Introducing our son, Chip!

Our Journey to Meeting Chip

 

(in pictures because that's all you really care about anyway :))

 

 

January 11, 2013
 

Lee and I found out that I was pregnant!

  

This was my first journal entry (written Jan. 15) to Chip.
Psalm 139:13-16 was heavy on my heart.
God already KNEW this child.

February 2013

Revealed our pregnancy news to family and friends.

 

"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward."
Psalm 127:3

 

 March 19, 2013

We had been praying about boy and girl names.
We got a boy name.
Chip
No girl name.

The first time I mentioned the name "Chip" to Lee.
Yes, we later had a more "serious" discussion :))

Journal entry on March 19th.
 

April 16, 2013
 

We found out his gender!

 16 weeks pregnant

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miller will have a little brother!!

May - September

Let the preparation begin...

 

 September 17, 2013
Last date night before little man arrives!

 

late night BLOG POST the night before delivery because I couldn't sleep :)

September 18, 2013
The day we FINALLY met our son!!

His hat waiting on him. Picture taken around 6:30 in the morning.

 

Eagerly awaiting his arrival.

 

Lee's twitter "texts" immediately after he was born!

Wish we could have seen everyone when they got the text that Chip had finally arrived!

 The first picture we sent to friends/family.
Taken while I was holding him for the first time :)

 Lee holding both boys for the first time!

"Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are children born in one's youth."
Psalm 127:4

Be still my heart, be still.

 

Headed home from the hospital. Sept. 20, 2013

 

Newborn Photo Sneak Peeks

 

 

People ask how we are doing.

We are so good!

We are in love with our new little one.

 

Our hearts are... full.

 

We are having a baby tomorrow!!

Excitement abounds!

A son of the one True King will take his first breath of life tomorrow!

I cannot wait!

What a precious blessing of life God has entrusted us with!

And yes, I'm laying awake in bed because I cannot sleep! Too much on our minds!

Pray for us all! Just for God's loving hand to be upon us as we go through the next day of getting little man here safely!

For those of you following my twitter feed- you may get some random texts like my nurses hair color :))
The explanation is that it was part of a contest!
When Miller was born, we had a simple "guess the Birth weight" contest at work and the winner got a gift card.

So we "spiced" it up a bit this time and had 10 random but objective questions for Chip's birth.

My co-workers filled these out about 2 (or 3) weeks ago! A few of the questions are already answered.

Look... If you want people to participate in something, all you have to do is make the prize a gift card to a restaurant! I swear those forms were filled out and returned to me in like 2 or 3 days by 2 different departments :))
Their gift card is just to Subway, but that's a hot location in the hospital!

Anyway. I need to go to bed! Lee is insisting! And he's wise!

Here is a copy of the questions they had for the contest... Just for those of you curious! Some could have been "educated" guesses and others were totally random!

Chip's Birth Contest

1) hair will be:
brown
blonde
no hair

2) labor (water break-delivery) will last:
0-6 hrs
7-12 hours
Greater than 12 hours

3) he will weigh:
more than miller
less than
same 7.13

4) his first cry will be:
immediately after birth 0-2 min
3-5 minutes after birth
won't cry til longer than 5 min after birth

5) time of birth:
12am- 7:59 am
8am-3:59 pm
4pm-11:59pm

6) abby's IV placement:
hand
wrist
forearm

7) Delivery Nurse hair color:
brown
blonde
black

8) day of week:
mon-tues
wed-thurs
Friday-Sunday

9) delivery room #
201-205
206-210
211-215

10) Millers first reaction:
Big smile
Blank stare
Ignore

Tie breaker: birth weight without going over

This was a picture from our last little date night tonight before baby Chip arrives!

And lastly, this is a picture of part of my first journal entry to Chip. No one even knew we were pregnant yet :))
We have clung to this scripture this whole pregnancy!

Ok. For real. I'm done now :)

Little Man's Name Is.....

 

 

 

Our new little man's name will be....

