Well, our hearts are so full of love with our sweet new baby in our home! And I guess, I am not surprised that our phones and emails are full of people shocked of our news with lots of questions! :) So, Brent and I talked about it and he gave me the okay to share our long, emotional journey now that our baby is here to stay!
It all started when Colby was just a teeny newborn at 3 weeks old, I was taking him for a walk with my sister-in-law and I got the dreaded phone call, the one that in the hospital when they prick your sweet babies foot and say you won’t hear anything from us! Well, that was the call we got, Dr. Wen a pulmonologist telling me that he needs to see my son right away and that he has a very serious disease. After finding out about Colby having Cystic Fibrosis our world was shattered and we were not sure how we were going to live life with all these extra things our tiny son needed just to survive. They warned us of the many hospital stays he would endure throughout his life, the lung infections he would have to fight and the worst was the life expectancy was only a mere 37 years old. It took us quite a while to get adjusted to our “new normal” life with little Colby and every cold he got we had sleepless nights wondering if this would be the night he was admitted into the hospital. We began to change our focus on life and live each day for the day we have with him, rather than constantly focusing on the negative and worrying non stop about how long we have with him. By the time Colby got to be about 2 years old, we were pros at giving him enzymes, breathing treatments and allowing him to be a completely normal little boy.
Brent had just graduated from Chiropractic school in September of 2010 and I told him that I REALLY was ready for another baby, I wanted Colby more than anything to grow up with siblings like Brent and I had. The only problem was, I knew I emotionally couldn’t handle another child with Cystic Fibrosis, since each child we have together naturally will most likely have CF. We knew from the day Colby was diagnosed that we couldn’t bare having another one suffer from this disease going into it knowing. No matter how bad we wanted a child it just wasn’t worth it. It would put Colby’s health in danger and also the new baby, since CF people cannot be around each other because they bread bacteria and infections that are easily spread and can be fatal.
It was then that we decided that we would do a process called In-vitro with PGD. It’s a very expensive round of in-vitro and they are able to do a genetic screening on the embryos before they implant them inside of me to determine which ones are healthy and which are not. After many months of testing and preparation for this next step we began the IVF process. Everything was going very smoothly until I went in for the egg retrieval procedure. They put me out and upon there surprise I had grown 55 mature eggs. Most people my age would get around 20 to maybe up to 30 eggs for a high amount. Upon them waking me up after surgery they told me how many eggs they had gotten and they began to become very concerned for me developing something called OHSS. Overvarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. To make a long story short 3 days later I found myself in the operating room not able to breathe, my stomach had filled up with so much fluid I looked 6 month pregnant. At this point I had endured so much pain from this fluid build up around my lungs, I had no choice but to have the 3 liters removed. In the end of this process I ended up miscarrying our last embryo on a frozen IVF cycle. This news of our miscarriage was devastating. To us, we had invested so much money into this especially with the complications I had, we had spent about a year of our time trying this process and we didn’t know what to do. I know I couldn’t endure another round of IVF with my first experience, so I told Brent that I Couldn't go through that again. He totally agreed and we found ourselves at a loss and wasn’t sure we were meant to have more children.
A few months later, Brent and I both looked at each other one night and said adoption is where we need to go next. We both had this really strong impression that adoption was the right thing for our family at this stage in our life. I knew adoption was a LONG process and if you know me, you know when I want something I want it NOW! So, that was so hard. I knew Colby wasn’t getting any younger and my dreams of having kids close in age were coming to a close. We finished our home study in March of 2012 through our church adoption agency called LDS family services. We knew it was a long shot in getting a child from them so we began looking into private adoption agencies throughout the country. Although the child through one of these agencies would cost more than we spent on our IVF cycle, we knew it would guarantee us a child in the end. So, we ended up registering for an agency based out of Utah and we were quickly picked by a birth mom to adopt her little girl that was due in November of 2012. We were beyond excited and couldn’t believe how fast things were coming together. We made a trip up to Utah in July of 2012 to meet his birth mom and things started going downhill. That adoption quickly ended and was considered a filed adoption. We again were back to square one devastated and wasn’t sure what to do. Again, we were out a ton of money that we had to pay the agency with no refund, we were lost for words. All we wanted was to raise a healthy child and give the child the best life imaginable. We found ourselves really down and I began thinking that Colby would be my only child, so I started to embrace that and love him for who he was and trying not to constantly be focusing on expanding our family. I wanted to be so thankful for his great health and the amazing life we had with the 3 of us.
In March of 2013, I received an email through our church website from a couple that was giving there baby girl up for adoption. The birth mom was 21 weeks and expecting a little girl due on June 30th. The birth father was 100% Caucasian and the mom was a beautiful half Caucasian and half Hawaiian-Japanese. I contacted my case worker to tell her the email I had received and she said that she actually works with them and told me not to get too involved because the birth father is a registered member of an Indian tribe (because his family were members he was born a member) and most or 99% of Indian tribes do not allow adoptions outside of the tribe and even so, they don’t even contact the caseworker back to get an answer before the baby comes. So, again we continued our email relationship but were trying not to get our hopes up. After a long process, the birth parents ended up “picking” us to adopt there child if indeed the Indian Tribe gave them the okay. We began a very close and good relationship with the birth parents. Our case worker was very, very persistent in working with the tribe and ended up getting an approval letter from the tribe on Friday, June 7th. We were So thrilled and so excited that we were going to be adopting this baby. The birth parents were also beyond excited because they knew that they wanted us to raise there daughter. In the back of our minds, we knew that the birth parents could back out at any point. We thought we had 4 weeks to get the room, and every thing we needed for our little girl ready! I’m sure Brent was thrilled when he realized how much it would cost to get ready for a baby girl!! :)
On Monday, June 24th I was in Oakland at a long CF clinic visit for Colby and i had gotten a call from the birth father telling us that the birth mom’s water had broke and they were on our way to the hospital. I sent Brent and my mom a text and we were excited and not quite prepared since she wasn’t due for another week! I couldn’t believe it, this was the moment I had wanted for so long. I got home Monday late afternoon and my mom helped me get all the last things together and we were awaiting the call that the birth mom was getting ready to push, we would head to the hospital at this point. By 11:00pm she was only dilated to a 3 so I told the birth father that we were going to try and sleep and we would be at the hospital at 8:00am to meet baby June. We had originally thought that baby June would stay in the birth parents hospital room and we would visit her until she was released and would come home with us. I got a call at 1:30 am telling me that the birth mom was getting ready to push and they wanted us to come now because the nurses had a hospital room for us to take care of June in. We couldn’t believe it! We jumped out of bed and raced over to the hospital. 
As we approached the maternity ward at 2:00am two nurses came running out to us and asked, are you the Babcocks? They walked us quickly into the nursery where baby June was laying just 13 minutes old. She was laying under the heating lamp getting warm completed naked. They said, there is your little girl as healthy as can be! The moment I had wanted for over 2 1/2 years was here. We were so full of emotion and couldn’t believe this precious miracle that we were looking at. It was one of the most amazing moments of our lives. After we checked in with the birth parents to ensure they were doing alright, we took June to our hospital room and cared for her.
It is so amazing to know that we have been blessed with such a tiny person who we knew the second we put our eyes on her that she was meant to be with our family. This was the reason we had to spend all that money and go through all those steps was to find her. Without going through all those steps, we would have never considered adopting and having June in our home is worth everything we went through. She is so amazing and such a gift that we will never be able to thank the birth parents enough for them being so selfless that they wanted there daughter to have a life that they could not provide at such a young age.
Brent and I are beyond grateful for all the love and support we have received from all our friends and family!
