Meeting Great Grandpa

Jazzie's parents couldn't wait until our trip home to Wisconsin, so we met up in Rockford this past Sunday and Jazzie's grandpa made the drive too. He usually isn't up for a lot of driving, but meeting Zander was enough motivation for him. He was very excited to meet Zander and hold him and was very impressed at how good he was. He was awake most of the time at the restaurant and was content just to be held and look around and grandpa even got a few smiles out of him.

 

Great-grandpa, Lloyd and baby Zander

 

A boy and his dog

The question most people ask us is, "how is Parker doing with the baby?" Most people know that Parker has been our baby for the past 7 years and has been an important member of our family and very spoiled! He has been around kids before, but we knew it was going to be a bit of an adjustment for him bringing a baby home, but he has been doing great. He is very protective and likes to check Zander out wherever he is at. He watches over him, alerts us if he is crying (like we don't already know!), and gets up with him in the middle of the night (if only we could teach him how to prepare his bottles). Zander likes to look at Parker and thinks he is funny. The only thing we are still working on is that Zander now has a lot of toys, but Parker still thinks everything is his - he is getting better, but we will still catch him eyeing a toy across the room every once in  a while.  I am sure when Zander is bigger and actually plays with toys, he will have to learn which toys are his and which toys are Parkers (seriously...they all look the same!) Parker is still an important member of our family and we are making sure he still gets attention and we are sure they will be good friends as Zander grows.



Parker is hoping we will no longer do things like this to him and my sisters will dress up the baby instead

Again, not super happy to be dressed up, maybe Zander will want to be a firetruck



See how spoiled he is....Paker and Kiki (Abbie and Garrett's dog) got matching coats with their names on them for Christmas this year

 



Motivating Zander to work on his tummy time

Just checking in... he always wants to know where Zander is and what he's doing

First trip to Iowa

This weekend we had a chance to make our first trip to Iowa so Zander could meet more family and friends. He was such a good baby with the traveling and did great in the car and with all of the weekend's festivities. He was very tired by the time we made it back to Chicago. We are so lucky to have great family and friends and it was such a fun (and busy!) weekend. Our good friend's Dan and Kelly generously hosted a party for everyone to come meet baby Zander. We thank everyone who took the time to stop by and for all of the gifts. He is a very lucky little guy to have so many awesome people in his life!

Party Time!!!

Meeting his new friends - he will have a lot of cool kids to grow up with and they were all excited to meet him!

 

 

 

Zander met his future girlfriend, Lydia - he already asked her to prom although her father wasn't too happy about that and will be keeping his eyes on baby Z

 

We also got a chance to meet more family who were so excited and had been looking forward to meeting him

 

 Zander, Zeb, Zeb's mom Vicki, Zeb's great aunt and Zeb's great grandma

 Jazzie's aunt Jan and uncle Larry

 



Our Baby Cub

Baseball is one of the few sports where the Gilliam household is not divided. Zeb is a lifelong Cubs fan and it has always been his dream to live near Wrigley Field. Jazzie's grandpa is a long time Cubs fan who has stuck out many long seasons and has passed on this traditions to most of his granddaughters (minus 1 Brewer - boo). Now that we live just over a mile from Wrigley, Zeb has made it a tradition to attend the Cubs home opener, despite what the weather may bring and this year was no exception. We started the day at a opening day party with friends then the weather held out so Zander took a nap in his stoller and we made the walk down to the stadium to join in the festivities before Zeb went into the game. At 5 weeks old though he hasn't formally attended a game this little Cub is already joining the family tradition. Zeb keeps looking at his long fingers and is convinced he is showing a left preference and is sure we have a lefty pitcher in the making....Cubs 2033?

Zeb is teaching Zander how to kick off the Cubs home opener

First time at the Friendly Confines

Maggie met up with us before she went into the game

Worn out after such an exciting day

Photo Shoot

 

This year for Christmas we bought a Nikon camera so we would be able to capture all of these first moments. I really had no idea how to actually use this camera, so Abbie and I recently took a photography class to learn more about it. A few days after bringing Zander home, Abbie and I decided to practice our newly learned skills on baby Z. He is such an adorable subject and we had a lot of fun with some good results....and some not so good.

