Bringing Home Blue

2009-12-26T14:00:00.002-06:00

We had an exciting day on December 14th. We finalized our adoption with our little man Makai. He is now officially Makai Timothy Gesink! What a great day and what a great ending to an amazing journey. We thank God everyday for completing our family in such an amazing and wonderful way. We also thank God for blessing us and showing us His hand in every way throughout this journey.

This will be the last post on our adoption blog, I feel like it is time to add any Makai posts right in with our family posts on our Team Gesink blog. We would like to say a big thank you to all our friends and especially our family for the many prayers, words of encouragement and support they have given us throughout the last 6 months, we could not have gone through this all alone!

Please enjoy these celebration pics from our big day at the court house!

Our 6 month Boy!

2009-11-06T06:17:00.005-06:00

First I need to apologize...I know it has been awhile since I have posted. Homework, work and life has kept us busy and blogging falls behind in priorities! :)

I knew I would need to blog today though since it is Makai's 6 month birthday!
We cannot believe it has gone so fast and we are in awe of how far he and we as a family have come in just this little amount of time.

But most of all we give thanks and praise God for this little miracle that he placed in our family.

Psalm 118:28
You are my God and I will give you thanks;
You are my God and I will exalt you.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
his love endures forever.

I checked on Makai this morning as I got out of bed and saw and heard him sound asleep in his crib. (He is a noisy little sleeper!) There he laid with his arm draped over his forehead looking as though he had worked so hard and was so exhausted from a busy day of eating, sleeping, burping, rolling over, playing and giggling. A hard day's work at our house.
I think of where he would be if he wasn't in his crib in his little room...it brings tears to my eyes. I stood there with tears in wonder of God and his miracle... statistically there are 3,700 abortions in the United States every day, 115,00 in the world every day. We thank God that our Makai was not one of these statistics and we realize how he could've easily been. We thank God that his parents decided to love him enough to give him a chance to be loved by our family. When we sit at supper and ask the girls who or what we should pray for they always say Makai's mom and dad and we thank God for them and pray for their lives, their health and their hearts. I wonder if our girls really understand what they did for us and the miracle of how God brought him into our home, it is funny but in some way I think they really do.

Everyday 200,000 babies are born around the world! WOW. And God brought us Makai, of all the children born he choose Makai for us, to be a part of our family. It is just amazing, amazing that He knew before Tim and I got married, before we had our daughters that he would bless us with a son, a son from hundreds of miles away. Isn't it amazing? Don't we serve an awesome God.

Our little 6 month old miracle is rolling and drooling, giggling and whining, eating and eating some more, trying to keep up with his sisters, charming strangers (especially the girls), bouncing and finding his voice, sleeping and snoring, getting up on all fours and rocking, and showing us every single day how blessed we are to be chosen by God to love him, to just hold him and rock him, look into his eyes and love on him every single day. We are so blessed, in case I haven't told you lately God....thank you. Thank you for choosing to show us your love through our 6 month old son.

I just had to show some pictures of how far we have come!

Baptism!!

2009-08-26T10:16:00.004-05:00

Last month we had Makai's Baptism, it was a great day that our family had been looking forward to ever since we took Makai home. It means so much to us that our friends and family are willing to make a promise to help us teach Makai about our Father's love and show him the love of Jesus! It was a wonderful day of celebration!!

Lots of new photos and an update!! Finally!

2009-07-20T18:19:00.003-05:00

Sorry to be so long between updates, we are still making the adjustments to our new little man!

Makai is doing well, he is eating lots and now weighs 12 plus pounds!!

We call him our little chunky monkey!! We started him on rice cereal and he absolutely loves it! He is smiling and cooing lots now and we are loving his fun personality. He still loves to be held and loves his big sisters oohhing and aawwing all over him. He is sleeping pretty good and loves to lay on his tummy on the floor.

We finally took some family pictures so I wanted to share them with all of you!

One Month Mark!

2009-06-17T21:42:00.004-05:00

On June 12th we celebrated our one month anniversary of picking up our little man! It seems like just yesterday we were seeing him for the first time and getting to know him. He has changed so much in just a month and we are lovin him more and more everyday!

Here are some one month stats...

Weighs: 7 lbs. 3 oz.

