#1of2: An Enormous Amount of LOVE For Such A Little Guy

#1 of  2 babies that will join our home  in the next few weeks has arrived!

Aleki William Bradshaw

We had 10 days from the time that we found out about baby Aleki to the day he was born. It was a busy ten days too! We spent hours and hours in stores and online researching strollers for twins, bottles, baby carriers, etc.

The whole idea of having him come to our family was a bit surreal. We were going to have baby! Well, two babies!

Family and friends continued to show an outpouring of love. They offered excitement, gifts and plenty of advice. Lady Hiva and I  were able to use what things were given to us and supplemented them with a few things to have a make-shift nursery. We were finally ready for him to arrive!

And then we waited. And prayed. And waited some more.

He was born on Tuesday and we were able to go see him on Wednesday. We cannot describe the feelings and love that we both felt as we stood there and watched our little son being prepared by the nurses for the evening.

He had his little “Stats Chart” above his head and I leaned in closer to see if my eyes were failing because I thought it said that he was 5lbs 9oz! That couldn’t be correct. That is so small he was a full term baby. But sure enough, even with my head close to the chart it still said 5 and a half pounds! CRAZY! In my family an average baby is 7-8lbs. For Lady Hiva’s family it is a bit more. As proof, Lady Hiva’s cousin gave birth yesterday to a baby that was double and some the weight of Aleki!

Being introduced to Aleki for the first time...this was a very tearful moment

We had to leave him overnight and come back to get him the next morning. It was hard to leave…but it gave us a chance to go through Vaitafe’s cloths that he was never able to wear so we could find some preemie outfits! 5 pounds! Our baby is a little doll.

Wearing Vaitafe's preemie outfit that Vaitafe was never able to use

Yesterday the time for discharging him from the hospital couldn’t come any faster. We were both so excited. We made it to the hospital and spent the next hour with the nurses learning how to be parents to a newborn. We had some very engaging conversations about us having a newborn but Lady is still pregnant…haha.

When the nurse asked us which one was going to change the diaper, Lady didn’t even hesitate “Dad!” HAHA…OK, sounds good.

Mommy holding him for the first time...

On our way home

Madre and Kell were here for a day with Heather’s kids. It was so fun to have them come over for the rest of the day and see Aleki. They were SO excited. Each one of them wanted to have turns holding Aleki. The practiced his name over and over until they had it committed to memory. They were also thrilled about the fact that Lady Hiva is still pregnant and that Tau’aho will be Aleki’s baby brother.

Grandma gets to hold her newest grandchild--although he will only hold that title until his brother comes

Grandpa too

One of the things that Heather, Lady and I all said at different times is how much Aleki looks like Vaitafe. If you look at our photos with Vaitafe you could think they were the same baby. In fact, someone found an old photo on Facebook of Vaitafe and “liked” it so about 50 more people did too! HAHA…if they would read the comments they would see that it was a 3 year old photo…some of them still didn’t know about Aleki and assume that Lady gave birth. It is funny to see their reaction when they find out.

Lady Hiva and I went to bed full of love and thankfulness. Neither of us wanted to be too far from Aleki. He truly has our love. We are grateful we have been blessed with the chance to welcome him to our family even as crazy as having him come at the same time as Tau’aho. We cannot wait to have them together.

Here are some long awaited photos that I promised you all. But don’t worry, I think Lady Hiva and I may be those parents who post photo after photo of their baby because it is the cutest baby in the world so there will be more to come. 

Tau'aho Gets a Brother!

Well…depending on how you look at it, this baby could be baby #1 or #2. He technically comes first, but we have planned for Tau’aho longer. Yes, you understand correctly, Lady Hiva is STILL pregnant and doing well with Tau’aho but we have another baby, coming.

On Friday night we had just hooked up the laptop to watch a movie we had downloaded and I had the ironing board set up to iron while we watched (yeah, I cannot sit still so it gives me something to do!) and Lady came in from the room, “Dustin, did you see the adoption agency emailed for us to call them?” We called right away and our social worker told us that a birth mother had chosen us to be the parents to her baby.

The emotions of excited, surprised, happy, scared, thankfulness, and amazement flashed in intervals as we listened to the details. We then reminded the social worker that Lady Hiva is pregnant and she had forgotten so she ended the conversation so she could check with the mother to find out if that changed her mind. It was a LONG two hours while we waited. I tried to watch the movie, but I was distracted with thoughts. I couldn’t iron well because every two minutes I had to do the happy dance (kind of jumping up and down while cheering silently—I am sure it looks a bit awkward…ok, maybe more than a bit). We were both watching the email and phones like leopards ready to pounce on their prey.

Finally about midnight they called back and said the mother still wanted us! We were filled with happiness and awe. We ended the phone call and then the reality and emotion of it started…we just bought a house, Lady is pregnant and she almost due, I am working…the list goes on and on. Life really does come at us fast and all at once.

The next few nights were filled with long talks, plenty of prayers and not much sleeping for either of us. We didn’t tell people because we wanted to make a decision with the just two of us. We spent some time at the temple and had a really great talk with the Bishop.

After a few days we decided it felt right to do welcome this baby into our home. He and Tau’aho will be (depending on when they both are born) anywhere from 4-5 weeks apart. So here come our TWINS!

We went back to the discussion board for names. It was similar to playing go-fish. Lady had names she like and I had names I liked and we wheeled-and-dealed until we came to a conclusion. The new baby is due on Monday, 17 June 2013. YIKES! We only have  few things that were donated from friends but nowhere near what we need for two babies! Someone said to us, “Well, at least you have the stuff for one baby so you just need to get one more of it…” HAHA, with our past history of  children we did not dare buy anything because we bought things with Vaitafe and now it is just emotional every time we see it because he never was able to use it. So we made a list and headed to the store.

It is has been fun to see people’s reactions as they find out—it usually starts with “That is so awesome” and then as we talk about it you can see/hear them processing it all and they say, “Wow…just wow…” and the unspoken words were knowing how ‘adventurous’ having twins really is.

Plenty of people are saying, “we knew that would happen!” One of our friends even pointed out that this could be expected considering we did find out that we were back on the adoption list the same week we found out Lady Hiva was pregnant. Either way, we are ready for a really interesting experience.

We have prayed for this day for three years and it is totally and completely crazy that it happened at at once but makes it more exciting. After five years of marriage, Lady Hiva and I must understand that nothing is ever boring, never goes as planned, and usually has a few hitches along the way. BUT it makes for great journal entries and blog fodder~!

We will keep you updated on the new journey! Stay tuned!

We are registered at Target.com