Home Sweet Home!!!

We're home!!!! We got a call Sunday morning from the dr. asking us if we wanted to bring the baby home. She was well enough to leave the hospital! The heart murmur wasn't detected, the rapid heartbeat is gone, the infection is gone, blood sugar levels are normal and the jaundice is gone! We were, needless to say, thrilled!! So after Emily's last round of antibiotics at 3 and then a couple of hours of bathing, changing, taking her newborn pics from the hospital and feeding her one last time (cause she was a hungry girl and couldn't wait) it was time to go!

After leaving the hospital we went to Emily's birth mom's house to visit. Such a wonderful visit.

Then we went back to the hotel

Monday afternoon (my dad's birthday, and Emily's 1 week birthday) was court where K signed relinquishment and consent forms and since there is no agency involved in our adoption, the judge signed legal guardianship of Emily to us.

Then it was time to come home!

What a wonderful few days it has been. K is never far from our thoughts. We owe her so much!

And finally, 9 years ago today, I married the most amazing man! Happy Anniversary Jacob!

And NICU Mommy

An NICU Mommy..... That's what they call me. The nurses...... When we imagined this time, never did we imagine that we would be NICU Parents, but we are. Our little Emily was born with a low blood sugar which isn't unusual with babies of a high birth weight. After her first feeding her blood sugar actually went lower. So the dr. ordered an IV drip of Sugar water to try to get her blood sugar to go higher. It was working great! Until she started eatting less and less. She went from eatting 2+ oz. in a sitting, to not even an oz. sometimes half an oz. And even getting her to eat that much took work. She was getting fussier and fussier. So the dr. ordered some tests. Turns out baby girl has an infection. Not surprising since K's water broke and it wasn't until almost 23 hours later that Emily was born. The dr. detected a heart murmur yesterday, it was still there today, so an Echocardiogram was ordered. The cardiologist at the hospital reviewed the tests. we are still waiting on the official report from Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake, but according to the cardiologist here, he says that the holes in the chambers in Emily's heart haven't closed up yet, but he says because she has been sick, that isn't surprising. So according to him, it isn't cause for concern right now, but if at her first well baby check up there is still a murmur, the pediatrician will need to keep an eye on it. We'll see if the PCMC dr. agrees with his assesment. Emily's oxygen levels have been dropping off and on, and her breathing goes a little fast at times, but that is probably due to the stress of being sick the dr. says. So they continue to monitor her. We continue to spend every second we can with her, and pray for her. We aren't sure how long we will be in the NICU. K signed a release with the hospital social worker allowing us to go home with the baby when she is released since K herself will be released before Emily. The nurse said to not be surprised if we are there through the weekend. We hope she is wrong. But, we will stay as long as it takes for Emily to get healthy.



Speaking of K, she is doing well. She was having some heart trouble as well, but an EKG showed nothing wrong according to the nurse. Haven't talked to the dr. yet though. But she is doing well. Walking around like a champ. So much so that I had to tell her to take it easy. I worry about her. But I know she is in good hands. K is a trooper. Very strong, very amazing. Emily comes from her, so I have no doubt she will be o.k. K should be released tomorrow (Wednesday) so court should be Thursday. We'll know more in the morning.


No, none of the last few days is like I imagined it would be. The experiences we have had, the tears we have shed, every last bit of it, has been worth it. Why? Because of this precious little one right here:

1 hour old. After her first bath.

1 day old. Hanging out in the NICU with mommy and daddy. She is always so content in Daddy's arms. :D You can see some of the lines that are hooked to her, and her IV in this picture. The IV is in her head so it won't be easy for her to pull or kick out.

She's Here!!! Welcome to the World Emily Rose!!

She's HERE!!! I'll post pictures when we get home and I can edit the size so they don't lock blogger. But for now, here are the details:

Emily Rose born via c-section after 22 hours of labor including 2 hours of pushing! (Ya, our birth mom is our hero! you should have seen her! She was and continues to be, the strongest person I know!)

Birthdate: July 26th at 5:26 a.m.

height: 9 lbs. 5 oz.
weight: 21 inches
hair: sandy blonde, and lots of it!
eye color: probably will be blue since both of her birth parents have blue eyes.

Baby update

Just a quick baby update. For more details, including a pic of our angel birth mom taken today, after her appt, check out our family blog (linked on the right). Our birth mom is now 39 weeks. She is 70% effaced (has been for 3 weeks) but is now dialated to a 1and a half (has been at a 1 for two weeks, so it's a little progress) Although she has been having contractions since yesterday morning, they are an hour apart, so she is in the very early stages of labor. She is measuring at 44, so the doctor is wanting an ultrasound to find out how big baby girl is. If she is too big the may need to do a c-section, or induce labor, (which we are hoping they won't have to do a c-section!) so we will see. The ultrasound is Monday morning so I will have more news then. Unless K's labor progesses more, which is what I'm hoping for! Poor thing is sooooo ready!