Eats: 4-6 oz. every 3 hours

Sleeping: best on mom or dad but slowly making transition to his crib, up about every 4 hours

Loves: tummy time, being held by his big sisters, eating, bathing(finally)

Dislikes: having diaper changed, being hungry, being cold, sisters too close in face!!!

Always flashing pictures...here are a few of my faves!!!

By request...more pics of Makai!!

2009-05-25T19:55:00.007-05:00

Here are some fun photos from Makai's first photo shoot!

Fun, fun,

...he is getting used to the flash from my camera!

Blue is Home!!

2009-05-21T16:24:00.005-05:00

We had a wonderful time visiting Pam and James in North Carolina and want to say a big thank you to them for letting us stay at their beautiful home and spend some time with them. It was so nice to give Makai his first bath there and get some time to relax and enjoy Pam's great cooking! Taya misses them already!

We arrived at home yesterday at 4:30pm and surprised the girls with their new baby brother!

Our Little Tarheel!

2009-05-19T22:06:00.005-05:00

We had a wonderful day in Chapel Hill. We spend the day touring the campus. We walked around enjoying the beautiful weather and taking lots of pictures(of course!)

We had fun buying his first little Tarheel gear a UNC hat and a little tarheel polo! Fun!

We had a fabulous time visiting the university and spending time with Tim's aunt Pam and Uncle James, but we are anxious to head home and introduce Makai to his other big sisters!

More about Makai!

2009-05-16T16:05:00.006-05:00

In the hurry of getting his photos up I forgot to give you his stats!

Makai Timothy Gesink

May 6, 2009, 6 am

6 pounds 19 inches

He loves to be held (all the time)

and he is a very good eater!

He slept pretty good last night eating at midnight, 3 and 5ish!

He had his little surgery today and that went well. He slept most of the day

and had fun shopping with dad and mom...here are some more photos...

First diaper change, look out below!

Bonding time with daddy!

Makai Timothy...finally!!!!

2009-05-15T20:03:00.007-05:00

Sorry it is so late...we just heard from Shalee a little bit ago that she had finally seen her new brother so we could get the pictures up!

We got to meet our new son, Makai Timothy at 10:40am this morning! We saw a head full of dark hair being carried down the hall...

It was completely surreal and amazing to finally get to meet him!

We were overjoyed!

So here is what you have been waiting for...our little man...Makai Timothy...finally!

Somebody is in love with him already!!

Proud mom outside the agency!

We are in North Carolina!

2009-05-14T20:58:00.005-05:00

We left at about 6pm on Wednesday. May 14th and arrived at our hotel on Thursday, May 15 around 5ish. The ride went well, Taya traveled good and it went pretty fast except when we got to North Carolina then of course it took forever with lots of traffic jams. But we finally made it, we took showers to feel human again and ate some supper.

Then we drove to Matthews and found the agency just so we could make it easier in the morning!

We are physically and emotionally drained and ready for a good nights sleep! We will get to meet our son tomorrow morning around 10! We will be skyping the girls and family in the afternoon after school and then we will post pictures here after that!

We can feel all the prayers and support and we just want to say thank you to everyone for all your texts and calls along the way. We are so blessed and again feel so grateful...we are so anxious to meet our little man tomorrow!

In His time

2009-05-12T23:56:00.006-05:00

He makes all things beautiful

In His time

Lord please show me everyday

as you're teaching me your way

that you do just what you say

In your time...

Trust and obey, trust and obey

for there's no other way

to be happy in Jesus,

but to trust and obey

these and many more lyrics play through my head as we sit here tonight.

Tim and I think about every emotion we have felt through this whole journey,

...being scared, worried, eager, frustrated, filled with excitement, anticipation, fear, love, hope, and so much more...

Our social worker Heidi rang our doorbell today and surprised us with some big blue balloons with the words It's a Boy written on them. And we felt an emotion, the biggest emotion we have felt so far...gratefullness.

We are so grateful for all the prayers and support, encouragement and love we have felt through this whole journey you will never know how much all of you mean to us.

We are so grateful that God has chosen our family to be this little boy's forever family.

We are grateful that God has never left our side and taught us patience and trust as we have walked this journey.

We are so grateful that God shows us his faithfulness and reminds us daily to trust Him in His time.

