Lilly's Journey by Ansel

This is a video that our nephew, Ansel, made us for Christmas about our journey adopting Lilly. He did such an awesome job and we are so grateful that he did this for us. What makes it even more amazing is that the song was pretty much our theme song throughout the adoption - it's was even my ringtone on my phone. Hope everyone enjoys the video as much as we do. :)

Merry Christmas Eve

During this wonderful Christmas season, I can't help but think back to how I have felt these past 8 years during this time of year. I use to put out my nativity and start to cry when I would look at Joseph & Mary with their baby Jesus. I collect nativities and I always take such care placing the pieces where I think they would have gone. I'd place Joseph as close to Mary as I could, with his arms around her. I always imagined the great Joy he must have felt with his beautiful wife. The love he probably had in his eyes when he looked at her. It made my heart ache to think about it and I wanted so badly to have just a portion of that peace and although I know how much Brandon loves me, I always felt such sorrow knowing I couldn't give him what we both so desperately wanted.

As we celebrate the birth of our Saviour this Christmas. I finally feel that I have been given a portion of that Joy and Happiness Joseph and Mary must've felt. I look at the nativity with new eyes. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that our Heavenly Father gave us his Son, Jesus Christ, and that he died for our sins. This Christmas we are given so much more than just material gifts, Brandon & I have received the ultimate gift of all - our beautiful daughter Lilly. A week ago we went to the Temple and were able to become a family forever. What greater gift could we have been given than that.

Birth Announcement

Lilly's Adoption Video

Adoption Finalization

A year ago on Saturday, December 5, 2009 - we made the decision that it was time to start looking into adoption. That following Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - we contacted LDS Family Services and started getting all the paperwork to fill out to adopt. On Thursday, December 10, 2009 (A year ago TODAY!) we posted our first blog on here telling everyone our plans. And now, on Friday, December 10, 2010 - we went to court and officially adopted our sweet little baby girl. Isn't it amazing what a year can bring? We have felt overwhelmingly blessed throughout this process - everything has happened so quickly (in the time frame of a typical adoption), and we truly felt from the beginning that everything would work out - and it has! It is such a relief knowing that the legal part is all finished and Lilly is officially ours. Last night we were wondering how it would feel to finally know that it was done. If anything were to have happened to us prior to the adoption being finalized, than Lilly would have gone back to the agency and neither or us would really have an option to finish the adoption - so it's just a relief to have this step done. We only have one last thing to do. In our religion, we feel that families can be together forever and throughout the eternities - next week all of our family and friends will come here for a ceremony to do that. Again, we are so thankful for everyone that has given us their support. We are grateful for every single one of you.

Waiting outside the courtroom.

Sitting in the courtroom while the judge talks about how

wonderful adoption is, "because we made the conscious decision to

have children." And that it's the best time to be a judge,

because everyone is usually always happy.

The judge gave Lilly a cute little Teddy Bear.

Judge Carol Runge, Hannah, Lilly, Brandon

& Our Attorney (my awesome brother) Christopher Childers

It's done!!!

Baby Shower

My sweet sister-in-law, Jennifer Childers, threw us a baby shower open house. She always does such an amazing job putting everything together to make an event feel super special and wonderful. It was just a fun time seeing all our friends and family. My Mom & Aunt Caroline came up from California for the shower (we missed my Aunt Mary, but she got sick and couldn't make it). We are so grateful for everyone coming and we got a lot of awesome stuff for Lilly!

My friend Carolyn Klein made us a diaper cake!

My Aunt Caroline Rouse

A beautiful blanket that our friend Ruth Drennan made.

My funny little niece Sadie, enjoying herself!

My awesome sister-in-law, Jennifer Childers

And I just stole these pics from off my sister-in-laws blog, but my nephews and I just had to get out a little extra energy after the baby shower and we were trying to mimic some awesome dance moves that we saw on the computer - I can say this much, I don't mind making a fool of myself!

Our baby is a month old!!!

