Michael's Story - Part 13: Becoming Michael Lehi

A little back story - picking Abby's name took us about 5 minutes. Cheyenne had named her Jenai Marie. We were happy to keep Marie (I've always wanted Marie to be one of my daughter's middle names.) We wanted a different first name though. I wanted a name that was both scriptural and a family name. I looked at my family tree for scriptural names I liked - Anna, Hannah, Abigail. I told them to Ryan. He said he didn't like Hannah, he was okay with Anna, and he liked Abigail. And that was it. Done. Easy peasey.

Choosing Mikey's name was not as easy. Ryan and I disagree on boys names. His favorite names are 3-letters: Rex, Tad, Mac, etc. I prefer classic names: James, Jonathon, John, etc. (Not necessarily all J names, they're just the first ones I thought of.) Ryan's middle name is Frank - his dad's first name. Without really discussing it we had both planned on having our first son's middle name be Ryan. So that was easy. But picking the first name was harder. I asked Yulia several times what she would name the baby. She said he was our baby and we should name him whatever we wanted. I asked her several names what boy names she liked. She didn't give me any. I liked that Abby's middle name tied her back to her birth mom. But Yulia wasn't giving us anything. I wanted his name to tie him to his birth family as well. Both Cheyenne's and Yulia's dads are named Michael. Michael is also a scriptural name. And a family name. It was also the only name both Ryan and I liked. So our plan was to name him Michael Ryan, unless when he was born it didn't seem to fit him. Yulia asked several times what we were going to name him. I told her we were leaning toward Michael Ryan but wouldn't know for sure until he was born.

Maybe two months (maybe less) before he was born she decided that she would give him a name for his original birth certificate. She first picked Carey - after Carey Grant. I asked her about a middle name and she decided on Lehi. So she was going to name him Carey Lehi. She later switched to George Lehi (her grandfather is George.)

When we were in the hospital our adoption worker texted us to let us know that she and Yulia had had a conversation in which Yulia mentioned she did not want to be selfish, but she really liked the name Lehi. Also, one morning when her mom came to visit us she mentioned how much it would mean to Yulia if we kept Lehi as one of his names. We really liked the way Michael Ryan sounded. We had been planning on that name for months, and on Ryan as a middle name for years. Michael Lehi didn't sound as good to us. Although we had planned on the tradition of having the dad's first name become the first son's middle name we also liked our tradition of having our children's birth moms pick their middle name. So we prayed about what we should do. We both felt like it would be good to name him Michael Lehi. We aren't sure why it would matter, but it's what felt right, so we did.

To tell Yulia the name we'd chosen for him we gave her one of his pictures with his name on it. It was sweet to watch her see it. I asked her later why she liked the name Lehi so much. She said she'd been studying the Book of Mormon in seminary and she really like Lehi. She also liked that all the people of the Book of Mormon are descendants of him. I thought that was interesting since we are all descendants of Michael (Adam). I like the name Michael Lehi. Yulia sometimes refers to him as Lehi, which I think is sweet. (I always kind of hoped Cheyenne would still call Abby Jenai - it means gift from God - but she calls her Abby.) But in truth, I still sometimes think his name is Michael Ryan. And when I think Michael Lehi I sometimes add Yulia's last name to the end of it instead of ours. But that's okay :).

Michael's Story - Part 12: Waiting for ICPC

When you adopt from another state you have to wait for a number of days before returning home until all the interstate paper work is complete. It is called ICPC - Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. Basically, paperwork had to be filed in North Carolina, then the paperwork had to be sent and filed in Texas, then sent back and filed in NC. We were told to expect it to take 10-14 days post-placement. Most people would just have to stay in a hotel during this time. Not only would that have been incredibly expensive, but it would be difficult to manage a newborn and a 3 year-old. Plus, Ryan had to work while we were there so we needed him to have some space to do that. Luckily for us, my sister Maggi let us stay with her. It was such a gift! Abby got to play with her cousins instead of being cooped up in a hotel room, I had space a cleanliness to take care of my new baby, my sister and mom to help me with him, and Ryan had an office to work from!

We ended up being there exactly 14 days post-placement. We could have left earlier (ICPC cleared 10 days after) but Ryan had too much work going on to take the time to drive home. I think we may have worn out our welcome a bit by the end - I'm sure my sister and her family were happy to have their house to themselves once again - but I really enjoyed getting to have so much time with my sister and watching Abby play with her cousins. (Abby has lots of friends, and she loves friends, but she has a special love for cousins. I wish we lived close to some so she could spend much more time with them.)