...with this gratefulness we say a big thank you that we can make the big announcement that in His time God has blessed us with a son.

We ask for your prayers for tomorrow night when we leave and drive to North Carolina to finally bring home blue.

...more details to come, please keep us and our girls in your prayers and our little man...thank you God bless!

Here are a few of the surprise pictures right after we got the news...

Roller coaster Riding

2009-04-11T21:21:00.007-05:00

This journey has been such a roller coaster ride so I had to make that the title of this entry!! Many of you have been asking for an update so here it goes...

We boarded this ride and announced that about a month ago our book was put in, the reason for putting our book in before I was done with this semester in college was because we had gotten a call about a mom that was due at the beginning of June. Our social worker in NC thought she would be interested in seeing our family book, so after much prayer, we decided it was time to put our book in.

The roller coaster started its ascent.

We were called 2 weeks later with the news that the mom had chosen us and we were thrilled that we had gotten "the call" that we would be bringing home our little boy. I cannot describe how it felt getting that call and knowing that God had chosen the little guy that we would be taking home to join our family.

3 hours later the roller coaster went whirling around a turn.

Our social worker emailed us that the birth mom would like to talk to us on the phone, but she was also wanting to talk to another family on the phone too. We were a little disappointed, we weren't sure how to feel about that. What should we say? What would her voice sound like? Would the other couple sound better than us? Sydney coached us on how to talk on the phone and that we had to speak nice!! We waited to hear back about what time and day would work to talk to her and we went over and over what questions she would have for us and what questions we had for her in our heads. The girls anxiously waited too, asking again and again if today was the day we would talk to the "mommy".

Then the roller coaster went whipping full speed down the track.

A week later we got a call from our social worker, expecting to hear the time and date of our phone call we were surprised and numb to the response of "the birth mom has decided to parent." We were shocked and disappointed...we felt an odd feeling that is so hard to explain. We were thankful she had decided sooner than later to decide to parent and that this little boy would be able to stay with his birth mommy. But we also felt a weird feeling that we could not put into words. It was almost a feeling of loss. Through this journey we have felt so many emotions that are so unexpected and hard to describe and this was just another one of those emotions, big time!!

So where are we now...we are back where we were when we put our book in,

...praying and waiting...

Praying that God will give us strength to get through this and be able to work through the emotions and feelings of this journey and also waiting

...waiting again for that call...maybe the call that will be our son waiting for us to take him home.

God help us be patient and wait upon you!

Up on the Website!

2009-04-02T13:10:00.003-05:00

We are on the CAS Website! Check us out at this link below!

We are praying and waiting!!

C hristian Adoption Services Link

Where God Guides...

2009-03-26T20:53:00.005-05:00

God Supplies.

This was a message we saw driving home on a church sign the other night and it gave me such a peace. Our family has seen God's hand so many times during this journey and as we continue and get closer and closer we are reminded again how God supplies.

We know that our book is in and it is all in God's hands and

we pray where He has guided us He will bless us with our son, we anxiously wait and we ask for your prayers as we anticipate the phone call. We ask for your prayers and cannot wait to share our news with all of you! It has been a race to the phone lately looking to see if it is our social worker calling!

We got the nursery all ready to go this week and wanted to share pictures with you! An NC theme, I know you are soooo surprised!

It's Official...we are officially waiting! yep..finally!!

2009-03-12T12:31:00.006-05:00

Well, it is official...we have our book in. After much prayer for God's guidance we have decided to have our book shown to a mom from North Carolina. We got a call on Friday, March 6th and prayed throughout the weekend looking for God to clearly tell us if it was the right time. Then Sunday night we called our social worker and told her yes we were ready. We are excited, nervous, over joyed, anxious and thrilled all at the same time. We will find out soon if we will be picked or not.

We ask for your prayers as we wait! We thank you so much for all the love, support and encouragement all of you have shown us.

We started painting the nursery this week and thought it would be fun to get a quick photo of our news!

If you...you might have a big family!

2009-02-13T19:48:00.004-06:00

If you take up all the chairs in the waiting at the dentist office...you might have a big family!

If you go through a whole loaf of bread not in a week, but in one breakfast...you might have a big family!

