Welcome to the world Maggie!

(Note: My 1st draft of this blog was deleted, so I'm starting over again.  I hope to capture all the excitement, but I must admit I'm a little bitter about losing the first story.)

 

 

Our precious Maggie Grace is here! Friday, June 1st was our last day of school before summer vacation and it was the first day of our adventure to bring home our little girl! At 3:32 pm, I got a text from our birthmom Tabitha that read: "Get ready.  Possibly inducing today."  I immediately texted Chris (who was sitting in the Fort Mill High School graduation and had to get up and leave). I tried to remain as calm as I possibly could while putting in a pizza to eat on the road (so we wouldn’t have to stop) and giving Riley something to eat when my mom arrived to take care of him.  I started gathering items and finishing our last minute packing while I waited for Chris to come home.  I tried not to think about how much I would miss Riley since we’d been told we could be gone for 7 to 10 days. He was so sweet playing with his golf clubs and Weebles as I packed.  I had to keep stealing kisses and hugs because I knew it’d be awhile before I’d see his sweet little face again.  As soon as my mom arrived around 4:30 pm, Chris and I jumped in the car and began the 4 1/2 hour journey to Douglasville, Georgia.  The trip seemed to go rather fast because we were updating friends and family on our news and talking about how we could hardly believe the big day was finally here! 

We pulled into the hospital parking lot of WellStar Douglas Hospital around 8:45 pm and rushed up to room 202 of the  Women’s Birthing Center. We found Tabitha hooked up to an IV receiving fluids that would prepare her for labor.  She told us the doctor was not formally going to start the pitocin to induce her until the next morning.  So we sat and chatted with her for about an hour. We brought her some Lindor truffles since she had mentioned her love for these chocolates and she gave us a Little Princess outfit and hat for Maggie to wear along with 6 pairs of newborn socks (which you can never seem to have enough of). Tabitha talked about her labor and deliveries of her previous children and at one point made the comment that she hoped this delivery would be fast.  Little did we know how that wish would become a reality in just a few short hours!

Chris and I weren’t allowed to stay at the hospital that night because the baby had not been born yet, so we found a room at a Hampton Inn which was the closest hotel.  We managed to fall asleep around 11:30 and woke up around 6:30 the next morning.  After showering and eating breakfast, we packed up and sent Tabitha a text around 8:30 telling her we were going to stop by Target to get Chris some more socks before we headed to the hospital and to see if she wanted us to pick her up anything.  Seven minutes later, I received a call from the nurse that said Tabitha was in labor and about to have a baby “very soon” and we should come to the hospital.  Needless to say, Chris and I grabbed our bags and scurried down the elevator and out the door.  I almost had to knock down a few priests who were standing by the door and blocking the exit.  :)

We made it to the hospital about 8:45 am and I immediately saw in the partitioned room to the left that our baby girl had been born and was busy being cleaned and attended to by several nurses.  We called out to Tabitha who was separated in another section of the room by a curtain to let her know that we’d made it and to check on her.  Our hearts filled with joy as we gazed at our darling daughter who was calmly laying under the heating light and taking in the world around her. Nurse Tammy and Oretha were busy trying to get Maggie’s oxygen level up to 90 or above because it kept dipping down and hovering around 80 to 87.  Just as they were about to hook her up to an oxygen mask, our little girl rallied and started transitioning and breathing much better on her own.  At this point, the nurses put Maggie on the scales for us to take a picture.  She weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. and they measured her height at 19 3/4 inches.  Tabitha was recovering and they opened up the curtain for us to go and see her.  I ran over and hugged her and cried my eyes out telling her how thankful we are for this amazing gift! She hugged back and let us know that she knew this was God’s plan and she felt like this was the right choice.  Tammy wrapped our precious Maggie in a blanket, put a pink and navy hat on her head, and then let Tabitha see her and touch her.
Then the moment we’d been waiting for—Tabitha said that we could hold her! See the pictures in the next blog of how happy we are to finally hold and meet our Maggie Grace.  What a precious moment! Chris and I were both so overjoyed.
Around 9:30 or 10, we were told that they had a room ready for us down the hall, so Chris and I left Tabitha to rest and went to feed Maggie. She ate just about one ounce her first feeding.  I fed her first and noticed that she latched on great and had a strong sucking reflex and was super easy to burp. 