It was fun watching Abby and her cousins with Mikey. They were all so excited about him and wanted to be able to hold and touch him all the time. Mikey was a pretty good sleeper. He would even sleep for up to 5 hours at a time occasionally, which I appreciated. But he also ate a lot. He would eat for two hours at a time, until he wore himself out and had to sleep again. But he had such a sweet, peaceful spirit. I loved having him close to me.

I really wanted Yulia to get to spend a lot of time with him before we left for Texas. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. She was still in the hospital when we left Friday. We thought she might get released by Sunday but she kept getting worse. It was scary. I got my church congregation, my family, and the adoption facbook group that brought us together all praying for her. She was released on Tuesday and we thought we'd get to see her that evening, but then her fever spiked and she was back in bed. We kept thinking we were going to get to see her all week, but either she'd start feeling bad again or things would happen with her family and plans would get called off. I was always sad, but eventually stopped trusting that we'd get to see her and just kind of went with the flow. On Saturday we did finally get to see her. My dad flew in to Raleigh that afternoon so my mom and sisters family went to pick him up. We went to Yulia's and spent some time with her and her parents. We had talked about her coming and staying with us for the night at Maggi's but she decided against it. As we were leaving we invited her to come to dinner with my family. She agreed to come, and eventually decided to spend the night with us as well. It was really fun. Well, the drive wasn't great because MIkey wasn't falling asleep and din't like being in his car seat so he screamed most of the time. But I was glad Yulia could spend time with us. I liked being able to introduce her to my family. And I like being with her without her family just because she talks more then so I'm able to get to know her better. We went to dinner at Chick-fil-A, then went out for ice cream. We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out at my sister's. Sunday she went to church with my family in the morning (Mikey and I stayed home) then we just lounged hte rest of hte day. her parents came for dinner that evening, which was fun. Then they went home. I was again hoping the rest of the week to get to spend more time with her. But it was like the previous week. We'd make plans then they would fall through. So we didn't see her again until Thursday afternoon. Ryan had to work so he didn't get to come but Abby, Mikey, and I met Yulia at her sister's house and spent some time with her, her sister Taylor, and her 2 nieces.  Her mom also came for a little bit. I enjoyed watching her nieces interact with Abby and Mikey. Saying goodbye was sad. I hate goodbyes, especially when I don't know when I'll see someone again. But such is life.

That first week after the hospital Abby and her two cousins Jack and Liam went to Vacation Bible School together. Abby didn't like the drop off part, but once she could get past her reservations she had a ton of fun. I slept as much as I could and just soaked up having a new baby. I hung out with my mom and sister and loved that. And Ryan worked. The next week was more just spending time with family, mostly. We did have baby pictures taken one day. We had to say goodbye to my parents. And my brother-in-law had surgery. We took Mikey to his first two doctor's appointments (we hated the pediatrician clinic we went to there - it made us appreciate our pediatrician that much more.) That's about it. I can't remember too much else. The time went quickly for me and I was sad to say goodbye to Maggi and her family. I was sad Abby had to say goodbye to her cousins. She had so much fun with them! But it was time to go and our kids both did AWESOME on our drive home. Mikey slept most of the time. We had to stop to feed him when he woke up, but he was just a rockstar. And Abby was amazing. She never complained about our long drive. Never asked how much longer. Never said she was bored. Nothing. She was such a trooper. And she didn't even have movies to watch or anything. She played on an old phone for maybe 2 hours of our 18.5 hour drive. She's just the best. We did not drive straight through. We stayed in Alabama or something one night. But that's it. We didn't want to make the trip take any longer than necessary, so we made it home late Saturday evening. Welcome home Michael Lehi!

My nephews Jack and Liam (the Superman kissing him) meeting Michael

He was so tiny!

Danny discovering his baby cousin

They were reading him a book - so cute!

The black thing is my nursing shawl. Sometimes I had to go under it to see what he was doing and help him reattach. Abby calls me a ghostie when I do that. And sometimes she likes to join us.

Yulia and her parents Beth and Michael

My dad first meeting Mikey

Ryan was ready to start playing with his son

The professional baby pictures.

Yulia's niece Shaunie holding her only cousin on her mom's side. Birth family is family.

Claire (Yulia's other niece, feeding him.)

Beth and Claire

Abby is right in between Shaunie and Claire in age

They were so cute together