I cannot believe how fast the past six months have flown by! Yes, at times it seems like it should have already been here but now it finally is! Tucker is legally ours forever!! We can now officially show you his picture on social media without a blur! This blog is going to be long! :-)
The past six months....
Oh how we have dreamed and waited for this day to arrive!! We have had an eventful past six months for sure! From waiting for the birth of Tucker to weddings and holidays to sicknesses and everything else in between! From the moment we found out about Tucker life has been crazy, in a good way! The weekend we received the phone call about Tucker we started preparing for his arrival. Getting his room ready, getting our house in order and registering for things he would need.
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| Registering at Target! |
Our agency had been told that the birth mom would probably be induced two to three weeks from when we found out about Tucker. He actually came almost a month later. We finally got a date for inducement and we went and stayed the night before so we would be closer. However God had some other plans and all deliveries that were on August 9th were rescheduled for August 10th due to monitor issues. We were so close! It was a long two nights and day before the day actually came when we got to go to the hospital. Since we had to wait one more day Daniel and I took advantage of the day. We had lunch at Sam's Club and did some last minute shopping for our family baby shower.
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| Two nights before Tucker arrived. Waiting.. |
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| Our lunch the day before Tucker arrived. One of the many photos my mom kept requesting. |
August 10th- (Due to the privacy of the birth parents and Tucker I'm not going to go into every detail of our hospital stay)We woke up super early! We had to be at the hospital by 7:00. We stopped and grabbed breakfast and headed to the hospital. We ate our breakfast in the waiting area while we waited for our agency worker. Once she arrived she got to work on getting us set up in our own room while we waited. This is the room where we waited for Tucker. By lunch time, he still had not arrived so we walked over to grab lunch in the hospital cafeteria and we stopped at the gift shop. At 3:52 our nurse came in and said we were fixing to have a baby. At 4:01 Tucker was born. Daniel and I stood in the hallway and could hear him crying. They brought Tucker down to us and I got to hold him for the first time. It was amazing. Daniel was super proud and did a great job keeping our family updated and sending them pictures. We were moved to a different room for the rest of our stay and it was freezing the whole time!! Once we got to our new room they came in and gave Tucker a bath and daddy got to feed him for the first time. We were so in love. Our first night in the hospital we had Chick-fil-A for dinner. That night and the next was so hard to sleep. I kept watching Tucker and listening to every sound he made. After he would eat he kept getting choked and would spit up a lot. Finally our last day in the hospital they switched formulas and he did much better. Daniel, Tucker and I did spend some time with the birth parents during our stay. We finally got to go home on August 12th.
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| Waiting for Tucker to arrive. |
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| Hearing Tucker cry for the first time. |
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| Holding Tucker for the first time. |
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| Family of three |
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| Daddy feeding Tucker for the first time. |
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| My whole world! |
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| Proud parents!! |
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| Going home! :-) |
Everyone was anxious for us to get home! Once we arrived home my mom, brother and the kids were already waiting for us. They were very excited to meet Tucker. Especially Graesun! My aunt Melissa had decorated our living room with things for Tucker and the fridge with pictures over the past couple of days. My mom kept bugging me the whole time we were away asking me to send her pictures. I had no idea she had a plan for them! Tucker's grandpa and meme came over that night also. Over the next few days Tucker had lots of visitors! Gracie just adores him!
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| Welcome home baby Tucker! |
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| Aubree meeting Tucker for the first time. |
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| Graesun meeting Tucker for the first time. |
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| Meme and Gracie getting to see baby Tucker. |
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| Graesun holding Tucker for the first time. He was so proud. |
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| Uncle Matthew meeting Tucker for the first time. |
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| Aunt Amy meeting Tucker for the first time. |
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| Grandma Anderson getting to hold him for the first time. |
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| One proud grandpa! |
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| Aunt Mandy meeting Tucker for the first time. |
August-
Tucker had lots of visitors. We had our family baby shower that our moms and my uncle Jamiel did for us. We also had my school baby shower and a shower with the girls from Hallmark. Tucker had his first non family member babysit him for a few hours. She was so excited! Tucker got to go to church for the first time. He slept pretty good through the night. Waking about every 3 hours to sleep. We also did newborn photos.
