10-25-13 Our baby Kaleyah Joy Frederick is born!

On Friday October 25, we had a normal Friday. I worked. Joel and Elijah had Daddy day and spent a little time at pumpkin patch.  The bigs went to school.  After school and work we went to Pumpkin Patch with the Boyd School where Joel shared about his experience working at the Boyd School.  what he said to those boys was very encouraging.   He told them that God put a dream in their heart and to never let anyone take that dream away. He talked to them about Gods love for us and that Jesus gave His life on the cross for our sin.  I think some of them really listened.  Elijah spent the evening at  Boo at the zoo with his little buddy, Noah. After the Boyd School event was over we swung by to pick him up and headed home. We arrived at home about 9:30 PM. Caris was holding my phone as we got out of the car and headed into the garage and she said" Mom you have a text.".    The text said our birth Mom was in the hospital. She had gone a couple of nights before with pain and a couple of months before that she had gone and was diagnosed with a kidney infection.  Joel and I agreed that we should follow up on this.  We texted back and it was clear we were not speaking to our interpreter.  The text continued to come through that she was having a baby but not right now. We assumed it was another false alarm since Kaleyah was not due for 9 more weeks.  The texts continued. We would ask questions with no answer. Then the text came through at 10:30" the baby is a girl?"  Then more texts saying the baby is born.  Communication was difficult because I was obviously texting someone who spoke Marshallese and little English. And they put a question mark after everything.  After several minutes of texts that did not make much sense, Joel contacted our attorney and he called and confirmed that our baby girl had been born. He could not get any information except she was in NICU.  My first reaction was "its too early" and I wanted to cry but I immediately felt comfort as I was reminded that this was Gods story and He was not surprised at her early delivery. God had it planned all along.  Psalms 139 speaks of how God knows us, He created us. Verse 16 says "your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  God ordained the night of her birth and I have to trust in His plan. The next day we had planned for my family to come over to our house, take the kids to Pumpkin Patch and hang out and watch the football game.  We do this each year to celebrate Dads birthday. However, our plans were suddenly changed. I called my Mom around 11PM and told her the news. My sister was at her house. She had driven in from Mobile that day and spent some time with her friends. I asked her to come and help me pack and clean so she did. She spent the next 5 and 1/2 hours at my house , being my brain since mine was not functioning at full capacity. She encouraged me to prepare for a miracle and pack things for Kaleyah. She was with me from midnight until 5:45 AM.  Joel slept so he could drive the next morning.  Isaiah was up with Joel and I as we were getting the news about Kaleyah. He kept coming in our room to find out what was going on. He was not reacting much but he later confessed that he was a bit nervous about the situation.  I woke Caris up to tell her that her sister was born. She had crazy eyes and it took a few minutes for her to understand what I was saying. I Told her Aunt Leslie was coming over to help me pack for our trip tomorrow. Caris got up when Leslie got there  She stayed up with us for awhile.  At some point she stopped and said "wait, Kaleyah is born? she's here?"  I explained to her that yes she was born. We laughed because she was so out of it when I woke her up she did not even realize what I was saying.  She thought the birth Mom was in labor but did not realize her sister had been born. Joel got up at 5:45 and we loaded the van and the whole family headed to Arkansas. We arrived at the hospital around 4:30 and Joel and I met Kaleyah Joy Frederick around 5:15. I cried for just a minute the first time I saw her but then I pulled myself together so I could hear and try to understand what the nurses were telling us.  This was the first time we had any information on her condition. They told us she was healthy for a preemie. She had no birth defects or obvious diseases. They said there was no condition which caused her to be born early, she just was. The sweet nurse Jessica explained how things work in the NICU and what we could expect from Kaleyah.  She was very good at explaining things in a way we could understand with out making us feel stupid.. She was a very good nurse.  The kids were not allowed to come into the NICU because of it being FLU season. They were disappointed but had good attitudes considering the seriousness of the situation.  Kaleyah Joy Frederick was born on Friday night, October 25, 2013 at 10:23 PM. She weighed 4 lbs and was 16.75 inches long. She was beautiful and had a head full of hair.  I'm here to tell you, when I laid my eyes on her for the first time, I knew she was mine. My heart felt the same as it did when I first saw Isaiah, Caris and Elijah.  They are all my children. God had given her to me in a different way but she has been in my heart since before she was in her birth Moms womb.  I can't say it was love at first sight because I had loved her since August of 2012. I loved her before I even knew her birth Mom. I loved her before I knew she was a girl. I loved her and prayed for her before God formed her. She had been mine all along. God had put me and my family on a journey to find her to adopt her as He adopted us.  Now I could see her, my baby girl. My beautiful island princess. Kaleyah Joy Frederick.  She is a miracle.   God put a love in my heart for this baby that He formed. He knew her before He created her and he created her to be my daughter. Just like He created me to be His daughter, and for that I can never thank him enough.