If it takes you 15 plus minutes to schedule yearly physicals around everyone's schedule...you might have a big family!

If you feel like the house is quiet and peaceful with only 3 kids home...you might have a big family!

If you find the buzz of the orthodontists tool peaceful compared to the craziness at your house...you might have a big family!

If you have a laundry basket filled to the top with lonely socks trying to find their match...you might have a big family!

When you go to purchase toothbrushes and the store doesn't carry enough different colors so your kids won't mix them up...you might have a big family!

When you call into the medical clinic and they cannot find your child's name because you accidently gave them one of your other child's birthdates...you might have a big family!

If in church you could easily take up one whole pew with just your family...you might have a big family!

If people stare at you at the grocery store when your cart is full of gallons of milk...you might have a big family!

If when people ask you how many kids you have and give you that shocking look when you answer them, or you seriously think about lying or you have to stop and count...you might have a big family!

Where there is great love, there are always miracles-Willa Cather

Lord, we pray for our little miracle....

2009-01-20T13:37:00.003-06:00

My cousin Jessie, emailed me this wonderful link please check it out! It is a great adoption story.

Click here

Prayer Request!

2009-01-18T14:43:00.004-06:00

A special prayer request for one of the families from our church who are so close to getting their little guy home! Please pray that they may get answers to all their questions and requests and that they may know soon when exactly they get to go! Thanks so much!

Officially Approved!

2008-11-28T18:44:00.002-06:00

We received our home study in the mail today! And yes it had a stamp on it

Approved!!

2008-11-19T23:20:00.004-06:00

Here are some new pics our neighbor Lori took for our album, showing off our NC gear!

I have not posted lately because there is not much going on around here that has to do with our adoption. We are getting ready to get some surgeries out of the way and get healthy again. And get some Christmas shopping in.

We had a little prayer answered this week with our Taya Joy. We have been praying about moving Taya downstairs so that the baby can have her room. We prayed that it would go smoothly and that God would show us when to make this transition. Well, she decided this week that she was ready to go downstairs all by herself, "we need to make room for my baby brother,"she said! How cute! We were worried all for nothing, we thought we would have to get her ready to move when actually she was ready before we were! I think it was way harder on mommy and daddy then on Taya. Nyiah was excited to have a roommate too!

We did do a little Christmas shopping and of course picked up some North Carolina gear for our little guy, some NC onesies and booties that we couldn't resist! How fun.

We are looking into getting the nursery painted during Christmas vacation and then we will count down the days until our family vacation the first week of January. After that we have decided we will get our book done and get it out!

Please continue praying for us that we will continue to get ready for our little man and that God will guide us to our son. Thanks as always for all the encouragement!

2008-10-13T15:15:00.007-05:00

Sitting in the middle of class today, I got an email from Heidi our social worker. She let me know our Home Study is complete and is now being reviewed by our agency New Horizons. Yeah! What a big relief! We are excited to have all the paper work and running around done (or so we thought!) Heidi reminds me that we can now start the process of applying for grants/scholarships. So here we go again! But with that thought comes the thought of anticipation and excitement that we are getting closer by the minute! We just continue to pray for God's guidance and His constant presence as we decide when to put our book out. We have started working on it and I am getting the pictures ready to go...I am of course having lots of fun with that!

Please keep the prayers coming, and thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging to us throughout this process.

Especially those who are there for my little breakdowns(you know who you are!!)

2008-09-25T13:53:00.009-05:00

Through lots of prayer we have decided to go through a North Carolina agency that sister's with our New Horizons agency. We are thrilled that God has led us to know that is where our little guy will come from! Here is the link to their blog and website, great sites, if you have time check them out!

Christian Adoption Agency Blog- this blog includes pictures of matched families!

2008-09-20T21:57:00.007-05:00

I have to apologize that it has been so long since I posted last...it has been a little crazy at our house!! The girls have started back to school and I am about a month into my classes at WITCC in Sioux City. It is going well and we all have adjusted to the new schedule, even Tim who has to get everyone ready in the morning!!

We attended our orientation at Blue Earth, Minnesota today while the girls got to have some special time with Grandma Letti and Grandpa Kevin!

(Let the spoilin' begin!)