The rest of the day seemed to pass like a blur! Chris and I sent pictures and talked to family and friends. We held and cuddled our sweet newborn and took tons of photos. We were able to get a guest lunch tray from the hospital cafeteria for lunch and Chris picked up some chicken salad sandwich. We tried feeding Maggie several times from 1:30 to 4:30, but she refused to eat until she was ready. Around 2 pm, Tabitha called and asked if we could bring Maggie down to her room, so that her dad could see her before he had to go to work. Of course, we were happy to oblige.  We visited for about an hour or so before we went back to our room to rest.  At some point in the afternoon, the pediatrician (Dr. Fox) came in to check out our girl.  She moved her limbs and listened to her breathing and said all looks well.  She did notice that she may have a hernia that should go away by the time she is 3 or 4. We posted a few pictures on Facebook and were overwhelmed by the love and support we were receiving! After supper, we met the night nurse (Tish) who fixed a “bed” for Chris to sleep in and checked Maggie’s vitals. We had a rather calm night.  Tabitha texted around 9:30 or 10 and wanted to come to our room and visit.  So she did and one of the most precious moments occurred. While holding Maggie, Tabitha leaned down and whispered, “I love you.  I will always love you.  I know this is the best decision to make because I can’t give you the kind of home you deserve.  But I want you to know I’ll always be here for you.  I know you’ll have plenty of people to love you, but if you ever need anything I’m here for you.”  I can only imagine what a selfless love it takes to place your child’s needs so above your own.  Tabitha has given us the most amazing gift in the world and we have promised her that we will never take this decision for granted and will raise Maggie with the knowledge of her courageous, loving birthmother!

More Maggie Pics

A Babbling Brook, Cute Cousins and a Big Boy Room for a soon-to-be Big Brother

 So our dear son has taken an extreme liking to motorcycles lately. He is obsessed with looking for them on the roads now and here he is playing with one we found at a yard sale.  The funniest thing is listening to Riley try and pronounce this word.  We've heard everything from "monker-doodle" to "mot-er-fennel".  It literally changes every day, but we always know what he's talking about because he'll get real excited and say "man mont-er-runnel" and keep repeating it until we acknowledge his statement.  It's really quite cute.  Riley's language is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds! These are a few of my favorite Riley-isms:

• "Hold you Mommy" when he wants me to pick him up
• "Bess you" when someone sneezes or "Tank you" when he receives something he wants
• "I do it" for whenever he thinks he can do it better than you can
•  "Dums" "Nano" (piano) or "Geetar" when he hears a certain instrument on the radio
• "Oh no...Iley fell down" whenever he runs around the couch 16 times and finally collapses 
• "Dear God...Tank you...family...Amen" when it's time to say his bedtime prayers

 Two weeks ago (April 21st), we went to Charleston and were able to celebrate Liam's Dino-myte 2nd birthday! It was a great time! Here are the boys getting a much needed bath after playing hard in the yard together on Saturday.  Riley loved playing Frisbee for the first time, making up his own songs on the piano, eating (or should I say just licking) chocolate-covered marshmallows, and playing with all the cool toys at Cousin Tripp and Liam's house. 

 We have been hard at work converting our yellow office into a "big boy" room for Riley.  You see, the week after Spring Break, we were matched with a birthmom from Georgia and found out that we'd be expecting our next bundle of joy in June!   So we're going to be needing the nursery in just a few more weeks.  The adoption process went much faster than we ever anticipated and we are truly thrilled (even if we are a little overwhelmed) about the prospect of having another entire summer to spend quality time with our new addition.  Chris worked hard to paint Riley's room a beautiful two-toned color palette and I had a great time going shopping with Riley for all kinds of sports-themed decorations.  Here is a picture of our little man showing just how he feels the first day we surprised him with his big boy bed.  Isn't that precious!? He spent the next hour climbing up and rolling off his bed.  He's had no problems at all saying goodbye to his crib and has been able to go to sleep without any problems.  However, managing to stay in the bed has been a slight problem! For the past 2 days, we've found him asleep under his bed all stretched out with his two fingers in his mouth.  Tonight we added a bed rail, so we hope that it will contain him.  It's been such fun watching him play in his big room and we can't wait to add baby Fisher to the nursery so our house will be complete!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Riley loved the St. Patrick's Day celebration in downtown Rock Hill this year.  This is a wig that he borrowed from Blake and Delaney who were with us watching the Irish dancers on stage.  A similar picture of Riley appeared on the Herald's online picture gallery.  He's pretty much a local celebrity now! :)                                                                                                                  A few weeks later, we welcomed Spring Break! Daddy celebrated by running a marathon on Sunday, April 1st in Knoxville, TN.  Riley and I made posters and though Riley didn't go along for the actual trip, he was cheering him on in spirit, along with Chris' parents (who had come for a visit several days beforehand).  We are so proud of his accomplishment and diligence in sticking with a goal and finishing it! What an amazing feat!

