Steven's Story

Dear Friends,

Yesterday we brought home our son, Steven James! He was born on Thanksgiving Day and weighed in at 6 lbs. 2 ozs. and was 21 inches long. He was a few weeks early, so he spent some time in the NICU.

His birthmom had already contacted Bethany Christian, so after he was discharged, he went to live with his interim care parents (similar to foster care parents), Mary and Allen. A week ago Friday (Dec. 7), we were contacted by Dawn at Bethany and asked if we were interested in him. We scrambled and put together our portfolio (picture scrapbook), and waited and prayed.

She looked at two portfolios on Thursday (Dec. 14), and even though the other couple already had a biracial daughter, she felt a connection to us and liked that we had been together for so long (12 years on Jan. 4!!). We met her on Friday night and really hit it off. We went to visit Steven on Saturday at Mary and Allen's and got to know him a bit. Steven's birthmother went to court yesterday and relinquished her rights, and we brought him home yesterday afternoon.

In the midst of this, we had our last homestudy visit (no, we weren't approved yet!), and rushed togther our psychological evaluation reports, financial statement, and other details. Our poor sick social worker got the report finished this weekend, and we were approved yesterday morning!

Steven was named after his birthfather, and after calling him that for the week we were praying and waiting, we just couldn't change his name. After visiting him on Saturday, we went through our list of 15+ names (we never had a boy's name picked out, so that was a scramble too!), we said that he didn't seem like a Jacob or Michael or Silas or any of the others. So his name stayed the same. His middle name is James, after my dad.

Yesterday at the courthouse, Dawn told his birthmother that we kept his name, and she was really touched by it. It is a nice gift for him to have the name his birthmother picked out for him, and we liked that he was named after his birthfather.

Steven is a pretty easy going little guy. He likes to eat and sleep and just be held. The only real problem we've had is that he's not used to sleeping on a flat surface (he slept in a bouncy seat at Mary and Allen's), so he and Mark were up most of the night. Mark was so sweet and took his pillow and Steven to the living room and let me sleep the entire night. When I got up this morning, Mark went back to sleep and Steven and I hung out.

Thank you to all who have prayed for us. The past eleven days have been an absolute whirlwind, but God's hand has been so evident in this process. I only got one class for next quarter, so I'm only teaching on Friday nights. I'm also on break and don't go back to work until Jan. 11, and we had been praying for a long time for a baby by the end of the year. What an amazing God we have!!

We can't wait for each of you to meet Steven!

Love,

Rebekah, Mark, and Steven (and Sadie and Jo too!)