Background...let's catch up...

Well, we won't go ALL the way back! I will try to catch you up to speed quickly and with only needed details...that isn't easy for me!

Since the very first time I heard that "drug" babies existed, I wanted one. (I didn't want to "make" one, I just wanted to help those that already were!) Thus, God led us to foster care about 3 years ago. We have fostered 5 children in the past 2 1/2 years, 3 of whom have/will become "Forever Phillips". We will then say "so long" to DHS and all of their "ways". (This is not our choice, but DHS doesn't believe anyone should have more than 6 children...as I was bluntly told today, they did not want me to have my last placement...one I fought for in court AND WON!) That's a different story for a different day.

I will not post much about our two soon to be adopted children, "S" and "J", due to confidentiality issues, but soon I will be able to post their pictures and stories! We hope and pray!

Two years ago, DHS foster care led us to our Jacob. On July 19, 2006, a baby boy was born addicted to cocaine. 8 weeks later, I picked up the ugliest, saddest looking baby you have ever seen. Jacob wore preemie sized clothes until he was 4 months old. Jacob could not blink his eyes or cry out loud. He slept 22 hours a day, even at 8 weeks of age. He had a flat spot on the back of his head, his coloring was gray and his lips were white and cracked.

With a lot of love and prayers, Jacob started to flourish. In October 2006, his biological mother's rights were terminated due to her drug use. In the meantime, Jacob graduated from Sooner Start and became a healthy, rotten, baby boy.

Jacob met all of his milestones, and for some reason, we celebrated a little more for Jacob...he had overcome so much in his short little life. Maybe there was a small part of me that knew Jacob would only be with us for a little while.

And we made it to Jacob's FIRST birthday! What a celebration that was! Not only did we have a party, but we were also asked if we would be Jacob's adoptive placement as the bio dad wanted to relinquish his rights and wanted us to be Jacob's forever family. That was in July 2007. We said, "YES!" I wasn't giving him up at that point!

MY FIRST BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

We proceeded with Jacob's adoption in October of 2007. Ten LONG months later, Jacob was finally ours!


We finalized Jacob's adoption on 08/08/08! A friend of mine told me that numbers in the Bible are always a symbol...the number "8" is the symbol for "new beginnings". How right she was! More tomorrow....