to watch Mason while we were out of town for Kellen’s birth):Grandpa White (or as Mason calls him, “Pa”) came out for a visit:



Man, do we love our Kellen Kiddo. We just can’t get enough of him!

(We don’t ever sleep with Kellen, and of course he doesn’t sleep with blankets either, I just slipped him in next to daddy while they were both taking a nap because my tuckered out boys were so darn cute! )

We literally cannot stop kissing him. That perfectly fuzzy, soft, adorable little peach head!


Even Mason kisses him gently on the head quite often, usually without us every telling him to. He just loves to give Brother loves:

He really is such a good big brother, and in general is very gentle with Brother (though of course he’s a toddler and occasionally needs reminders). Mason is actually very sweet with Kellen and I’m proud of the way he’s adjusted so well.

Matching denim jackets. I die:


Well, I’m obviously still have a lot of posting to catch up on (Mason’s due for an update next; I can’t BELIEVE I’m going to have a TWO year old), but it’s late and I better toddle off.

Peace.

The Baby in the Yellow Hat

Shari made this hat for Mason Bug, and I loved it so much I brought it along for his newborn photo shoot. The photo the photographer got of M with his little impish grin ended up being one of my favorites from the whole session. I was really obsessed with that little hat and Mason wore it until I just couldn’t fit it over his cute punkin head any longer. I really wanted a picture of Kellen in the same hat and did my best to get a similar pose.

While it’s not exactly the same, I was really pleased with what I was able to capture, and I am excited to find a place to display both photos. What cute boys I have.

It is fun for me to dress Kellen in many of Mason’s old baby clothes (though I’ve also certainly had fun purchasing new outfits for Kellen too). I know they’re just clothes, but I saved all of my favorite ones hoping that I’d get to use them again someday, and thinking how fun it would be if Mason got a little brother. I don’t know what it is about baby clothes that make me so sentimental, but every time I get Kellen dressed I think about the person who gave him the outfit he’s wearing, or how happy and excited I was when I picked it out at the store, or a memory I have of Mason wearing that same outfit when he was Kellen’s age, and it just makes me so happy. I expect I’ll be re-creating a lot of photos like the above ones in the near future.

I am still working on writing Kellen’s story, but here’s just one more photo of Kellen Cutie in the meantime:

Kellen’s First Bath

Kellen’s first bath was a much anticipated event. So when his cord finally fell out, we all gathered ‘round the whale tub to scrub Mr. Kellen. We even moved the tub to Kellen’s room so we could all fit, because bathing the baby is a family affair, you know.
Kellen didn’t seem to know what to think of the whole process. He kicked and wiggled a lot, but didn’t seem unhappy. Mostly he seemed perplexed as to why we were all making such a fuss.

I love the photo on the left:

We didn’t tell Mason to kiss his brother for the photo, he just did it on his own and luckily I had the camera ready to capture it. Mason smooches Kellen’s head multiple times a day without any encouragement from us, which just melts my heart. Mason LOVES gently kissing the top of Kellen’s fuzzy little peach head. As do I. As does Spencer. No WONDER he’s already losing what little hair he worked so hard to grow!

Finally we scooped him out and dried him off:
 
And lotioned him up and dressed him in his cutest fuzzy blue teddy outfit:

I don’t know why but the below photo made me laugh out loud when I saw it. I had stepped out for a second to empty the tub, and handed the camera to Spencer who snapped a shot from the doorway. Kellen just looks so LITTLE and Mason is just absorbed in his book, totally unaware that Brother is lying on the floor looking all abandoned (though Spencer was watching them both the whole time). Even though there’s an ugly towel hanging on the crib, and an unfinished dresser against the wall, I love this photo.

And then Mason realized that Brother was on the floor all alone, so he came to keep him company and examine his teddy toes:

Cute, clean, little teddy bear. I swear nothing smells better than clean baby. I wish they smelled like that forever.

Kellen’s Story: Chosen

When we initially started emailing with Kellen’s birthmom, Serena, she told us that she was considering a few families and was still in the midst of the decision making process. So we were surprised and very excited when she told us after only a few emails that we were the family for her baby! I saw the email at night after Spencer had already gone to bed and I ran in and woke him out of a dead sleep to tell him the good news. 