 

 Towards the end of our Spring Break, we took Riley to Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville, NC.  This is the best children's amusement place we have ever been to! Riley absolutely LOVED all the different stations and play areas.  Here are just a few of his favorites (which include riding the tractor, playing drums on the skillets, getting wet at the water table, and test-driving a boat).  He also got to dye and Easter egg, slide down mats in the toddler area, pick red "apples" which were really plastic balls from an apple tree, play doctor, dance on stage, steer a pirate ship, and ride a ladybug scooter. I highly recommend this place to any one with little ones! We'll definitely be going back.

 

Happy Easter! 

Today is Easter Sunday, such a special day as we remember how Christ died, was buried, and on the 3rd day he rose again defeating death and giving us everlasting life! Riley is still a tad young to really understand much about today.  He did enjoy the toys left by the Easter bunny though and certainly looked very handsome dressed up.  We went to Rodger and Melissa's house for lunch after church and enjoyed quite a delicious feast of ham, green beans, veggie casserole, strawberry pretzel salad, pasta salad, deviled eggs, and angel food cake with icrecream and fresh fruit for dessert.  Yummy! Riley got an extra Easter basket filled with goodies as a gift from Dylan and Brooke and an Elmo book and toolbox kit from Grandmama and Papa.  After nap, Riley had a grand time hunting for Easter eggs and shaking every one that he found to determine if it indeed had candy inside.  He was especially fond of the ones with Smarties and jellybeans! It's these special times with family that really make me thankful for the loved ones that I am blessed to be surrounded by! 

I can't end without giving a little update to Riley's latest accomplishments.  I'm so proud of his progress and all that he is learning and doing.  In fact, on Tuesday, he'll be officially dismissed from BabyNet services because his scores with gross, fine motor, and language skills are all in the average to above average range.  This has been such a wonderful program and has given Riley the extra boost and attention he needed to catch up physically.  Cognitively, Riley is continuing to amaze us! In addition to knowing all his basic colors like "yeah-yow", "bue", "geen", and red, he also knows brown, pink, and black.  Just this week, we heard him count to thirteen by himself, although I do have to note he started counting from four not one. :)  Most of the time, he can count to ten with little to no prompting and gets so excited about numbers seven and ten.  He's talking in almost sentences now and starting to put together pronouns like "my daddy" and "me".  He is using his fork and spoon quite well now and enjoys telling us exactly what he wants to eat.  Some of his favorite foods right now are cereal bars for breakfast, pizza, grapes, "berries" (blueberries), and of course, he still loves chicken (so we've learned to refer to most meats regardless of what kind it is as chicken in hopes that he'll try it and like it).  This has been such an exciting time and everyday brings something new.  What fun!!

1st "Semi-Big" Boo-Boo

Well, the first (of hopefully not many) trips to the doctor for an injury occurred today with Riley.  I received a call about 9:30 this morning at school that Riley had fallen while outside at daycare and hit his head.  The secretary said he may need stitches and thought I'd better just go ahead and leave and she would take care of finding me a sub.  My heart dropped into my stomach, even though I knew it was nothing life-threatening, it's hard to hear that your baby got hurt.  I couldn't really think straight to make plans, so luckily my dear colleagues came to the rescue.  My class would be dispersed once they returned from Related Arts until the sub arrived and Stephanie, my fabulous co-worker next door to me, would see about the plans for the rest of the day.

When I arrived at CPA, Riley was snacking on Fruit Loops in the front office with Ms. Lori and acting fine.  He came running up to me and gave me a hug. She told me how he had been pushing a red scooter on the concrete and had lost his balance and when he fell, he hit his head on the corner of the building.  The cut had stopped bleeding, but we weren't sure exactly how deep it was, so I went ahead and took him to see the pediatrician.  I was so impressed with how fast they were able to get us into a waiting room and seen by a doctor (it took only 1-2 minutes before they called us back and only 3-4 minutes after the nurse left us for Dr. Alexander to examine him). 

Luckily, Riley's injury wasn't bad at all.  The doctor cleaned him up, shaved part of his head, and applied glue to close up the wound.  Riley was a trooper! He squirmed a good bit and cried a little during the 5 minute procedure, but overall he was calm and cheerful the rest of the time.  And absolutely LOVED the red lollipop he received on the way out the door.

I'm so thankful our little boy is okay!  There are a lot of worse things that could have happened and I'm just so glad we had such great people taking care of us! I've told Riley that he's met his quota for the year, and he's not allowed to get hurt again.  Let's just hope he lives up to his side of the bargain!

