It is now official: Introducing Zachary Thibo Harrod!

Well, it is finally complete. On Wednesday, December 17th, we had our court hearing to finalize our adoption of Zachary. Zachary is officially our son now! YEAH!!!! It took nearly nine months to complete the process, but Zachary is officially Zachary Thibo Harrod!














We are so pleased to have this process over! In the back of our minds we always had that fear of "what if his birth mother changes her mind and wants him back" or "what if his Native American tribe decides they want custody of him and get involved in the process". As we were waiting outside the court room for the hearing to begin, our lawyer shared with us a few stories of exactly these two incidents happening and pretty much scared us to death! Next time, I hope he waits until after the court hearing! Thankfully though, the court hearing went very quickly and was painless, taking only about ten minutes.

We are extremely excited to have this process wrapped up before Christmas so we can enjoy our first Christmas together as a family! The joy Zachary has brought us is truly beyond words! His little smile, happy giggle or ear piercing playful scream truly remind us that the past seven years have been worth the wait! We finally have the son we always dreamed of and the family we have prayed for every night! Now we are just going to sit back and enjoy the holidays! Because this Spring, we start the process all over again!! :)

Zachary's First Thanksgiving

Zachary's first Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was truly a time for us to be thankful for being so blessed to have Zachary with us. It is amazing how a child can change your perspective on life and what matters and what you are really thankful for. I realize now that the Vikings winning on Sunday is not something I should really be thankful for! Though I would be lying if I said it did not give me a little pleasure. :)

It is incredible to see the way Zachary has impacted our families as well. As Ty's family lives here in the Twin Cities, we usually see them on the weekends. They simply cannot get enough time with Zachary and playfully fight over who gets to hold Zachary and who gets to feed him. It really is entertaining to watch!

With Christmas just around the corner, we are gearing up and getting the house decorated for the family party we are hosting on Christmas Day. It seems like it was just summer and now Christmas is just around the corner. Where did the time go? Beth's mom just sent us a Christmas stocking with Zachary's name on it so now the whole family has stocking hanging over the fireplace. We cannot wait for Christmas to get here now so we can start some new traditions with Zachary!

8 Months Old Already!

Wow, how the time is flying by! Zachary will be 8 months old this Saturday, November 22nd. It is amazing to think back to the first week Zachary came into the world and was a whopping 3 pounds 12 oz. He was so small! Some of the pictures above give you an idea of the struggles he had when he first came into this world. He had around 8 different wires attached to his body at one time to measure his vitals and was laying in the little incubator bed to keep warm with the heat lamps on in order to keep his body heat up. His monitor was constantly going off and scaring us to death as his heart rate would drop or spike suddenly and his Oxygen levels would also drop without warning (usually because he pulled off his wire). He was also fed through a feeding tube going through his nose into his stomach.

Those were such scary times! It's truly incredible how far the Z-man has come in the last eight months. He seemed like a little doll in the NICU for those first six weeks and now he is such a little man! :) You were the size of a football at 3 pounds 12 oz, and now you are 14 pounds 10 oz and getting ready to play football! Keep growing buddy!

The Cutest Little Boy Ever!

There is no post necessary for this one. Just look at the pictures and it's obvious!

A Visit To The Pumpkin Patch

Beth and I have been waiting for about four years to finally be able to bring our child with us to get our Halloween pumpkins. Finally, this Halloween was the year! For the last several years it has been pretty hard to see all of the young families enjoying themselves as they pick out their pumpkin and enjoy the fall season.

Beth and I have been dreaming for this moment for such a long time and to be able to finally visit the pumpkin patch with Zachary and enjoy the season as a family was truly a special moment for both of us. We even got Zachary his very own little pumpkin. What a difference a child can mean to your lives especially around the holiday seasons. To be able to experience this with Zachary makes it so much more meaningful and special! Happy Halloween!!

Zachary's First Halloween!

Well, Zachary's first Halloween was not exactly what we had hoped it would be. We were all excited for him to enjoy his first Halloween and instead he was teething with his first tooth and completely miserable. Nothing made him happy. So we just stayed in and passed out candy and tried to make him as happy as possible. We received a lot of little comments from the adults that were accompanying their kids to our door about how cute the Z-man looked. Which I have to admit, Beth did a great job of getting Zach his first costume! Though, Scuttle (cocker spaniel) is clearly not very happy about being dressed up as a bee for her second straight Halloween!

First Blog For Harrod Family

Well, since it seems like everybody we know is starting a blog, we didn't want to get left out in the cold. So we are starting our very own Harrod Family Blog and hopefully it works out for us and I don't screw it up too much.

The main reason behind our blog is to let our friends and family get regular updates on the life of Zachary. Zachary will be 8 months old on November 22nd. Though he will be 8 months old, Zachary was born two months premature and is somewhat small for his age. At birth he was only 3 pounds 12 ounces and 16 1/2 inches long. He has been growing at a nice steady clip until he reached the 6 1/2 month mark at the beginning of October. At that point, Zachary was roughly 13 pounds 7 ounces. We then switched him from the Neosure Similac formula for premature babies ( has extra calories to help him grow) to the regular Advanced Similac formula.

Unfortunately, Zachary then came down with a few bad colds and a really bad teething period that seemed to last almost five days. By the end of November, Zachary had only gained an additional 9 ounces and was now 14 pounds. He is healthy, but just a little underweight. He also just came down with a really bad double ear infection and eye infection to go along with his lovely cold (runny nose, cough, etc). He is just about over both of those and has a follow up appointment on Wednesday with his pediatrician. We decided to put Zachary back on his extra calorie Neosure formula in order to try to get him to gain some more weight.

We also started introducing some food to Zachary as well. We started off with the rice cereal which he seemed to think was to boring as he did not take very well to it. We then introduced some banana baby food which he enjoyed much more. We followed that up with some squash and he took to that ok. We then tried out the oatmeal and he enjoyed that much better. Now, we have moved to some prunes. So far he appears to be doing pretty well with that, though the jury is still out as it has only been two nights now.

Attached are some photos of Zachary's first feeding when we introduced him to food. I know deep inside he is dying for a steak though!