Update

The people are demanding an update.

Tuesday was a good day for us. The adoption paperwork became legally binding on that date. There is a waiting period after adoption to give the birthmom a chance to change her mind. It is 10 days in Arkansas but 5 of those days can be waived by the birthmom (which ours did). That put the day on Saturday so it would go to the next business day which was actually Tuesday because of the holiday. Now we just have one more thing to make it official official. Our court date for the judge to sign off on the adoption is tomorrow. They say that it is more of just a formality but I will be happy when it is all done. Also Tuesday, we talked to the agency (Bethany) we were working with to adopt to let them know we would not need to continue with them since we had adopted Esther (privately without an agency). They were happy for us but sad for them because they really liked us and wanted to work with us. We had already paid there upfront/non-refundable fee to use them (which was several thousand dollars). But they told us they had not yet deposited our check so they were not going to worry about it and not deposit it. So, we got that money back!!!!!!!!! Side story....This was a huge answer to prayer. We had been really worried about the money aspect of adopting. The average cost is $20,000-$25,000 and we had made a lot of changes to our lives to save this kind of money and it was going to completely deplete our savings. Private adoptions are hard to come by but God answered our prayers and provided a private adoption for us that is costing us less than 10% of what we had thought we would have to pay for adoption through an agency.

My work had a shower for us on Tuesday also. It was a lot of fun and totally blew us away how much stuff Esther got there. It was funny because I work with almost all women and a lot of their kids are grown and older so they were really excited about baby Esther and they were oohing and awing over her. I really like my job and the people I work with. Some of them are like family and it was awesome to see how much they already love her. It meant a lot to me.

I am still working on the furniture for her room. I finished repainted the cradle, crib, and changing table that we were given. She has been sleeping in the cradle in our room. We are trying to hold off buying bunch of stuff and getting her room set up until after the shower on Saturday. Right now I am working on stripping and repainting the dressers that are going in her room.

Here is the before picture of the cradle. This cradle was my cradle when I was a baby. It was given to my parents when I was born (almost 30 years ago). Hopefully we can pass it on to Esther when she has kids.

Here is it is after being repainted. I think it turned out pretty good. Much more up to date looking.

Our good friends Russ, Kristy, and their daughter Sophie came over the other day to see Esther. Here is Sophie holding Esther.

More pictures