Few More Favorite Moments from my Little Sponge

So my silly boy is up to even more funny stuff.  He's like a little sponge at age 21 months because everything that he sees or hears now, he soaks in and then will start repeating.  Here are just a few my favorite highlights from these past 3 months:

• Riley LOVES Sesame Street now and is becoming very proficient with his knowledge of the TV remote features.  He will ask for his favorite characters by name (it used to be Elmo and then Ernie, but it is now Grover or as he says "Grev-er").  He will then bring you the remote and wants you to fast forward through the other parts of the show to get to the part he wants to see.  When he was in his "Ernie stage", he would carry around his phone that Aunt Penny gave him for Christmas and would call Ernie  who would then say hello and do his characteristic "he he he" laugh.  Riley thought this was great and for the next few minutes, he would keep dialing Ernie and mimic his laugh.  Now whenever we say Ernie, he makes the connection to the laugh and does it on his own.   His other hilarious habit that he has picked up from watching Sesame Street is that he adores the Count and his "Ah, Ah, Ah" voice that he does after counting objects.  Riley will copy this now whenever he is counting.  It is so stinking cute! 
• It's amazing how much he is picking up from school now.  Besides being able to do the motions to the songs and fingerplays such as "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes", he has also learned how to dip his chicken into sauce like ketchup (we didn't even know he knew how to do this until last night at Olive Garden) and he loves running now.  He loves to talk about his friends names as he gets ready for school (like Abby, Flynn-ie, Maddox, Mason, Banks, and his teachers-Miss Haley and Miss Elaina).  We're still working on his colors though.  His class focuses on one color for a whole month and so far they have covered purple and orange with this new curriculum.  However, these days whenever you ask Riley what color something is, he always responds in a very confident upbeat voice that it is YELLOW! When the object we're referring to is not yellow we let him know that and his very next guess is GREEN! Those are his 2 colors that he answers every question with in regards to color.  He'll repeat the other colors like "bue" for blue and "ed" for red, but he doesn't really believe they exist right now.  Every morning on the way to school, Riley waves to Blake and Delaney's house and tells them "bye".  Unfortunately, they moved out of the neighborhood this past weekend, but they'll still be close by for us to get together and play with. Each afternoon when I pick Riley up from school, I ask Riley about his day.  Here's a typical conversation:

Me: Riley, how was your day?
Riley: Day.
Me: Did you have fun?
Riley: Fun.
Me: Did you go outside?
Riley: Side.   (Sometimes he'll add the word "bus" to let me know he climbed on the toy bus on the playground).
Me: Did you sing any songs?
Riley: Songs  (Sometimes he'll put his fingers together like Itsy Bitsy Spider).

• Last week at school, Riley had Spirit Week.  Here's a picture of his Wacky Hair day (see the Crazy Sock day picture above).  I think Riley had as much fun with it as we had dressing him up! Even though his spiked hair deflated less than an hour later. 
• Riley's new sport is basketball.  His Nan and Pappy got him a kid-sized basketball goal for Christmas and Riley loves putting the "bas-et-ball" "IN" the hoop.  He's getting better and better with his 2 point shots, but we still have a little ways to go on the 3 pointers.  Although, Riley does back himself up against the wall which is as far away from the basketball goal as he can possibly get, and then try and throw the ball "up".  He has 2 basketballs, but the smaller Nerf one is his and other one is for Momma or Daddy.  He's very particular about this.
• One of our most precious times together as a family is at night as we are preparing for bedtime.  We play and then read books (Daddy is a favorite reader because he does all kinds of funny animal noises that Mommy can't do), and then around 7:00, we tell Riley to give us a kiss.  He leans in and makes a smacking noise with his lips and then kisses Daddy first and Momma second.  Next, he turns out the light and we "fix our hands" to pray.  We say a simple prayer thanking God for our day and for our family and then we end with "Amen" which Riley promptly repeats in a loud voice before diving into his crib and cuddling up to Wally (the whale), Ruff (the PillowPet dog), or George (the Curious George Monkey).  It's absolutely the sweetest little routine in our day and I love every precious minute of it.

Fuzzy Toes Makes for Funny Pose

Here's Riley posed with his latest obsession--picking fuzz from between his toes! It absolutely cracks us up! He thinks he has to check between his toes each time his socks come off to see about the "fuss" that might be hiding in the cracks.  Then he'll use his little pincer grasp (Ms. Rachel, his Occupational Therapist, would be so proud) to clean them out. This new habit of his has helped make diaper changing quite an acrobatic adventure! Can't help but smile though.