Little Man

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook, then this is old news, but, those of you that aren't...

After 17 months of loving and enjoying this precious baby boy. Our son was declared to be ours on Friday :)

I have talked some about this precious boy but since he was a foster child we had to be quite tight lipped. Well, now I'm going to share the story that I never knew I would ever have the chance to share. On May 24, 2012, I received a phone call from a high school friend, Caroline. She explained that she wanted to throw something out at me not having a clue how I would react or say. She explained that she was a social worker placing some children into foster care and the two week old baby had Down syndrome. She said she was sitting in a meeting discussing these children and a voice was telling her to call me. We know who that voice was :) She listened to our Heavenly Father talking to her. He knew that this amazing little boy was meant to be our son. Scott and I had never been foster parents and the thought of it scared the bejeezes out of me. We had obviously adopted before, but Addy was not a foster child, she was a private placement adoption. After Scott and I talked, we decided that we would jump in with both feet and accept this baby into our home. We went in knowing that he was a foster child and the ultimate goal is reunification with birth parents. I went in knowing that I was going to fall madly in love with this baby and God put him with me for a reason and whatever His will was, we would follow.

On June 16, 2012, I traveled to Columbia, MO, to spend the night in the hospital with this adorable little one-month old baby. When I walked into the NICU, a nurse was holding a baby with the most hair I had ever seen. I reached down and touched his head and said "oh my goodness, look at this baby!: the nurse turned around and I then exclaimed "that's my baby!" She said "Oh yeah, are you Cammie? This is your baby!". I remember thinking that he was NOT MY baby. He was another woman's baby, I was just going to be fostering him. However, always with the hope to adopt him :) We had a fantastic night and before I knew it we were heading home :)

He seem to just fit into our family perfectly :) We participating in Family Support Team meetings monthly to meet with his siblings, their foster parents, juvenile officer, guardian ad litem, attorneys, case workers, and parents. The first FST I went to I was a nervous wreck. I was so scared I would do or say something wrong. His birth mother wasn't there that first time but was on the phone. I felt for her. I can't imagine being separated from my children. We had our little man for 8 months before his birth parents had a visit. I thought I was going to throw up when that meeting was scheduled. I texted Caroline and she assured me that everything would be fine (she's adopted through foster care twice). She was right. I was nervous, but things went well. Little Man's birth mom said to me that my baby was so cute. I remember looking at her and thinking, "he's your baby". I smiled and said "thanks". She has many things she was dealing with in her life and she thanked me for taking care of her son and she could tell that we loved him. She was so right, we were in love from day one. She asked if we would adopt him. I told her that if reunification did not work out we would definitely adopt him. She stated that she felt she couldn't care for him and felt it best that we adopt him. That made me so thankful and sad at the same time.

Foster care is such a road of ups and downs. Until Friday I always knew that he was not my son but in my heart he sure was. Even though all along I was pretty certain that we would not be giving him to someone else, there was always that fear. Thankfully, God always knows what He's doing :)

I will share more but this is the gist of his story. He flowed into our lives and is truly a gift from God. So we are so happy to announce that Jordan (to flow) Matthew (gift from God) Heflin is officially our son forevermore! Enjoy some amazing pics from his adoption day :)