Overwhelmed With Joy

I don't even know where to begin! We are so overwhelmed with joy and blessings beyond what we imagined its hard to even take it all in and attempt to write about it.

My love spent last week visiting little bear and working with baby mama to get the custody agreement signed.

Boyfriend was ecstatic the entire week with the bear. He sent me all these photos of them playing outside for hours and hours at his childhood home doing the things he did as a kid. One text was "I feel like all of my dreams are coming true! I am walking through the woods just talking with my son". I would get teary sometimes thinking of him treasuring every moment with the little love and how little bear must just be having the time of his life getting to spend time with his daddy. He's such a daddy's boy despite being raised by his mother. He wants to call him all the time and anything we give him he carries around well after we are gone and prizes above all else. Even with me! He's told his mom how much he loves me, his parents told me he treasures the books I give him, and he always likes to tell me about everything going on when we call. We love that little boy so much. It breaks our heart to hear the poor choices she makes for his life and how normal it seems to her due to her upbringing. His parents have been a big help but we also found out DHS was called on her by a stranger and random people of low quality character we don't know watch him during the week while she works. It's been painful to say the least.

However, God has been good to us.

By some miracle of God she agreed and signed (with a notary of course) that he could come stay with us until the fall and then she would have him for the school years and we'd have him for the breaks and summer until he was six and started kindergarten, once he turned six we would get him majority of the time from then on. It also included the money, child care when he's with her, and other important things that have been so so hard for us these last few years. She even finally agreed that if boyfriend is deployed or has to leave for military needs while little bear is with us, I will be the custodian until he/she makes arrangements otherwise. This was a big hurdle for us!

We have already been so joyful even about this progress and arrangement. Starting to get his room arranged and picked out what we want for it (once we have the money of course) has been so fun and exciting, after leaving it to sit sad and semi empty these last few months we finally feel like we can get started. Money has been tough, we want to fly out to get him ASAP but three plane tickets and a rental car is a lot of money plus even used car seats and some toys and such that we must have before he comes isn't cheap. But then today happened. Today when we thought we were already so blessed.

Baby mama called to tell boyfriend she thinks we should have little bear full time and she will just have him for breaks and holidays going forward. She knows she can't provide for him like we can and never gets to see him with her schedule. Sweet Jesus. Is this for real? The same hour I got a reminder about the deal from my airlines credit card that I get two $99 companion tickets and a day of free club access if I buy one round trip ticket. They fly from here to boyfriends home town and the dates we want to go aren't blacked out. What the heck? When Jesus was whispering to our troubled hearts, "Be patient. Be patient" is this why? Did He hope her heart would turn like this? Did He know this month the money would work out? Are we being blessed the pants off of?

The tickets alone will still be around $700 so we need to save and sort that out and mom and I are going to make a plan for what we need from now until then for him and work on it since boyfriend works so much right now. And we need to get her to sign a new custody agreement while were there. But all of this to say, our baby is coming home in about a month and we don't have to give him back. I feel like I just adopted a child. We are so happy it's ridiculous!

I am going to be a mommy!