We began making plans to travel to meet Serena. Our first visit went very smoothly. We were a little nervous on the drive over, but once we were chatting with Serena and her mom we felt comfortable in no time. Serena and her family are very warm people and they’ve always made us feel right at home.

Our favorite moment was when Mason reached out to Serena for her to pick him up. He put both of his hands on her tummy (totally unprompted, it was like he just knew) and just held them there and Serena said, “Look, it’s your sibling!” I think we both just fell that much more in love with Serena in that moment.

(Photos taken the first time we met Serena)

One thing that I have always loved about Serena is how sweet she is with Mason. Mason LOVES Serena, and I love that she loves him back. And I love that Natalie loves Kellen. It is so special to me that both our kiddos birthmomma’s love both of my kiddos. And I know the boys love each other’s birthmomma’s too. Mason will pray for “Natty” and “Rena” every single prayer he says. He knows who they are and he gets excited to see them. I have no doubt Kellen will be the same way. And I can’t wait for the day when we are able to get together with both Natalie and Serena at the same time! Open adoption is so cool that way. We adopted our boys, but also gained relationships with their birth families. And our boys birth families kind of adopted the four of us into their families too. It’s amazing to me the way the love of one child connects us all. It’s amazing, and beautiful, and humbling, and special, and kind of hard to put into words. It’s a miracle really, how one tiny person can bring so many others together in such a powerful way.   

During that first meeting we had asked Serena how she had decided on a family. She told us that one factor in her decision was location. She had looked at families only within a certain region. This was significant to us because around the time we were starting the approval process, we were trying to figure out if we should move. At that time, Spencer’s contract was up and we had anticipated that we would probably be moving up to a larger market. We went so far as to start applying for jobs, but we just didn’t feel good about leaving yet. We felt like we really wanted/needed to stay in Idaho. We ultimately decided that Spencer would re-sign a contract for another few years. In hindsight, we’re especially glad that we made the decision to stay because it helped Serena find us.

Serena also told us that one thing that had initially drawn her to our family was Mason. She liked the idea of her baby having a big brother to look out for him or her. I loved that. And like I’ve mentioned before, I was also so excited for Mason to have a baby brother or sister to look out for.

We came home and shortly thereafter began sharing the good news with family. These are the photos we sent to our family to announce our big news:

Gosh he looks so LITTLE to me now when I look at those photos.

We also were able to meet Kellen’s birthfather a few weeks after we met Serena. He is also a very kind person and we so enjoyed visiting with him and his family. Spencer and I were quite excited that he wanted to be involved in the process and were glad that Kellen would get to know his birthfather.

We slowly started getting ready for Baby…

Kellen’s Story: Approved

A long time ago, in fact over a year ago, Spencer and I started discussing when to start the adoption process again. We thought about it, prayed about it, and eventually decided that we would try to get approved shortly after M turned one. LDSFS requires that adoptive couples wait one year from the time of placement to be approved again (though couples can begin the approval process before the year mark, their profile will not be published until the year is up).

Deciding when to add to your family is always a personal decision, and we didn’t say a lot about it until we were well in the midst of the approval process/practically completed it I think (which, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is quite extensive and time consuming, especially when you add a busy toddler to the mix of the piles of paperwork). Therefore, the approval process took us several months longer than the first time around. Our caseworker told us that our wait would likely be longer than last time since we already had a child. We were fine with that, and decided that we would just do what we could do on our end to spread the word.  

We had our home study in the very beginning of August when Mason was about sixteen months old. The home study was pretty much the last step of our approval process and we anticipated that our profile would go live shortly thereafter. Our caseworker told us she was going out of the country on vacation right after she completed our home study, and let us know it may be a few weeks before she could get everything finished up and post our profile online. Therefore, we were surprised when our profile went live just a couple of days later. Our caseworker later told me that she had felt prompted that she needed to get our profile posted right away, so she actually did some work for us while she was on vacation with her family, something she never usually did. I’m so grateful that she followed that prompting, because we were contacted by Kellen’s birthmom just four days after our profile went live.

