Ever since I can remember I have wanted a little girl named Jane. I think I've liked the name since I was like twelve or something. I have thought of my baby Jane for so long that sometimes it still feels like a dream that she's actually here. She a real, living, breathing person. I have a baby girl and her name is Jane.
You guys! Disney is right. Dreams to come true.
Years into our battle with infertility and many years after deciding that I love the name Jane I discovered that it means "God's gift" or "God is gracious." I couldn't think of a better name for our little girl.
The one thing that I always had a hard time with the name Jane was thinking of a middle name. Jane seems to have become THE middle name. It goes well as middle name with basically every single name ever. But finding a middle name for it is no easy task. I could never find one that fit just right. I always knew she'd need a middle name too because both her first and last name would be short.
For those of you who have followed my blog recently you'll probably know that I've recently been obsessed with bravery and courage. I truly think that these traits are among the very greatest of traits that one can have. So, many many months ago (because I think about names a lot, even when its really unnecessary due to lack of potential adoption of any sort) I had decided that I wanted my future Jane to have a good and strong middle name. One that signified bravery in some way. And then Angela came into our lives. Angela is Jane's birth mother. We love her so! She is one of the bravest women that I've ever had the pleasure to know. It soon became clear that Jane should have her birth mother's name as her middle name. And so we decided to name our sweet baby girl Jane Angela. I hope she will always remember that we gave her this middle name so that she can always remember the great courage, love, and sacrifice that it took for Angela to make her decision.
We later discovered that Angela means "messenger of God", which fits her just perfectly as well. We feel that she's a really special little girl and that she did come with a message for everyone around her and that message is that God is real, he loves us, he hears us, and he speaks to us. I think everyone involved in this adoption can say that they have heard this message through this sweet baby girl.
And now I'm guessing that you want me to stop blabbering on about her name and tell you how she came to be a part of our family?
Back in early December I kept having this little tiny feeling that a daughter was coming into our lives soon. I didn't know how soon, but I kept feeling it.
Then, on December 19th we received our first email from Angela. It was a pretty basic email telling us her story and stating she wanted to get to know us better because she had been thinking of all of the different options for her baby. She said that was browsing the LDS Family service adoptive profile website and that our picture came up and it had stood out to her for some reason. When we read this email both Jayson and I agreed that there was something special about Angela. This email felt so different than others we had received. It gave us peace rather than worry, as so many others had done. We continued to email back and for a couple of times, but then the emails sort of stopped over Christmastime. We thought maybe she was busy with holidays, but we also thought that she had probably changed her mind. But for some reason we weren't as worried about it as we normally would be. We felt at peace with the situation. Then, after New Year's we got the news that she had been very sick over the holidays, but that she wanted to meet with us. We scheduled a meeting at the LDS Family services office in Logan to meet with her, her parents, her case worker, us, and our case worker. The meeting ended up landing on my birthday. I couldn't have picked a better birthday present! The spirit was strong in our first meeting. We were also amazed at how quickly we had begun to love Angel and her parents.
We continued to stay in contact over the next week and Angela and her mom and sister decided to come out here to our neck of the woods to meet with us again and with our parents. We decided to meet at The Pie in South Jordan, on January 24th, because who doesn't love a good pizza?! When they came they had brought roses for us (in retrospect the fact that they brought us a gift should have been a really big clue that they had chosen us). The roses also had a card with them, which I neglected to read at the time because....who even knows why?! Because I'm awkward. Reading cards in front of people can be awkward and everyone was deep in conversation and I didn't want to interrupt and I'm just awkward. The dinner went really well, everyone got along swimmingly. Angela expressed a desire to meet our little guy and since he was with Jayson's sister and not too far from us we decided to have her come over there and meet him. On the way there I opened the card and then I felt like a complete idiot for not opening it at dinner because this is what was inside:
So I completely ruined that announcement. Thankfully they were coming to meet our little guy and we were able to give our gratitude and love to them.
