Calendar Baby

Several months ago, our Gladney caseworker reached out to us about submitting a photo and short summary of our experience with the agency. The marketing department was looking for material to use for their publications, from the website to brochures, etc. And every year Gladney publishes a calendar that they send to all of their adoptive and birth families (I assume because we've received one ever since we were first accepted into the program).

Until we received our 2013 calendar in the mail this week, I had completely forgotten about sending in a photo of Noah and our story. I thumbed through the months glancing at the pictures of families, babies, adults - all a special story belonging to Gladney. I had doubted that anything much would become of our submission when lo and behold...

Noah made the December page! My sweet, handsome guy looks great in print and as I told my FB friends, Gerber surely doesn't know what they're missing. Haha!

This photo brings back amazing memories. I took it while on our vacation to Oregon with our best friends and their kiddos. We stopped at a winery to sample the local flavors and they had a beautiful landscaped yard that was perfect for taking pictures. Noah was also just learning to crawl, so it was in this little area that we also filmed him scooting around in the grass.

You can't read the text under the photo in this image so I've posted below. They edited it some from the original I sent, but I'm not complaining. Such fun news to get and share this week amidst all the sickness (yes, the husband got the flu as well) and cabin fever.

TEXT:

We didn't know it at the time but our journey with Gladney began over seven years ago. We were newly engaged to be married and on the search for a reception location. After touring the Gladney Center, Mabee Hall was on our top list of choices. Although we ended up choosing a different venue, the seeds of awareness about Gladney had been planted. Fast forward several years and we found ourselves attending orientation in that same hall we had envisioned for our wedding, only this time it was the beginning of a journey to grow our family through the miracle of adoption.

We received a call Christmas Eve from our caseworker. What we thought was going to be a routine "Merry Christmas" from Gladney turned out to be the most incredible Christmas gift we could have imagined. A birth family had chosen us to adopt their newborn boy! The surprise was he had already been born just days prior and was with a Gladney transitional care family waiting for us. To know that our son was only miles away lit a fire in our spirits and I don't think you have ever seen two people take action and make things happen as urgently as we did. We had nothing. But over the course of a few days, that completely changed as we prepared to meet this little person who would transform our lives. Six days after receiving "the call", we held our son for the first time.

We have been so blessed by our son, Noah, and the joy he brings to our lives and we look forward to working with Gladney again in the future.