Soft Blanket for baby

Babies love soft things. They like the soft texture. I have seen a lot of soft blankets out there, everything from velvet to satin to silk to any kind of soft material you can think of. Call them lovies, softies, snuggies, whatever you decide to call them, babies love them! I decided to make our sweet Emily a soft blanket. It doesn't have any batting in it, it's just simple. I did a chocolate satin and I was going to do a green velore, but I found this soft pink velore with roses embossed in it and it was as if the fabric was calling to me from the rack saying, pick me, pick me! So, I did. ;o) I did a checkered pattern on the front using the pink and brown, the back is all brown satin so both sides are soft and it is bond in the pink velore.

In this photo you can see the colors a little better (the lighting in my family room isn't good, sorry) You can also see a little better the embossed roses on the pink velore. The back is also shown.

I did roses because our baby's middle name is going to be Rose (after her birth mommy who's middle name is also Rose). We are at almost into the single digits till her due date! Today is Sunday and there is 11 days left, tomorrow will be 10 days left, and then we are in the single digits. I know she can be late, but we're hoping the dr. won't let our birth mom go over since she is starting school again with in weeks of giving birth. We'll see though. Our next appt. is her 39 week appt. on Thursday. :D

Quilt for K

I made a quilt for our expectant birth mom K. (She's due in just 2 weeks!! Can't wait for baby Emily to make her arrival!! She is 70% effaced and dialated to a 1. Same as last week, but baby has dropped a little.) We also made a matching one for the baby. (Not my original idea to do matching quilts as a gift. Not sure who's idea it was. But I love it!) I asked her what her favorite colors were and I found out they are pink, purple, orange, blue & green....... yeah............ I thought it would be difficult trying to incorporate all those colors into the quilt, but it actually wasn't. The hardest part was picking the fabric of course. But once I picked those it was easy. I am a basic quilter. I do squares. That's it. I am going to have my mom teach me how to do other styles, but for now, squares it is. I forgot to take a picture of K's quilt before I gave it to her. But her's is the exact same as the baby's with 1 exception. K's squares are 5 inches finished. The baby's quilt has 3.5 inch finished squares. This of course makes the baby's quilt smaller. Anyhow, here is the baby's quilt. My mom, aunt, and a family friend helped me to tie K's, and I tied the baby's.

Each of the colors had 3 different fabrics. Then I found one that had orange, purple and pink to tie them all together. It is bound and tied in purple. The quilt is 11 squares across, and 11 down. I am so thrilled with how it turned out. Here is a close up on the some of the fabrics.

Still Alive

Yes, I am still alive. Life has been hectic since being chosen to adopt our baby girl. Our birth mom is due in just 6 weeks. I can't beleive how fast time has gone by!

I have kept myself busy with lots of quilting projects, a couple of cakes and shopping for baby! Up until tonight I hadn't stamped in literally months (other then the once a month stamp club which I haven't been to in a couple of months).

Well tonight, I found myself itching to stamp. Rather then just going to bed like I did the last time I wanted to stamp, I opted to stay up and "scratch the itch" to stamp so to speak.

I popped in the movie Sense and Senseability and stamped away! I finished 16 cards just as the movie ended. Not too shabby! Most of the cards are 1 layer cards, but I love the way they turned out. I will take them out in the morning and take pictures of them. In the meantime, I thought I would share with you some photos that my friend Ashley of Monarch Photography took of us with our birth mom. For her privacy we refer to her as K and ask that if you know her name, you do the same. We also don't show her face to protect her privacy as well. We have a lot of photos with her face, but like I said, for her privacy, here are a few for you to enjoy that don't show her face. These photos were taken on Memorial Day when K was 31 and a half weeks. She is now 34 weeks. Almost Baby Time!! Enjoy these photos and tomorrow I will have some cards to share with you!

O.k. Sharon, where have you been? ;o)

I know, I've been out of blogging for awhile. Why you ask? Well, I've been a little preoccupied! We were being considered for adoption by a wonderful birthmom. On Wednesday she chose us! Our baby girl will be born on or around July 29th! We will have a very very open adoption and could not be more thrilled! For more of the story, and for an ultrasound photo, check out my family/adoption blog.
http://jacobandsharon.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-birthmom-k.html

I will be doing a lot of crafting in the next several months. July 29th is still 4+ months away and I need something to keep me busy! I will post some projects soon! I have a few for you to see. But for now, I'm heading to bed to take a nap. For some reason, I've been too excited to sleep lately. ;o)

Christmas Cards gone digital!