After that we had the opportunity to meet the rest of her wonderful family. We were truly in awe at the number of genuinely good people that were there that night and we're so excited to have them be a part of our lives now.
It was starting to look like the baby was going to come late, but she actually ended up coming a couple of weeks early! We rushed around like crazy to get everything ready when we learned she was on her way. Our little guy was thankfully able to stay with a family member who is also licensed for foster care (they have to stay in a licensed home if it's over night). They have a little boy his age and they love to play together, so that ended up working out perfectly. When we were saying good bye I was an emotional mess and I looked at Jayson and said "I'm not ready (to leave him)" and burst into full on tears. I knew it would be hard to leave him for a few days, but I didn't know it would be that hard. This was on, Thursday February 27th. Jane was born that night and we got to meet her just a few hours after her birth. It was the most surreal feeling. On the way there we kept saying things like, "We're going to meet our baby girl!" "Is this real life?!" We got hold her, feed her, and they even let me help with the first bath. We were amazed at how quickly you can fall in love with a tiny little baby. There really is nothing like holding your baby for the very first time. Angela and her family felt the same way about this little girl. Everyone was absolutely smitten with her. When we had figured out the plan for the hospital and how everything was going to go Angela said she wanted to spend the next day with Jane and her family, so we wandered around Logan. It was crazy how hard it was not to see her for a whole day when we had only just met her the night before, but we knew that it was important to Angela and her family. It was nice to have a whole day to ourselves though, and wandering around Logan is among our very favorite things to do and we had pictures of Jane to look at, so it worked out.
Saturday was such a bittersweet day. We woke up completely elated to become parents to this sweet baby girl. Our hearts were also breaking for Angela and her sweet family and the hardship this day would bring for them. The plan was to go the LDS family services to sign papers and for placement to take place, but about an hour before Angela and Jane were going to get released from the hospital Jane's lab results came back looking like she might have an infection, so she was rushed to the NICU and our plans were changed. We ended up having to sign the papers at the hospital. So many hugs and tears were shed. I felt terrible that things had not gone as Angela wanted and that it all had to be so chaotic.
Jane ended up being in the NICU for two days. It was so hard to see her with the IV in her little tiny head and all of those chords coming out of her. The monitors beeping all the time had me constantly worried and on my toes. Time in there seemed to drag, but not exist at the same time. I didn't know what day it was and everything just seemed to blur together. Luckily we were able to stay at the hospital and we had some really amazing nurses that made things a little easier. And, of course, we were so excited to be her parents!
Saturday night we had also face timed with our little guy. When we were going to hang up he kept saying, "No, No!" and then he cried and it broke our hearts. Seriously, I cried all day long on Sunday every time I thought about it. We wished we could explain to him that we would back soon, but he didn't seem to understand. So, we decided to have Jayson go and get him Sunday night and stay with him while I stayed in Logan with Jane and then they came back up Monday. I was so excited to see his sweet little face again.
Luckily Jane was released from the hospital late Monday afternoon. We decided to go ahead with our original plan even though papers were already signed. So, we had Angela and her mom come and dress her in a dress they had picked out for her and then we met her, her parents, and all of her siblings at the LDS Family Services office. I'm so glad we were able to do that. Her siblings and parents talked about how hard this was for them and how they admired Angela for making such a hard and courage decision. We all got to talk about the things we had learned about Jane. Angela's dad was able to give her a father's blessing and Jayson was able to stand in on it. Jayson then gave Jane a blessing. This experience reaffirmed to me that we were adopting not just a baby, but a whole family. This experience made us love them even more and gave us even more respect for them. The love and support that they have shown to us and to one another has been truly inspiring.
As the four of us left that day we felt so complete, like our family was exactly how it should be at that moment. It was such a sweet feeling.
And I so wish I should show you pictures of the four of us from that day because we got some gems!
The journey to this little girl has been a long and hard one, but she was worth every bit of that pain. She really is such a special girl and we just love her with all of our hearts.
