Happy Homecoming Day, Isaac!!

Scroll Down for Isaac's Adoption Story

This was the first day Isaac came home.

As you can see from the picture he did not smile for about 3 days.

February 6th is the day that we celebrate every year, the day that Isaac came home. Some adoptive families call it "Gotcha Day". We just call it his homecoming, because Vivi's Gotcha day happened 2 days after her birth- so we won't be celebrating hers every year. For Vivi we will be celebrating the day her adoption was finalized (Sept. 21st)

Confusing, I know but we can keep up with it! This is the first smile we got out of him. He had a severe diaper rash for about a week, so we gave him oatmeal soaks every night. We chose not to put him in the big tub because it made him shake and cry with fear (not sure he got many baths in his previous foster home)

We soon found out how much he loved water, in small doses!

And it didn't take long for the smiles to become a normal part of his day! We soon chose to name him Isaac, which means "laughter".
Tonight we are going to Peter Piper Pizza and will enjoy our traditional cookie cake that says, "Forever Family". I will post those pics tomorrow.

Here is Isaac's Adoption Story in full!

We began to try to get pregnant in the spring of 2004. After several months, despite what the "books" said about it taking awhile for some people- I began to fear that it was not going to happen for us. We went to our first Dr. to see what could be done. For the rest of that year we did tests, took ovulation predictor kits, you name it! By 2005 we had no answers and no baby. At this time we chose to see a reproductive endocronoligist- fancy name for fertility doctor. I had more tests done, and a procedure to see if my tubes were blocked. Nope! During the summer of 2005 after a year of medical intervention and having to give myself hormone injections, in my stomach of all places- we decided to have an insemination procedure done. That was the hardest thing I've put my body and emotions through. When our agonizing 2 weeks of waiting and blood tests ended with no pregnancy- we said "Enough!" During this time I was in a support group for women struggling with infertility and was doing a Bible study on the subject. This was truly God-sent! The Lord said to our hearts it was time to stop the roller coaster we had been on. I felt strongly that I would one day be a mom, and I did not need that baby coming out of my body for that to happen. It just seemed easier to get pregnant then to have to go through the work, expense, and heartache of an adoption, but look at all the work, expense and heartache I had to go through to conceive! Not worth it for us.

So through a chain of events, God pressed it upon our hearts to pursue an adoption through the foster care system. Through our training we made the decision to be foster parents for as long as we needed to to bring our forever child home. We began the process in August and at the end of November welcomed our first foster daughter home! She was a toddler, 8 months older than we had specified we wanted to take. It was a trying time with her having up to 12 tantrums a day! So when she left in January we said "no more toddlers!" On the morning of February 2nd, I was getting ready and I turned to Billy and said "Honey, if they call us about a toddler but it happens to be a boy who is African American, should we say yes?" We had always wanted our first child to be a boy and from the time we started fostering, we had a strong sense that our children would be African American. So Billy said "of course you say yes!" At about 2:00 that very afternoon we got the call for a 15 month old African American boy with some "special developmental needs". We jumped with joy! We had to wait until Monday the 6th for him to have a Dr.'s appt. and to come to us. So that afternoon CPS showed up with this skinny, stinky, scared, little boy. And when she left an hour later and I sat there holding him as he shook and cried I wondered what on earth I had gotten ourselves into! Moments later I fixed him a bottle and took him into our beautifully decorated nursery and rocked him and I cried and cried while he sucked that bottle dry. I cried for us and the fear I had about his developmental needs, and I cried for him and where he had come from and that I had not been there to protect him for the first 15 months of life. I cried to God for the roller coaster we had been on and why it had been so hard for us to become a family. And in that hour before Billy came home from work, I bonded with that little brown skinned boy, who looked nothing like me! He became my long-awaited son and I became his desperately needed Mommy. For days he would only go to me, if anyone looked at him or touched him, tears would stream down his face. For weeks he couldn't handle new people. It was a difficult adjustment. But somehow slowly our little boy was born. He started with a smile and a little giggle and turned into the joy-filled child we now know and love. A month after coming home we had ECI come out to evaluate his special needs. He cleared all his tests and they determined that he would no longer need their interventions. That was a joyous day!! We also welcomed a newborn boy at around this time who stayed with us for just a month. We waited anxiously for Isaac's parental rights to be terminated so we could adopt him and that day came in August. By December, 10 months after he came home, we stood in court surrounded by family and friends and gave him our last name, making him our son forever. He has amazed us ever since. He is resilient, a survivor. I am so proud of him. The ways he has lit up our life is endless. He is our precious gift from the Lord, brought to our doorstep in a chocolate brown package!

We love, love this child- his compassion for others, his sense of humor, his need for fun and his love for music are the things we cherish in him.

We thank God for making us a forever family.