I know that’s really fast, and really unusual, and I know how blessed we are that things happened so quickly. I even waffled a bit on whether or not to share the exact time frame, but decided that it was an important part of our story because it reminds me just how much the Lord had a hand in Kellen’s birthmom finding us.

We were shocked that we had been contacted so quickly, but excitedly began emailing back and forth with Kellen’s birthmom. It was funny because we had only recently told our family that we were approved and asked them to share our profile before it was gone! I had even begun a blog post announcing that we were approved, but our profile was taken down before I could share it. We had several curious family members who noticed that our profile was missing and had asked us what was going on. My sister, Shari, was the first one to notice and I knew she would be! She always seems to know these things before I even tell her. We are grateful that we have always been so supported throughout our adoption journey and that friends and family have taken such an interest in helping spread the word. 

We continued communication with Kellen’s birthmomma and got excited every time we had an email from her. She was easy to like, fun to chat with, and we enjoyed getting to know her little by little…

The Adventure Begins

So how is Mason enjoying his new little brother? That is probably one of the questions we hear most often lately and something I wondered a lot about prior to Kellen joining our family.

When we found out baby #2 was joining our family, I began dreaming about the moment when Mason would get to meet his little brother or sister for the first time. I was of course super (no pun intended… ok maybe pun intended) excited about the prospect of being mommy to two little people, but I was also super excited that Mason would have a sibling. To have a buddy to stay up late at night laughing with, to race around the house with, to wear matching sweaters to church with, to get into trouble with, and to be his best friend. I wanted that for him so much. Spencer and I are very close with our siblings and we so hoped that Mason could have that kind of forever friendship someday.

When we came home from the hospital I could not wait for the boys to meet each other for the first time. Mason was actually really sick the day we got home, so my plans for a cuddly home coming had to be delayed since we didn’t want Mason getting Kellen sick. But the look on Mason’s face when he saw his little brother for the first time was priceless. He yelled, “Hi Buddy!” before running right up to the carseat, stretching out his arms, and chanting, “Cuddee Cuddee” (cuddle). Though he had to wait a few days to get in a good cuddle, Mason asked several times a day (still does actually) to “cuddee” with Kellen. We find it especially adorable that Mason gave Kellen a nickname all on his own. We’ve never called Kellen “Buddy,” so that Mason decided that that was what he was going to call Brother melts my heart

The same afternoon of our homecoming, my mom was holding Kellen and Mason ran up to him and planted a big kiss on the top of his head before we could stop him. It was so sweet I nearly died right then and there.

Mason has decided that his big brother duties include: offering Kellen stuffed animals (which we have to keep telling him Kellen can’t have, but it’s cute that he wants to share), telling us when Kellen is crying (he comes running up to us yelling, “Sad! Sad! Sad!” until we reassure him that Kellen will be ok), and running up to the side of his bassinet first thing every morning to shout, “Hi Buddy!” at the top of his lungs. He takes these responsibilities very seriously and does all of them quite well.

So to make a short answer long, I would say that Mason loves and enjoys his brother very much.

But of course, it’s been a time of transition in our house and there were a few particularly rough days at the beginning, which I think can be partially attributed to Mason’s sickness which made him terribly cranky. He is still adjusting to not having 100% of Mom and Dad’s attention all the time, and usually asks to be held and loved the moment we pick Kellen up to feed him. Overall, however, I think we are slowly, slowly getting into more of a routine and learning how to be a family of four.

In some ways this adjustment has been harder than I thought, in other ways it’s a little easier (It helps that Kellen’s such a mellow baby). If I’m being honest, sometimes I feel terribly inadequate for the task at hand; how will I raise these two perfect little boys in the way they deserve? I am learning how to divide my time between the two in the way that is best for both (but I have to admit that I feel guilty some of the time that I’m not doing it as well as I would like). But I am trying my hardest, and I know with all my heart that Heavenly Father meant for these little boys to be brothers. I know it.

And there’s those little moments along the way that make the hard parts worth it. Like tonight when Mason told Kellen all oh his own, “Uv Ooh” (love you). In those times, I can see a future for them of games of basketball in the driveway, hide and seek in the dark, campouts with daddy, and wrestling matches in the living room. I just know it’s going to be good.