 

Chip Lee

 

 

We love his little name!

I guess this is our "official" announcement of the name, although we haven't really kept it a secret like we did with Miller.

 

Keeping the name a secret until the baby is here is actually probably the best way to go in my opinion! But that's another blog post, another day.

 

I think I will post pictures as I answer some common questions we get with regards to his name.

 

 

Just look at those sweet plates that some co-workers gave us!
Love them!!

Why did you not use an "M" name? You have Miller and Malachi.
 We just didn't. We did not intentionally use "M"s in the first place, it just sort of happened. So we didn't feel obligated to stick with "M."
Plus, who knows whether or not we will have more kiddos :)

 

 

 

 Isn't Miller's middle name "Lee"?
Yep! Sure is!
This is probably the "hottest" topic when it comes to Chip's name.
Be prepared to have your "social norm" socks knocked off!
We have decided to give all of our boys the same middle name.
Lee
Their father's name!
Catch your breath. It's really okay!
We like it! We have extensive reasons for this decision and honestly, many of the reasons are much too intimate/personal/deep whatever you want to call it to announce on this little blog.
It was not a "lazy" decision.
It was actually a very deeply thought about decision.
So, just to clarify.
We have a:
Miller Lee
Chip Lee
And will have a Malachi Lee one day!

It actually really cracks me up with regards to social norms.
The first question I posted above "why didn't you name them all with the same first initial?"
When people ask that, they're almost like "I cannot believe you didn't give him an "M" name!"
And honestly, what significance does the first initial have?

But then you say "we are naming them all after their father instead" and I swear people's mouths hit the floor. Literally.
Same initials = socially normal
Same middle name = socially ABnormal

We will take the latter. Our family doesn't fit the social norm anyway :)

Whew. Now I am off my soap box, promise!

 

 



 

 Where did y'all get the name Chip from?

This is a multi-layered answer.

We did NOT name him after our pastor - Chip Henderson.

We also did  NOT name him after the popular NFL coach - Chip Kelly (although Lee would like to claim that at times)!

Both of those men are great, but that's just honestly not where we came up with the name.

 

Our search for names began shortly after I found out I was pregnant.

With Miller and Malachi, the names came fast and easy.

Lee and I don't have a roster of names we like, so literally we were starting from scratch.

Over the course of the next few months, we would name off both boy and girl names and neither of us liked any of them. I literally don't think we said one single name out loud more than once before we discussed the name "Chip."

 

In March, I just began praying for God to give us a name. At that time we still didn't know if he was a boy or girl.

I don't remember exactly when it was, but I think it was when I was driving down the road one day. The name Chip popped into my head. As soon as it did, I had a gut feeling that would be the name (even though we didn't know gender yet).

I mentioned the name to Lee and he said that he liked it a lot. He mentioned some references to the name Chip from his childhood and said he had always liked the name.

 

March 19th I wrote in Chip's journal telling him that if he was a boy we would name him Chip Lee Blackburn after his daddy. If he was a girl, we still didn't have a name.

 

April 18th we found out he was a boy.

We never discussed another name.

It was always just Chip.

 

Chip's wreath for the hospital.

 

Is his name just "Chip" or is Chip a nickname?

The name Chip is commonly a nickname used in reference to the phrase

"chip off the old block" which means "like his father."

 

It is common for people to give their son the exact name as their father and then call them Chip. Much like a "Junior" or a "Trip"

 

But our little guy is just Chip.

 

 

We can't wait to meet our little man!

He should be here in a week or so!

 

August Collage & Fingerprint Update

Here is our collage for the month of August.

It is so very hard to imagine that this is the last collage I will do that doesn't have our new little man in it!

