Jenn Clark's Photos

Our friend Jenn Clark shot some photos of us and Katelynn yesterday. Here's a sample of the beautiful photos we got.

Look At Me

One Week

Katelynn has been home with us now for one week. It has been both a great and a hard week. She is beautiful, loves to swing, is learning to smile at us, and is developing strong neck muscles. And those 3am feedings leave one a little tired during the day.

In her bedroom getting dressed.

Working on that smile.

Mommy gets a lot done with me around. Ha Ha.

Bath time is no fun!

Look at my strong neck muscles.

Katelynn Video Clips

Jen's camera has a video clip feature, but I didn't stop to think about holding the camera upright. I then figured I could easily rotate the video before posting, but no such luck. So just turn your head sideways...







Here's Katelynn getting dried off after a bath.








Here's Katelynn with hiccups.

It's Katelynn Day

I got an email this morning saying "Happy Katelynn Day." It sounds good to me, so from now on every February 9th should be Katelynn Day!

The story: Today we left for Seattle at 11. We had lunch at Pagliacci's Pizza in Capital Hill, which has become our tradition on days we go to our agency. At 1 we went to Amara where we had to fill out some paperwork and then we waited for Katelynn's birthmom to arrive. She was about a little late so we sat around talking with her mother (Katelynn's grandma). After she arrived, Katelynn's birthmom spent some time talking with the birthparent counselor, and then at about 2:30 we caravaned to the receiving home where Katelynn has been staying for the past seven weeks.

Katelynn was in the back bedroom when we got there. Katelynn's birthmom, grandma, and aunt spent some time with Katelynn. Then her birthmom got a few minutes by herself with Katelynn. Finally at a little after 3, she came out of the bedroom with Katelynn in her arms. I stood up and she handed her to me, and we both started crying. Camera's started flashing everywhere and it was like we were movie stars or something. Tucker and I got to hold her for a bit, and then we took a bunch of pictures and passed Katelynn around for one more round with the receiving home parents and birthfamily. All in all, it went really well. It felt like a great hour to mark both the sorrow and joy represented by this day.

Around 3:30 we got Katelynn situated in her car seat and Tucker carried her out to the car. A few more photos and hugs later, we were on our way home with Tucker in the driver's seat (an unusual event for us) and me in the backseat with my little girl.

The car ride home.

Hanging out with mom.

First bottle at home with dad.

I can hardly believe that she is actually here. A great day for sure. The day that I became a mom. The day that we became parents. Katelynn, I'm so glad that you are home.

The Nursery

Communication Agreement Meeting

Today we had our Communication Agreement meeting. We sorted out how letters and photos and visits will work between us and Katelynn's birth mom. It was a good visit. We also got to call the woman who has been caring for Katelynn these last six weeks. They didn't know Katelynn was named at first, and so they've been calling her "Grace." Katelynn is growing, slowly but surely, and was 7lbs, 6oz two weeks ago at the doctors. We imagine she'll be around 8 lbs when we pick her up. After the phone call she emailed us photos, and it's so wonderful to be able to see her face. We had a few photos of her when she was a few days old, but it's nice to be able to see a more recent her.

4 more days...

Photos

Introducing Katelynn Joy... who will be coming home in 4 days!

January 17th

January 29

February 5

Match Meeting

We had our match meeting on Saturday with Katelynn's birthmom and grandma. It went well. Her birthmom showed us pictures of Katelynn and we got a few copies to take with us. Hopefully we'll get the digital copies soon so I can post them. On Tuesday we meet with her birthmom again to do our communication agreement (grandma can't come due to work). I'm betting for quite a bit of contact. Her birthmom really wants to be the one to physically hand Katelynn over to us and to be there the first time we meet her, so we won't get to meet her until we go next Saturday to take her home with us. Five more days until I become a mom to a beautiful baby girl!