We are in Arizona

It feels great to be home! We broke up the drive over two days and spent a night in Vegas. Since Austin was taking about a 6 hour nap each day, it worked out well. He just slept the whole drive and only woke up to eat and get a new diaper. We took him to the doctor on Monday and he is back to his birth weight and grew a little. The first picture is at the doctor's office-he loves to be naked all of the sudden! He is now 22 inches. His cord is still hanging on by a thread but should fall off any time! On Wednesday this week, Brandi Tillini came over and tooke pictures of Austin. The Rookie picture is on our kitchen table with blankets all around him. Baby model anyone??!

More Utah news

A few months ago, Tom found the FBI onesie that says "Fat, Bald and Innocent" so we had to put him in it. He comfortably fills up the 0-3 month clothes already. He has such big lips and is a handsome boy-do we sound like proud parents or what?! Our nephew Quin is on a mission in Spain and owns the ridiculous bling bling hat and jacket. We had to put Austin in since his initials are ATM. He wasn't too happy about it all!

We stayed in Utah for 2 weeks

In order to leave the state with Austin, we had to be cleared through ICPS. This is basically the two states of Utah and Arizona communicating to approve us leaving Utah with Austin. This took about two weeks since public workers in Utah now only work 4 days a week and are closed on Friday-that's why Gayla is majoring in Public Administration!

We stayed with Gayla's sister, Tera and her dad. Tera gave us her master bedroom which was nice with all of our TONS of luggage! He loves to sleep on our chest so we are spoiling him here at the beginning and all bonding in the process.

Our little one is home!

We got to visit our birth mother and Austin at the hospital on August 3rd and take our first family picture. We have all been waiting for this day but can feel how difficult it will be for our birth mother. Such a strange situation where it is crazy happy for us and extremely sad for her. The placement happened on August 5th and was really emotional. Our birth mother made a scrapbook for Austin with all of our emails that we sent back and forth since February and pictures of her family. She put pictures of her for every grade of school so Austin can see if he looks like her. She made him three blankets-she is way more talented than either of us:-)

Our baby has arrived!!

Yesterday morning our birth mom called at 6am and said, "Gayla I'm dialated to a 9 1/2 and he should be born within 30 minutes to an hour!" She sounded so calm that I was taken off guard. I told her we would pack up the car and start driving! Her mom called us around 10am and let us know she would have to have a c section since he was face up instead of face down and too large to come down the birth canal. He was born at 11:30am Arizona time and came out 10 pounds and 6 ounces. No wonder he came in the form of a c section! He is 21.75 inches long and has black hair. We get to see him and birth mom today! The placement will be tomorrow and we can only imagine how emotional it will all be. Thank for you all of your love and support and enthusiasm for ATM!