You guys! Disney is right. Dreams to come true.
Years into our battle with infertility and many years after deciding that I love the name Jane I discovered that it means "God's gift" or "God is gracious." I couldn't think of a better name for our little girl.
The one thing that I always had a hard time with the name Jane was thinking of a middle name. Jane seems to have become THE middle name. It goes well as middle name with basically every single name ever. But finding a middle name for it is no easy task. I could never find one that fit just right. I always knew she'd need a middle name too because both her first and last name would be short.
For those of you who have followed my blog recently you'll probably know that I've recently been obsessed with bravery and courage. I truly think that these traits are among the very greatest of traits that one can have. So, many many months ago (because I think about names a lot, even when its really unnecessary due to lack of potential adoption of any sort) I had decided that I wanted my future Jane to have a good and strong middle name. One that signified bravery in some way. And then Angela came into our lives. Angela is Jane's birth mother. We love her so! She is one of the bravest women that I've ever had the pleasure to know. It soon became clear that Jane should have her birth mother's name as her middle name. And so we decided to name our sweet baby girl Jane Angela. I hope she will always remember that we gave her this middle name so that she can always remember the great courage, love, and sacrifice that it took for Angela to make her decision.
We later discovered that Angela means "messenger of God", which fits her just perfectly as well. We feel that she's a really special little girl and that she did come with a message for everyone around her and that message is that God is real, he loves us, he hears us, and he speaks to us. I think everyone involved in this adoption can say that they have heard this message through this sweet baby girl.
And now I'm guessing that you want me to stop blabbering on about her name and tell you how she came to be a part of our family?
Back in early December I kept having this little tiny feeling that a daughter was coming into our lives soon. I didn't know how soon, but I kept feeling it.
Then, on December 19th we received our first email from Angela. It was a pretty basic email telling us her story and stating she wanted to get to know us better because she had been thinking of all of the different options for her baby. She said that was browsing the LDS Family service adoptive profile website and that our picture came up and it had stood out to her for some reason. When we read this email both Jayson and I agreed that there was something special about Angela. This email felt so different than others we had received. It gave us peace rather than worry, as so many others had done. We continued to email back and for a couple of times, but then the emails sort of stopped over Christmastime. We thought maybe she was busy with holidays, but we also thought that she had probably changed her mind. But for some reason we weren't as worried about it as we normally would be. We felt at peace with the situation. Then, after New Year's we got the news that she had been very sick over the holidays, but that she wanted to meet with us. We scheduled a meeting at the LDS Family services office in Logan to meet with her, her parents, her case worker, us, and our case worker. The meeting ended up landing on my birthday. I couldn't have picked a better birthday present! The spirit was strong in our first meeting. We were also amazed at how quickly we had begun to love Angel and her parents.
We continued to stay in contact over the next week and Angela and her mom and sister decided to come out here to our neck of the woods to meet with us again and with our parents. We decided to meet at The Pie in South Jordan, on January 24th, because who doesn't love a good pizza?! When they came they had brought roses for us (in retrospect the fact that they brought us a gift should have been a really big clue that they had chosen us). The roses also had a card with them, which I neglected to read at the time because....who even knows why?! Because I'm awkward. Reading cards in front of people can be awkward and everyone was deep in conversation and I didn't want to interrupt and I'm just awkward. The dinner went really well, everyone got along swimmingly. Angela expressed a desire to meet our little guy and since he was with Jayson's sister and not too far from us we decided to have her come over there and meet him. On the way there I opened the card and then I felt like a complete idiot for not opening it at dinner because this is what was inside:
So I completely ruined that announcement. Thankfully they were coming to meet our little guy and we were able to give our gratitude and love to them.
After that we had the opportunity to meet the rest of her wonderful family. We were truly in awe at the number of genuinely good people that were there that night and we're so excited to have them be a part of our lives now.
