Melissa had another successful appointment with Dr. Terry yesterday. The baby is measuring right on schedule. We are now at 31 weeks and it looks as if this might actually work. We are making preparations for Lily's and Griffin's arrival on a daily basis. I believe that Melissa is planning to attend 5 baby showers. With those, the family reunions and the birthing class, I think that every Saturday for the rest of 2006 is blocked out. One may think that with all of those baby showers I might be on my way to golf/play station heaven. On the contrary, Melissa is working frantically to create a master list/schedule of all of my chores. I don't know how many of you have read "The Jungle", by Upton Sinclair, but it's kind of like that. She actually has purchased a white board to write down all of the things that she has for me to do, and a cattle prod to keep me on task. I have talked her into giving me Sundays off, but she is not budging on bathroom breaks. I am trying to unionize, but management is strong and the progress is slow.

At this time, we'd like to introduce our little surprise. His name is Griffin.


About a month after Melissa and I had found out about Lily we were approached by a co-worker of Melissa's. Her daughter had gotten pregnant and wanted to place the baby with us. Of course, they didn't know that we were pregnant. We told her about our situation, but that we would consider it and we needed some time to think about it. After careful consideration we decided that we would take the baby. We really felt good about it and that this was what was supposed to happen.

(Comments about his "boyhood" shall be considered inappropriate at this time.)

His expected arrival date is 12 October, just a little less than a full month from Lily's date of 14 September. Griffin's mom has also had one child before him - a little girl who is just over 2 years old. She is being raised by Griffin's birth mother's mother. She will be his half sister, as they don't share the same father.

Melissa and I have both met Griffin's birth parents. We couldn't help but to be impressed with their love for him and their maturity in the face of such a difficult decision. They are truly making this decision based on their love for him and what they believe to be the best situation for him. We love them and hope that you will pray for them along with us.

We are all very excited for the boy half of our assembled twins. Everyone is getting what they want - Grandma Connie has a real-life dress-up doll in Lily, and Grandpa Sam has another boy to help him in his all-sports TV programming domination. I'm sure he's also looking forward to tricking Griff into shagging golf balls for him in the backyard, etc. On the other side of the family, Mike will finally have a boy cousin to kick around.