It was a great day filled with lots of info about what lies ahead for our family. The director of our agency, New Horizons talked a lot about policies, parenting and support. She shared a lot of info with us that was very beneficial.

We talked a lot about how to include your adopted child into your family and how to make that transition. We also talked a lot about how to share and talk with your adopted child about their birth mom. She gave some great tips that we will remember when we bring our little guy home.

The director of the agency also reminded us of the expense of the adoption process and recommended that we post on our blog or write a letter informing friends and family that if they would like to help with the cost of our adoption they could send a check to New Horizons Agency with our name written in the memo. If you feel lead to assist us with this cost click on this site for the agency address information. http://www.nhadoptionagency.com/

Our favorite part of the day was when we got to hear testimonies from other families that had adopted. It was so neat because one of the families was from our church! It brought tears to our eyes listening to how evident God's hand was in each and every adoption. It was truly amazing to hear the circumstances in which God brought these families together. We even heard how some adoption situations didn't work out and though it was a hard situation to be in at the time these families could now see why these situations didn't work out. In each situation God had intervened and made His plan very evident to the family. It was so awesome how God had found the perfect family for that child and the perfect child for that family. The testimonies of these families were truly inspiring.

The theme of the entire day was God's perfect timing. Did God know this is exactly what we needed to hear? I think He did. Over and over by all the speakers we continually heard,"you need to let God take this...you need to give it over to God...God is in control (those of you who know me know this is a hard one for me!)...also God knows what He is doing." It was constantly stressed God will not put the wrong child in the wrong family, He already has the right child picked out for you and in His perfect timing. Hearing all this made me take a deep breath, being the control freak that I am.

Let me back up a little to about 2 weeks ago when our social worker called one day inquiring whether or not we were ready to go, because they had a little guy needing placement and she wondered if we would consider being considered. WOW, was that ever surprising. We realized we weren't done with the process yet, we still hadn't even heard about our fingerprints and they can sometimes take a couple months to get done!! Yeah, and then she called back 10 minutes later and said she had just gotten a call that our fingerprints just came in. We had two days to decide and let me tell you those were two very agonizing days. Tim and I went back and forth with what to do, we questioned, we cried and we prayed.

We felt God's hand on us telling us with all the circumstances surrounding this situation that we needed to wait. We know for our family we made the decision that was best for us. But that still didn't make it any easier to make the call to Heidi our social worker.

Anyway, back to God's timing. We are asking for your prayers right now and if it is ok we would like to specifically ask for prayer for a few things...

1. For us to finish and wrap up all the little things that

go along with this process...
2. For the little guy that God has already picked out to

join our family and for his mother...
3. But mostly for God to make it evidently clear to us
(like a smack in the face would be nice or we will take

writing on the wall too)
when His perfect timing for our family is...

Thank you so much all of you for your prayers and support already. We are so thankful for all the encouragement and love. We covet your prayers as we continue on this journey to bring home blue!

Heidi our social worker reminded us when we do put our book out we need to be ready to go get a little guy so we thought we better buy some clothes for him. The girls loved helping pick stuff out even though it felt kinda funny shopping on the different side of the store than what we are used to. Here is some of our favorite purchases...

2008-08-16T21:55:00.010-05:00

Here are some pictures that we took on vacation for our family book!

It has been a long while since we have posted so I thought an update was in order. We did have our second home visit on August 6. We thought it again went really well. Lots more questions were answered as well as more questions arose. We are getting more and more excited and the girls are getting more and more annoyed with this adoption process. In their little minds they expect our little guy to come any day and mention a lot, to anyone who will listen, that we are getting a baby brother...along with the question, when is he coming again mom? We are still praying God will give us the right timing since my school year begins on Wednesday. I am getting excited about putting a book about our family together to show to the birth moms. I anxiously plan layouts, take pictures, get ideas, take more pictures, rearrange ideas and then again take more pictures for our book. I am starting to realize it is a lot more fun to plan for our little guy and work on this book and let God do all the worrying about timing and the stressful stuff. Maybe I will give all that stressful stuff up and let Him take care of it. (Yah, right!!) I wanted to post some pictures we took as a family on vacation that I thought would be good to open our family book with. Let me know what you think!!

