BEFORE

AFTER

Josiah David Veras!!

A week overdue and her time finally came. We went in for her checkup and the doctor said that from the exam she felt there was too low amount of fluid around the baby and she was having contractions, so it was time to head on over to the hospital! We didn't even have our bags with us!

She was hooked up to a monitor for the baby's heartbeat and one for her contractions.

Grandpa and Grandma McCool and Aunt Cyndi showed up to cheer her on, a few texts came in, phone calls were made and a last meal. After a while, they left and the next phase of waiting time began!

It was a long night, contractions didn't seem to go away, one minute of rest and minutes more of each contraction, by morning, there was no progress and the baby was showing signs of distress. His heart rate dropped a couple of times but they were able to get it back up each time. Then came decision time, they wanted to induce her. She knew from her experience as a labor and delivery nurse, that once they did that, most of the time it ended in Caesarean anyway, so since the baby was already having problems in there, she just didn't want to risk anything happening to him just so she could deliver him naturally. With a ton of tears, she decided to let them do the surgery. I was in awe as I stood there watching my little girl make such a grown up decision. She didn't even need to ask me for advice, she KNEW what needed to be done.

We got ourselves all ready for the surgery & took one last look at

'The Belly'

lopsided, as usual

Upper left was her view, upper right was my view. I tried not to look down to my right at the 'other' view or I would have been useless in there. It still makes me tear up seeing her little tear drip down.










And here is my first look at the little guy! I put it in black and white just for those who would rather leave something to the imagination.





8 pounds, 5 ounces
19 inches

of

PERFECTION!!!


Thank you, God, for such a blessing!

As always, life here is continuously going, and this past few weeks, have been FULL of going and going. We have been busy sewing things for the babies, had two baby showers, one given by Aunt Lindy and Aunt Cyndi and one from our Spanish church ladies, we went to watch the kids run cross country races, had lunch out with Grandpa and Grandma Dixon and McCool (and a few other lunches out), and got Grandma to use her painting talent to paint us a pumpkin on the pregnant girl's belly. We have had a few prelabor episodes, but nothing so serious to get us into the car and headed to the delivery room. The due date is this Saturday, so it won't be long now!

Yesterday, Dennis and Abby were sent a new picture of Gabriel. The update on the adoption process at this point is that the US side of it all has been completed, so now they are only waiting for the Korean side to finish and THEN they get to travel to Korea and bring that little guy home!!!

As for the visa for Ariel, NOT good news! He went for his interview on the 21 and to our shock, he was denied. The reason stated was that he needed to return with the birth certificate from the baby and his wife! But the birth of the baby is what he needed to get here asap for!!! I gave a call to Senator Merkley's office. They have advised us in the past and remembered us. Whitney, his assistant, contacted the US Embassy liaison in the Dominican Republic.(remember it is the US EMBASSY that is denying this, NOT the Dominican Republic). Finally today, she talked to Jessi and said that even though they can not REQUIRE that the spouse be at the interview, they can deny it until the spouse shows up. The Embassy there has had too many fraudulent cases and they now 'REQUIRE' to see the spouse in order to grant the visa. So the plan is that as soon as the baby is born and they get his birth certificate and visa, Jessi will pack herself and the baby back there to claim her husband and finally bring her little family back to Oregon. Not the way they planned, but they know that God knows and is in control, even it it does not appear so.