Nathaniel Carter !!!!

Michael and I are thrilled to announce the arrival of our son, Nathaniel Carter. He was born on June 23, 2009, at 3:59pm weighing 8 pounds 5 ounces, 21” long.

We received “the call” from our adoption agency on Monday, June 29th to let us know that Nate came early (WHAT A SHOCK SINCE WE’RE ALWAYS LATE!!) and we would need to be in Boston on Wed to pick him up. You can imagine our surprise!!

Before we ever imagined Nate would be coming into our lives, it was already shaping up to be a hectic week... I was in London for business and then was planning to fly home on Wed (July 1st) and then head back to Europe two days later on Friday (July 3rd) with Michael to begin our 10 day hiking adventure in the Alps (my birthday present from Michael).... Nate had other plans and they are hands down the best birthday present EVER.

We picked the name Nathaniel because it means “A Gift from God”… (but we love calling him Nate) …Holy Unpreparedness!

COMPLETELY unprepared. We had only been officially accepted to our program as of Dec (just 6 months once our profile was complete) but they had set our expectations to be prepared to wait 1 and a half to 2 years (and sometimes longer) so we were completely floored when we got the call…in fact, it came Monday night and I was in London!

Michael called me at the hotel around 10pm and as he woke me he said, “The bad news is we are not going to Switzerland , the good news is we have a son and we need to pick him up on Wed!!”
OMG. Still processing. We had absolutely nothing - -I flew home Tuesday afternoon, Michael picked me up at the airport, we drove directly to Babies R Us with a new parent book in hand and four hours later and tons of stuff we know nothing about was in our car! We were joking that he’d be sleeping in my sock drawer! We were up Tuesday night most of the night washing his clothes, packing car etc and then we arrived here MA Wednesday morning and picked him up!

We only just met our son 4 days ago but it feels as if he's been with us all our lives. We have been staying in a Marriott hotel where we must stay until the end of next week (for paperwork etc). After 2 days in our hotel apartment, we felt ready and hit the road! We had our 1st day (and night) out yesterday - -it was great. We went shopping for clothes and fun baby stuff (that we're really not sure what to do with) we went to the book store and read books and then we went out to a really cool restaurant --so fun!

Today is the 4th of July. It is sunny and beautiful and we're heading out again....