We ask for your prayers as we anticipate the 3rd and final home visit where our Social Worker will be given a name to our girls instead of "that lady"! She will have time alone with each of them and have to see the house. (Any volunteers to help clean?) I am a little nervous about my girls time alone with her because you never know with little ones what they might say! We also pray that God will bring wisdom as we decide when to put our family book out to be seen, which means we could get chosen and get our little guy at any time!!

Our time on vacation just reassured me of what a wonderful extended family we have to share with a little guy. Seeing Tim with his nephews and how much love he shares with them (they also share wrestling, wedgies and lots of laughs) just makes me realize what a great dad he is and how neat a relationship he will have with our little guy. One memorable memory from our vacation I have to share was when he was showing a little neighbor boy there how to "properly" hold and throw the football...he is always a coach...I cannot wait to see him coach a little guy of our own!! I love you Tim.

2008-08-16T21:32:00.005-05:00

Checking out some adoption blogs I came across this interview of Steven Curtis Chapman and his family talking about the loss of their adopted daughter from China. Click on this link to check it out...it is amazing to witness the faith of their family.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=5524419

there is a commercial first and then the interview comes on.

2008-07-20T22:50:00.009-05:00

Throughout the years we have collected a few clothing essentials along the way...we just had to share a picture!

2008-07-18T05:52:00.015-05:00

We had our first home visit last night and all in all we think it went pretty well. Lots of questions were answered and as those questions were answered more questions arose. One big question we had was about adopting internationally or domestically (from the United States). Starting on this journey we had heard that international adoption was probably the way our family would need to go because of the number of children we already had. As we heard this and did some research we still felt a big pull in our hearts for children from the United States, but prepared our selves and our hearts for making a trip over seas. We just prayed God would lead us in the right direction and bring us to the place He wanted our little guy to come from, no matter where that might be. Then our social worker asked us what we thought of North Carolina...she was kidding right? North Carolina? The thought of bringing our own little Tarheel home was amazing!! We felt like God answered so many prayers and questions with that idea, and even though we are bathing it in prayer we feel God may be leading us to bring home our very own little Tarheel in North Carolina.

As we reflect on the visit last night we realize we have a lot of preparing to do and a lot of decisions to make as far as open or closed adoption, race of the child, what birth issues we will accept, and financially how we will support another child and this adoption. Our social worker also suggested we make sure we have baby things ready to go and buy a little at a time so when we get the call we aren't overwhelmed with purchasing baby equipment. The girls were particularly excited about buying stuff for their baby brother, although Taya just wants to save her clothes for him!!

We ask for your prayers now as our family prepares for our next home visit. We feel a bit overwhelmed and ask more than anything that God will give us wisdom. We want this journey to be completely blessed by Him and just pray for Him to guide us.

Psalm 48:14 says, For this God is our God for ever and ever;

he will be our GUIDE even to the end.

2008-07-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

May you be safe and sleep soundly through the night

and safe as you wake to the morning's light

May you feel our love from so far away

May it comfort and protect you throughout the day

We will pray for you our little one

until our time of waiting is done

We will pray the Lord will keep you from harm,

until you become the child in our arms.

Working through this journey I often wonder,"is our little guy born yet?" and "what will he look like?" and "where will he be from?" so many questions and so many what ifs. I pray again for guidance especially as we anticipate and get ready for our first home visit. I laugh as I think about explaining this home visit with our girls. Taya excitedly exclaims, "we need to get the house ready mom, she will bring our baby brother!" As I explain that our social worker will not be actually bringing our baby boy to our house, Sydney and Nyiah let out a cranky sigh, "Augh, mom" they say, "how much longer do we have to wait for him?" I chuckle, wondering how many times they will ask us that question. I sit and think about when I will ask God that same question along the way, and remind myself of God's perfect timing.

2008-06-30T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Gift of Life

We didn't give you the gift of life,

But in our hearts we know.

The love we feel is deep and real

as if it had been so.

For us to have each other

is like a dream come true.

No, we didn't give you the gift of life,

Life gave us the gift of you.

God, our biggest prayer is for guidance and wisdom throughout this journey. We pray that during this entire process we may convey the love of Jesus Christ to everyone involved, and when we bring the son that you have already chosen for us home, we pray we may share your love with him. We thank you for your grace and faithfulness and pray a special prayer of blessing on this journey.