 

And some didn't quite turn out as planned! I think more practice is needed

 

 

Meeting the Family

We have had so much support throughout this entire process from all of our family and friends. There are so many people who have been waiting with us so when we finally brought Zander home, we had a lot of people who were really looking forward to meeting the little guy. It didn't take long for Jazzie's family to come meet Zander and as he is the first baby in the family, he is going to be one spoiled little man. 

We do want to thank everyone who supported us through this process and we have had many visitors, phone calls, e-mails and texts. We look forward to having him meet everyone.



Nellie lives 4 blocks from us and was the first to visit on Friday night when we brought Zander home. She is looking forward to babysitting and helping out as much as she can, although we found our dirty diapers and Nellie don't mix!

 

Jazzie's parents (Lynne and Paul) made the trip from Wisconsin Easter Sunday for their first visit with baby Zander. After having 4 girls, a boy is a welcome addition to the family!

Aunt Abbie missed Brewers opening day to come to Chicago from Milwaukee to meet her nephew. We had also recently taken a photography class and had some fun with a baby photo shoot (see next post for the results)

Auntie Maggie was also able to come from Downer's Grove to meet baby Zander came bearing gifts for us and him



Meet Zander Leo!

After many ups and downs throughout the adoption process, out of the blue we got the phone call we had been waiting for. There was a birth family who was interested in us for their little boy. As we have been working with an agency that deals with open adoptions, we were able to meet with both birthparents and their families. After a little more of a wait, we then got the phone call and 24 hours later the adoption took place and our lives changed forever. Zander Leo was born on March 1, 2013 weighing 6# 5 oz and he joined our family on March 29, 2013 and weighing 7# 13 oz. He is a very good, happy, healthy little boy and we were so excited to welcome him into our family! It was very surreal experience to have waited such a long time then suddenly he was here. We all have adjusted very well and we have really taken to our new roles as parents. We decided to start this blog to keep everyone updated on our adventures in parenthood!


Some people may have questions about adoption and we are more than happy to answer them, but we also want to be respectful of Zander as the adoption is really his story and some of the details will be up to him to share if he chooses. We do have an open adoption and feel very fortunate to have a connection with his birth family and have a lot of love and respect for them and hope to maintain this connection throughout his lifetime. Adoption will be something that is celebrated and discussed in our home as he grows; we will not hide that he is adopted and will let him know how special it was and how much he was and is loved by everyone involved. We think the way he joined our family is a great story and we look forward to sharing it with him.

 

Adoption

 

 

After 6 years of marriage, we finally decided to start a family and after waiting we were faced with some choices. We had always talked about adoption being a part of our family plan and when the time came there were many things that made it clear adoption was the path we should take. We knew no matter what decision we made to start our family it would not come without challenges, but we were hopeful when we began the adoption process. We knew becoming parents was what really mattered to us, regardless of how we got there.  We decided to pursue domestic adoption as it seemed to fit with our lives right now (vs. traveling to a different country) We began working with The Cradle agency in Evanston, IL in December of 2011 and after a lot of classes and preparation we received our approval to be an adoptive family in June 2012. The Cradle believes in open adoptions which is one of the reasons we chose to work with them and by doing this we put together a "profile" that birthparents would view to choose a family for their child. The best way to describe this process is like online dating - we wanted to put together a profile and a book that would really let people know who we are and what we are about so when we were chosen, it would be the right "fit." We were chosen many times throughout our months of waiting and unfortunately we had several ups and downs along the way with a few potential situations that fell through as well as several more who just did not choose us as the family. It was a long and stressful process, especially with how frequently we were viewed as a family, which meant we were constantly waiting...and waiting. We both tried to stay positive knowing that even though there were a lot of disappointments along the way, that things would eventually work out and it will be the right situation for us. I found a quote during this time and had to remind myself of it each night "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end" - unknown. And now here we are 9 months after our approval and things are more than okay, but it's not the end......just the beginning!