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| The center of our world. |
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| OSU fan in training. |
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| Family baby shower |
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| School baby shower. Nascar theme for Daniel. |
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| One of the first photos I got of Tucker laughing. |
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| Aubree wants to play too! |
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| Proud daddy |
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| Gracie won't leave his side. |
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| Ms. Carol getting to babysit Tucker. |
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| First time going to church! |
September-
Daddy gave him his first bath! We got tons of cuddles! We had our church baby shower. Celebrated daddy's birthday and uncle Matthew's birthday. Mommy went back to work and Tucker started daycare. I bawled a lot the first day away from him!!
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| Church shower |
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| First day of daycare |
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| One of my favorites! |
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| Just day dreaming |
October-
We went on our first family vacation for uncle Matthew's and aunt Amy's wedding in Branson. The day we came home Tucker ended up with his first virus and the sickness only continued from there!! He was sick on Halloween so we stayed home and grandparents came for a visit. Tucker went to his first OSU homecoming parade. He started focusing a lot this month.
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| First family vacation |
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| We wore him out shopping |
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| Wedding night |
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| Just talking to daddy |
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| OSU homecoming parade |
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| First Halloween |
November-
We got to celebrate Thanksgiving at our house with Tucker and Daniel's family. We finally got our puzzle framed! Tucker got to meet Santa for the first time! Plus we did Christmas pictures!
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| Thanksgiving Day, hanging out with his buddy. |
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| He loves FaceTime with Grandma |
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| Puzzle is complete! |
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| First time meeting Santa |
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| Cousin love |
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| Christmas Family photos |
December-
Tucker rolled over for the first time on December 3rd. He got bronchitis the week of Christmas break. He was sick most of Christmas break. We started some solid food. The first was sweet potatoes because those were Aubree's favorite. We celebrated Tucker's first Christmas with lots of family. Tucker had his first visit from Santa.
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| Tucker's first Christmas with my mom and brother. |
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| Christmas with my mom's side of the family. |
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| Santa came to visit |
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| Tucker was very spoiled by Santa, grandpa, meme and Aunt Mandy. |
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| Tucker's new quilt for tummy time from Aunt Amy and Uncle Matthew. |
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| First Christmas |
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| First time rolling over. |
January-
The week we went back to school Tucker had bronchitis again and I stayed home a week with him. He started giving open mouth kisses towards the middle of this month. They sure melt my heart when I get kisses when I pick him up from daycare everyday! We moved him up to a big boy car seat. This boy is definitely not starving. He started sleeping in his own room. He started holding his bottle by himself. He also got the flu this month! The sicknesses do not end!!
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| Sick baby |
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| Just watching TV with dad |
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| One of the many photos I get from daycare! |
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| He loves his swing. |
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| He might love this blanket more. |
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| Even when he is sick, he always has a smile. |
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| A boy in overalls!! |
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| He loves his bouncer. |
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| FaceTime with Aubree |
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| Happy boy!! |
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| Just holding his own bottle. |
February-
We took a trip to Stillwater to take Graesun to see the transformer. Tucker received the sweetest Valentine gift from our adoption friends in Canada. Tucker celebrated his first Valentine's. Tucker legally becomes our son forever!
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| Two of my favorite little guys. |
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| He loves his uncle Matthew |
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| Loves his sock monkey from Canada. |
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First Hat
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| He loves being outside. |
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| Ready for church |
Over the past six months we have stayed in contact with the birth mom and will continue to do so. We update her on Tucker and send pictures. We feel it is important that Tucker knows the love she has for him. We are very lucky to have such a positive relationship with the birth mom. We continue to pray for her and her family. They have blessed us more than they will ever know and for that we are truly grateful to them. God lead us to the best agency to help with our adoption journey. I send pictures to our agency worker almost weekly of Tucker. She has truly been a blessing with any questions or concerns we've had. We are so lucky to get to work with her. We know that we are very blessed to have a mighty God whom we have believed in his timing and never gave up hope in. He has made OUR family possible. Our adoption journey wasn't always easy. There were lots of heartaches, tears and lots of whys. Our family and friends stood by us every time and prayed. Thank you all!
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With faith comes hope.
Never give up hope. If we had, we wouldn't be with Tucker today.
With God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26.
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