How does the time go so fast? This month has just been crazy. Adjusting to everything has been easier than we expected. I have had worries that I wasn't ever going to bond with Lilly. What if she didn't like me? Thankfully, over the past few weeks, we've gotten to know each other and now it feels like I'm moving from being the "caretaker" to the "mom." I am a more guarded person than Brandon and as we accomplish all the steps to making this adoption final, it becomes more of a reality that this is actually real. I just don't want this to be a dream and I wake up. But now we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Today we had our post-placement study, where our caseworker comes back into our home and makes sure it's still a safe environment and we are all adjusting. And we totally passed! That means that on December 10th, 2010 - we will go to Court and make the adoption final and Lilly is legally OURS! Right now, we have physical custody of Lilly, and our agency has legal custody of her - I don't even know what it will feel like to have this all completed.

Lilly is a beautiful and wonderful baby. Our birth mom always called her "Little One", so to always remember Mandy, our nickname for Lilly is "Little One". She has now been sleeping most nights for a little over 5 hours. She hardly cries, unless she's hungry (and who can blame her really, I get cranky when I'm hungry) or wants her Binky. She is so aware of everything going on around her - she is always looking around and observing her surroundings. My favorite part of the day is about 4:30 a.m. when Brandon has gone to work and Lilly has just finished eating - we will snuggle up in bed and cuddle until it's time to get up. She curls up in my arms and sometimes I will wake up and she's just staring at me. I love watching her sleep and she'll start to do every expression she knows - all in a split second. It's amazing to watch her learn and grow each day. We have been so blessed to have her in our life and given the opportunity to help mold her to the woman she will become. We just can't wait for the next week to be over and then she's all ours! Our little baby girl, Lilly Delaney Ungricht.

11/3/10 - Newborn

11/10/10 - One Week

11/17/10 - Two Weeks

11/24/10 - Three Weeks

12/1/10 - Four Weeks

Answers

Awhile back I had asked if anyone had any questions, I didn't forget to answer them, things just got busy. I am going to answer one of those questions, "What can someone do to lend their support to someone that is adopting and what has been very touching to you?" Brandon and I have talked a lot about how we have felt so overwhelmed with love. From our viewpoint, show support by just being positive about adoption. We don't ever mention really on our blog how many people tried to tell us all about the things that could go wrong. That was one of the most difficult things throughout this journey. Yes, it was hard to wait - but there would be days that we just felt so drained by what everyone was saying around us. I never actually realized that there were people out there that weren't for adoption - I understand now that that's not the case. Some people feel that no one should ever give their biological children up for adoption, no matter what! Mandy did this because she loved Lilly more than herself, it is the most unselfish act she will have ever done, giving Lilly what she couldn't.

Be supportive of people that are thinking about placing their children for adoption. We had a few nurses try to convince Mandy to keep the baby - what would have happened if we hadn't had such a great relationship with her? I tried not to think of how devastated I would have been if it all fell through, but it happens - and we don't need to be reminded that that could happen, trust me, it's on any adoptive parents mind the whole time. It's hard to pinpoint the most touching moment on our journey. All the little moments made for a wonderful experience. The moments when a little older lady at our church came up to us and gave us two $10 bills to help us out - to the package on our doorstep with a book and money in it - or when someone would just stop us to just say how excited they were for us. Just being a positive uplifting support is probably the most important part of helping someone along this journey.

Gingerbread Baby

Tonight the Young Women in our ward at church had a baby shower for Lilly. It was a lot of fun. We made little gingerbread houses and then the girls and leaders gave us a book called "The Gingerbread Baby." It was so nice to spend time with the Young Women and have them love on our baby Lilly, she is so lucky to have so many people around her that love her so much!

This is Lily & Lilly! I love the middle picture where our Lilly is looking up at Lily Harris with this look in her eyes like, "WHAT is going on here!?"

...don't ask...

Three beautiful Young Women - Kadi Kulmus, Jessica Bagley (holding Lilly) & Cortney Smith

Sweet Ashley Hammond holding Lilly

Double trouble, Hannah Grimmett & me! Of course, one of these Hannah's is crazier than the other...and it's not me! ;)

Goofing off for the camera!

The awesome group of women that our daughter has to look up to - we are so blessed to have them all in our lives.

Weeks 1 & 2 - Pictures