Sorry that it's been so long since I updated my blog. This has been a crazy year. So crazy that I haven't been able to do our Christmas cards yet. Normally I have them not only done, but mailed out by now. I want to send them because we have pass along cards for our adoption that we are sending with them (that and I always send Christmas cards). I tried to buy some this year, but just couldn't. But making them was just stressing me.

That is until I remembered that I have the My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up! I could make Christmas cards quickly! So far I have come up with 2 options. After figuring out what photos I wanted to use they each took less than 5 minutes. What do you think? I'm still going to play around a little and see what else I can come up with, but not bad if I do say so myself. These are both done using the Christmas Jingle Scrapbooking Kit on the My Digital Studio. Love it! Seriously, this software, has got to be one of my favorite crafting purchases in a long time!

My goal for next year is to make at least 5 Christmas cards a month starting in January. This way by December I will have plenty of cards and I won't stress so much come time to send them. That's the plan anyway. ;o) I will be sitting down in the next week or so to make a Birthday card for my neice. So I will have that for you soon. I promise it won't be a month before I post again!

Oh, and adoption update. We are still waiting to be chosen. Our agency profile is officially updated and we are good to go and back online with them. We are also in the process of looking into getting approved for the states Foster to Adopt program. You can help us get the word out that we are hoping to adopt. Take a look at the right sidebar. You'll see our adoption blog button and an HTML code to go with it. copy and paste that HTML code into a gadget on your blog and viola! A button directing others to our blog. (BTW, the button, was made by me, using My Digital Studio. Soooo quick and easy, I love it!) If you want to stay updated on us and our journey, other than my occasional updates, I update our adoption blog often so check it out. :D

A little of this, a little of that

I know I've been quiet lately on this blog. I guess that getting things ready for our adoption home study (the updated one for our new home) wiped me out more than I thought. Not to mention the moving 900 miles thing. Anyhow, I am finally starting to feel normal again, not to mention I just got a box of goodies from SU. My first stamp order for myself in about a year (I ordered cardstock for my brother-in-laws wedding invitations, but that wasn't for me so that doesn't count). So I'm really excited to use all my new goodies. I got several new stamp sets, and the new My Digital Studio, just to name a few. I am going to be working on my Christmas cards soon so stay tuned.

In the meantime I have been blogging like crazy over at our family blog. Partially because blogging on that blog takes no more effort then sitting here, but mostly because of what November is. Did you know, that November is National Adoption Month? Did you know that this weekend, Saturday to be exact, is National Adoption Day? In honor of National Adoption Month I have been blogging each day about adoption. The first week my posts were all about adoption resources that I have found. Last week was all about adoption success stories and families who have been brought together through adoption. This week I am blogging all about other families hoping to adopt and next week I will be spotlighting birth moms. Starting with a profile of my cousin who placed her son 5 yrs ago. So be sure and check that out.

Anyhow, I realized the other day that I never shared the photos I had taken of the family I shot in July. This was the family of 15. So here are just a few of those.

this was the whole clan. This was my first time doing a group larger than 8 so I wasn't thrilled with the large group shots, but I did like some of the smaller ones.

This one is the grandparents in this group.

This one is a candid of two of the grandsons.

One of the families, I dubbed them the blue family since they were all wearing blue.

This is the brown family since they were all wearing brown.

One thing I learned with this shoot is that 10 a.m. is not a good time to shoot. That was the time the family requested though so I went with it. The sun was way to bright though as you can see in some of the pictures.

I also don't remember if I ever shared these. I did a shoot with some friends of mine who are also hoping to adopt. These photos were for their adoption profile. Here are just a couple of my favorites.

Adoption Blog Button, how you can help! :D

I want to thank my awesome friend Jill! She and I have been friends since high school. I posted on FB asking if anyone knew how to make blog buttons. Not only did Jill come through for me, but she came through in a fabulous way! Our new button is on the right. Isn't it fabulous! She asked what it was I was wanting I told her something blue and brown like our pass along cards (see our other blog for that story). Using that as a referrence she came up with our awesome buttons. *big grin* Now, why am I telling you this? Because you can help us with our hope to adopt! That's right! All you need to do is right click on our button (I posted it above) and save it to your computer. Then go to your blog dashboard, click on layout, click on add gadget, click on add picture. A box will come up with a place to link and also a browse box. In the link area put in our blog address (www.jacobandsharon.blogspot.com) and then where it says browse, add the picture you just saved to your computer of our button. Then click save. It's that simple. Then everytime someone clicks on the button from your blog they will be sent to our blog and will be able to learn all about us. With your help to get the word out, we know our hope to adopt will become a reality!