It was starting to look like the baby was going to come late, but she actually ended up coming a couple of weeks early! We rushed around like crazy to get everything ready when we learned she was on her way. Our little guy was thankfully able to stay with a family member who is also licensed for foster care (they have to stay in a licensed home if it's over night). They have a little boy his age and they love to play together, so that ended up working out perfectly. When we were saying good bye I was an emotional mess and I looked at Jayson and said "I'm not ready (to leave him)" and burst into full on tears. I knew it would be hard to leave him for a few days, but I didn't know it would be that hard. This was on, Thursday February 27th. Jane was born that night and we got to meet her just a few hours after her birth. It was the most surreal feeling. On the way there we kept saying things like, "We're going to meet our baby girl!" "Is this real life?!" We got hold her, feed her, and they even let me help with the first bath. We were amazed at how quickly you can fall in love with a tiny little baby. There really is nothing like holding your baby for the very first time. Angela and her family felt the same way about this little girl. Everyone was absolutely smitten with her. When we had figured out the plan for the hospital and how everything was going to go Angela said she wanted to spend the next day with Jane and her family, so we wandered around Logan. It was crazy how hard it was not to see her for a whole day when we had only just met her the night before, but we knew that it was important to Angela and her family. It was nice to have a whole day to ourselves though, and wandering around Logan is among our very favorite things to do and we had pictures of Jane to look at, so it worked out.
Saturday was such a bittersweet day. We woke up completely elated to become parents to this sweet baby girl. Our hearts were also breaking for Angela and her sweet family and the hardship this day would bring for them. The plan was to go the LDS family services to sign papers and for placement to take place, but about an hour before Angela and Jane were going to get released from the hospital Jane's lab results came back looking like she might have an infection, so she was rushed to the NICU and our plans were changed. We ended up having to sign the papers at the hospital. So many hugs and tears were shed. I felt terrible that things had not gone as Angela wanted and that it all had to be so chaotic.
Jane ended up being in the NICU for two days. It was so hard to see her with the IV in her little tiny head and all of those chords coming out of her. The monitors beeping all the time had me constantly worried and on my toes. Time in there seemed to drag, but not exist at the same time. I didn't know what day it was and everything just seemed to blur together. Luckily we were able to stay at the hospital and we had some really amazing nurses that made things a little easier. And, of course, we were so excited to be her parents!
Saturday night we had also face timed with our little guy. When we were going to hang up he kept saying, "No, No!" and then he cried and it broke our hearts. Seriously, I cried all day long on Sunday every time I thought about it. We wished we could explain to him that we would back soon, but he didn't seem to understand. So, we decided to have Jayson go and get him Sunday night and stay with him while I stayed in Logan with Jane and then they came back up Monday. I was so excited to see his sweet little face again.
Luckily Jane was released from the hospital late Monday afternoon. We decided to go ahead with our original plan even though papers were already signed. So, we had Angela and her mom come and dress her in a dress they had picked out for her and then we met her, her parents, and all of her siblings at the LDS Family Services office. I'm so glad we were able to do that. Her siblings and parents talked about how hard this was for them and how they admired Angela for making such a hard and courage decision. We all got to talk about the things we had learned about Jane. Angela's dad was able to give her a father's blessing and Jayson was able to stand in on it. Jayson then gave Jane a blessing. This experience reaffirmed to me that we were adopting not just a baby, but a whole family. This experience made us love them even more and gave us even more respect for them. The love and support that they have shown to us and to one another has been truly inspiring.
 |
| Angela and Jane |
As the four of us left that day we felt so complete, like our family was exactly how it should be at that moment. It was such a sweet feeling.
And I so wish I should show you pictures of the four of us from that day because we got some gems!
The journey to this little girl has been a long and hard one, but she was worth every bit of that pain. She really is such a special girl and we just love her with all of our hearts.
3 comments:
Congratulations Jayson and Karissa!!! Jane is so beautiful!
YAY!!!!! Thanks for the nice update :) can't wait to meet her someday!
I've been a silent follower for a while now, but my heart is so happy for you! Congratulations!!!
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