Dawsen Kyler Arrives

And according to plan...Little went according to plan.

It is therapeutically hot here in the desert.  The locals are basking in the relatively low temperatures, and assure us that, "It gets much hotter than this."  We are enjoying the uninterrupted sunshine, the desert scenery, and the three community pools.  Except, in our haste to get out of town, I forgot swim shorts.

We had anticipated making this trip "anytime now," though we really didn't expect to leave until at least next Monday - the due date.  It was a great plan - but not the real plan.  We knew the real plan would not be one of our choosing, but it was fun to pretend anyway.

So pretend we did.  As the date loomed nearer, we rushed about for weeks in a sort of triage, first clearing the most critical items from the list: car seat, tiny clothes, bottles; while simultaneously covering the secondary items, such as: complete the construction and installation of bunk-beds and shelves, repaint kids rooms, new carpet; and finally as the countdown dropped into single digits, we contacted vacation rentals in Arizona and local friends to keep the girls - letting both know that we could be mobilizing at a moment's notice.

And then as abruptly as we had anticipated, the call came - the mother of our new son was going into the hospital RIGHT NOW for an emergency Cesarean.  Bec immediately began calling and texting me, upon which I replied that, "I'm in a meeting."  That proved to be inadequate to stem the tide of her desire to communicate, and I was soon brought on track.  That was 2:00 on Tuesday - 6 days before the due date.

I was on the phone before I left the parking lot, and was co-orchestrating an impressive getaway during the one-hour drive home. What happened next would have been more difficult 20 years ago.  Friends were contacted via cell phone and text message and we coordinated 3 different families to help care for our girls. (I was not texting while driving.) Kayak.com helped secure a last minute plane ticket.

Within 3 hours our amazing friends had rescheduled their life and Emi was at our house picking up the girls.  Another friend, Grandma Teri B., volunteered to keep the girls for 2 nights, and Grandma and Grandpa solidified arrangements to arrive on Saturday.  I finalized accommodations at a vacation rental - which if you ever need, we can highly recommend - Bec bought a one-way plane ticket for herself, and we all, the girls included, began throwing everything that looked important into a suitcase or bag.

A text message from the mother's attorney brought us the distraught face of a brand new baby boy.  That picture accelerated us more - if that was possible.  At 5:45, we were on the highway again.  I dropped Bec off in Oakland for a 7:15pm flight to Arizona, and a short cab ride to the hospital.  I kept going for the dark 12-hour drive through California's Central Valley, and the southern deserts.

Bec arrived at the hospital around 9:30pm and was able to spend most of the night with our brand new baby boy and his first mother.  I arrived in rush hour traffic the next morning with breakfast from McDonalds for Bec and a Dr Pepper for the mommy.

We spent the first night in our condo, alone.  Baby and mommy were able to spend a night together at the hospital.  Dawsen was discharged the next day around noon, and we immediately took him shopping for the first of a series of lists of things we had forgotten, then "home."

Friday afternoon, the paperwork was finalized and we officially added a little boy to our family.  Now we wait for Arizona and California, the attorneys, and the bureaucracy in general to allow us to travel back home.

Above is the travel log and the skeleton of this post.  What is not recorded above is the emotional roller coaster we rode.  Those roller coasters are familiar to all who dare to take an adventure, yet when it is your turn to ride, you are never quite prepared.  I refer to the wonderful gal that gave birth on Tuesday as Dawsen's mother.  This may seem odd to you, as it once did to me, since yesterday she terminated her own rights to claim Dawsen as her son, and Becky officially became his mother.  That is part of the roller coaster.

The woman that carried our son and loved him as only a mother can, for nearly nine months, is cherished by Becky and me.  Her difficult choices did not start nine months ago, they started many years ago.  Some choices were poor, and others were wise and kind beyond comprehension.  The life of the baby that we now sit up with at night was an amazingly wise and kind choice - and unimaginably painful for her.

We are more aware than ever that we are loved and guided by a kind Father, who knows our weaknesses, our composition of dust, our sin, and our flailing efforts, and still guides His dear children along.

The plans that we made - the plans that we continue to make, are not ours but His.

I was running along a scenic section of trail near our home on an early morning a few days before we left town.  I had just reached the top of the trail and was headed down a long descent with the Carquinez Strait on my right and the spray of wildflowers speckling the green hills all around me, when Brandon Heath's "It is Well," came up on my play list.  All I could think was how awesome it is to be able to sing along - indeed it is well with my soul.  Becky and I continue to thank our kind God that it is well - all is good.