Elephant Nursery in Aqua and Ruby

I thought I would post some pictures of Kellen’s little nursery! The boys rooms are my favorite rooms of the house and where we spend a good chunk of the day. We have some of Mason’s toys in Kellen’s room to keep him busy (and out of trouble) when I’m changing or feeding Kellen. Admittedly, the floor is usually strewn with books, toys, and clothes (especially socks since Mason is obsessed with them and goes through about a dozen pairs a day). But this is what the nursery looks like when it’s all tidied up.

Above is the quilt I made for Kellen. We were also VERY excited about that extremely large elephant. We found him at Costco and Mason steals him every chance he gets and wrestles him to the floor. The little elephant is one of Kellen’s special toys. Serena has a matching one that we gave to her on placement day. We take his picture with it every month to show how much he’s grown!

(1 week)

(1 month, already chunking up!)
The other beautiful quilt you see there was made by Mason’s birth grandma. Pretty much all of the furniture is from my parents and was used by Mason when he was a baby. And that cute little outfit hanging up in the corner there? That’s from my Mom. She knit those little long johns using a pattern she made up herself! …Or maybe she bought it at Target. It is my favorite outfit that Kellen owns and he wore it for family pictures. Long johns on babies are adorable, for pete’s sakes.

Here are a few detail shots of the room:

Those frames are one of my favorite parts of the room. I don’t know why, but I do love a cluster of blank frames.

I made all of the artwork hanging on the wall. I was going to post the digital copies, alas, they were saved to the computer that died. I still want to put up a few more photos, but here’s what is on the wall currently:


The cute little elephant at the bottom is from Serena. She picked it out for Kellen because she used to have one just like it. Josh picked out some of the books sitting on Kellen’s shelf. He loved Dr. Suess when he was little and so he picked out a few of his favorites for Kellen. It makes me really happy that when I look around Kellen’s room I see pieces of the many people who love him.  

I think that about concludes our tour of Kellen’s little abode. Maybe I’ll have to post pictures of Mason’s big boy room next.

Kellen’s Story: Arrival

This part of the story has been the hardest part for me to write. It’s hard to know how much to share without sharing too much. But I think it’s finally ready for me to hit publish.

February 19th started out as a fairly ordinary day. Kellen’s official due date was in early March, but Serena’s doctor thought that Kellen would probably come early, so we were kind of expecting him to come any day. We had our bags packed, house cleaned, nursery set up, and everything all ready to go for when the time came.

Wednesday morning we were out running errands when we got the call from Serena telling us she had been admitted to the hospital! She had gone to the doctor for her regular check up, when they discovered that the baby was pretty much on his way! We rushed home and hurriedly loaded bags in the trunk, grabbed snacks, cameras, and placement day presents, all while making phone calls to the friends and family members who had agreed to help out (watch Mason, puppysit Lizzy etc…). Within about twenty minutes or so, we dropped Mason off at our friend’s house and we were on our way!

We got periodic texts as we drove several hours to the hospital. Serena’s labor was progressing so quickly that we wondered if we might miss it. But things slowed down right as we got to the hospital and we were happy to see that Serena was doing well and was fairly comfortable when we first got there. We had fun chatting with her and her Mom while we waited for Kellen to arrive.

I know this picture is a bit blurry, dang it, but look how happy she looks! That girl is one tough cookie, let me tell you.

Well, we waited and waited. Finally the time came for Serena to push and, bless her heart, Serena pushed for over two hours! It was very humbling, to say the least, to be in the delivery room watching her struggle to bring Kellen into the world. Serena is such a strong girl, but it was hard to see her in so much pain. Because Kellen was face up, labor was not progressing and they decided to do a C-section. Serena invited me into the operating room, so I suited up:

I didn’t dare watch what was going on on the other side of the sheet because I didn’t want to risk passing out, but I got to see Kellen when they first held him up all wrinkly and new.

I met Spencer in the nursery and our smiles quickly faded as we realized that Kellen wasn’t doing very well. He was not breathing on his own and we watched as nurses struggled to help him. We must have looked on the verge of tears because one kind nurse came up to us and told us not to worry. She said that there weren’t any doctors or nurses running, so that was a good sign.

Looking back, it’s weird to me to think about just how long we watched the nurses try to help Kellen. It was like time was suspended. When we were talking with Serena the next day, and piecing together the events of the previous night, was when I realized just how long we had watched Kellen struggle. It was a period of a few hours, but at the time we were so consumed by the present moment that time just seemed to stand still.

Finally, we were told that Kellen was going to have to be transferred to another hospital. This was alarming for several reasons. Of course the primary concern was for Kellen’s health and condition. But secondly it would have meant that Serena wouldn’t have gotten the time in the hospital with him that she had planned on since they would be separated. Of course, this was devastating. She asked for Kellen to get a blessing, and her dad came to the hospital and he and Spencer gave Kellen a priesthood blessing. Kellen’s condition began to improve rapidly and, one of the nurses commented on how it was like he was a different baby entirely. Kellen was able to stay where he was, but he did have to remain in the NICU for forty-eight hours. We were so grateful that he was doing better.

We stayed in a hospital room “overnight” meaning we only slept in there a couple of hours/laid in bed awake waiting to finally be able to meet Kellen. Finally, Thursday morning the three of us went to the NICU to finally hold Baby Boy. It was so good to finally hold him and see for ourselves that he was doing better. He was cute as a button, but poor little guy was all covered in wires. At one point, he even had an IV in his head, but even though the nurses reassured us it wasn’t any more uncomfortable in that part of his body, it just looked scary..





That first day, Spencer got to give Kellen his first little bath. Kellen had quite the audience through the NICU window! Though you can only see a couple people, there was a whole little crowd of Serena’s friends and family who had come to the hospital to see her and Kellen.

Serena and Kellen were in the hospital for over four days. We spent a lot of time at the hospital cuddling Kellen and visiting with Serena. We tried to find a balance of spending time with them and enjoying their company, but letting Serena have time with Kellen and an opportunity to rest and recover. We mostly felt very honored to be included and tried to be supportive as we could be but also give the appropriate amount of space. We were able to meet several friends and family members who came to visit Serena, and were touched that we got to meet people that were special to her.

(Kellen with his birthfather, Josh)

Kellen’s birthfather and his family also spent a good amount of time at the hospital, and it was wonderful to spend time with them as well. I have many good memories of all of us crowded around the hospital room just visiting and admiring Kellen. Spencer and I both agreed that those times with all of Kellen’s birth family were so special. It was very touching to watch Kellen be held and cuddled by various birth family members. He is loved by so many people.

The hospital staff were truly awesome. We had many conversations with Serena about how nice many of the nurses were. There were a few nurses in the NICU that we especially appreciated because they were so sweet and so good with Kellen. Most of the nurses seemed familiar with adoption situations like ours (in fact there were at least two other adoptions that took place at that hospital during the time we were there) and I think their understanding of adoption made the whole hospital experience run more smoothly for everyone.  

We were so grateful that we got to have that time with Kellen and his birth families in the hospital. Serena let us be a part of a very personal, very sacred time of her life and that meant everything to us.

Eventually it was time for us to go home…

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.