37 weeks pregnant :) 

August was a busy month!
Starting at top left and going right:

**Miller graduated from his crib to a toddler bed :(

**Sweet co-workers gave me an awesome baby shower!

**Miller had his 2nd Birthday party

**Miller got a trampoline for his birthday

**We are STILL number 66 and 32 on the waiting list for Malachi

**FOOTBALL SEASON is here! Miller and Blakely at NE High School Football game

**Celebrated 1 year DTE!

and

**We finally poured concrete for our back porch! We still have work to do on it :)

Disclaimer: I have NO idea why my pictures have all of a sudden become blurry on this blog! It is driving me crazy! If you can help me, please message me!




Since we have been waiting a year now, our paperwork is starting to expire :( So we will have to start doing updates. We began with updating our fingerprints.
Praise the Lord for a sweet fingerprint lady who allowed Lee to go ahead and update his today instead of on his scheduled appointment tomorrow!
We are so thankful that the USCIS, FBI, whoever once again has our never going to change fingerprints :)

The most comical part of the fingerprinting session was when we were filling out forms.
It asked for my height and weight  :) Ummm....
I looked at Lee and said "this is a joke." (at 37 weeks pregnant).
So I did the best thing I knew to do. I chose a weight half way between what I weigh today and what I weigh not pregnant! It at least made me feel a little better.
The lady ended up laughing and saying "girl you could have just put you "normal" weight."
When we left, we attempted to remember how old Miller was the last time we visited this building. I found the Link to last year's post and I forgot that sweet Miller still had his helmet last year!
I love my little blue helmet baby!!

We are praying hard that we only have to update these things maybe one or two more times!
Praying hard!

1 YEAR DTE!!

 

 

ONE YEAR DTE!!

August 31, 2013

 

 

We celebrated with a little Kroger Cookie Cake (fancy huh? :)) while we watched the Bulldogs play!

We had the camera set to take automatically and we loved this picture of Miller after the camera snapped! He was licking the icing!



 

Sweet boy posed a little better in this one!

 

For those of you new to our journey, Saturday August 31 marked ONE YEAR that we have officially been on the waiting list with our agency.

DTE = Dossier to Ethiopia

August 31, 2012 was the day that ALL of our paperwork finally made the trek across the world to Ethiopia!

 

CLICK HERE to see my blog post from last year on our DTE date.

So.... Where does that leave us in the process?
Still waiting :(

I honestly thought that I would be extremely excited on our 1 year anniversary.
However, if I am being honest, I have stared at that date on our refrigerator calendar all month and my heart has been VERY HEAVY!
So heavy that it was hard for me to celebrate on Saturday.
Don't get me wrong... I ABSOLUTELY haven't changed my mind about adoption.
But the wait is hard.
A friend of ours who recently brought home his son from Ethiopia said to me on Sunday, "People underestimate the stamina it takes to keep your joy during the wait. It's hard."

When we first began this journey, our agency told us to except a 12-18 month wait before referral.
Then last year the wait increased before we were DTE to 18-24 months.
And this year... on FRIDAY Aug 30 to be exact... I received an email that said the wait time had once again increased to 30-36 months or longer.

If we have been officially waiting for 12 months... and they expect 36 months at least... then we can safely say we have 24 more months until we receive a referral. :(

There are so many reasons for increasing wait times. '
It's red tape. Paperwork. Clearances. Etc. Etc.
Forgive me for not desiring to go into detail tonight.
Don't be confused. There is NOT a lack of orphans in Ethiopia. The hold up is in the paperwork clearing these children to be adopted.
Orphanages are full. Children are waiting (which is honestly more painful than me waiting).

Last year, I HONESTLY believed that Malachi would be our next child.
However, God had other plans.
He was not surprised by the increased wait times, or by my pregnancy (obviously He is the creator of life).
So today I cling to the Truth that God is not surprised by any of the governmental red tape, but instead, He is using it to put together His perfect plan. God is in control of all of it.

Pray for us in the wait. Pray for children to be placed in families. Pray for governments to become more efficient in adoption cases.

Oh yeah... my sweet co-workers gave me plates for all 3 boys recently at my baby shower.
Miller ate his eggs off Malachi's plate on Saturday to celebrate DTE :)
Isn't this plate precious??