Bonus: So, We Adopted a Baby!

 AJ Jones. Yes, sir. Welcome to a very special non-episode of Keeping Up With The Joneses.
 It is definitely a special non-episode. I want to make sure that you understand this is just a
 bonus episode because we are stranded in Utah without, I was going to say without any of our
 equipment, but we brought some. You actually brought some. I can't believe with how we ended
 up flying out here, you remember to do this. It's either a gift or a curse, but yes, I brought
 stuff. I don't know how well it's going to work. Well, we'll see, I guess. Normally,
 if we were doing an episode, which we're not doing an episode, we would talk about a weekly
 update. Yes. And for those of you who listen to our podcast, you know that last week,
 we were on a high because we were like, I can't believe it's only been a week.
 Seven days ago. Seven days ago. Seven days ago. We'd record an episode in the morning,
 talking about, "Oh, isn't God amazing? Isn't God faithful? We've been chosen to adopt a baby.
 $25,000 have come in for us to pair adoption fees.
 We had two weeks to raise the rest of the money.
 So great.
 And then you heard our news that they told us, no, no, the baby's going to be here Monday
 and this was Saturday.
 We need to fly the next day.
 Yeah.
 And you still remembered to bring microphones.
 I still remembered to bring my phone and tripod stands and an audio interface and two tripods.
 You weirdo.
 Yeah.
 But so what happened after last week's episode.
 Yeah.
 is we packed our bags and thanks to friends and family.
 Yes.
 We left our kids.
 We drove to the airport.
 We did.
 And all day Sunday, we flew over to Utah.
 So Lake City.
 The other side of America took us pretty much all day.
 Yep.
 We landed here.
 Yep.
 We dropped our bags at this Airbnb and we drove straight to a restaurant to meet our birth mom.
 Yes.
 Why don't you describe that experience?
 Well, it's interesting because it's hard not to be nervous
 and not to know. Like I didn't know what to expect. And here you are meeting this woman who
 you know is going to give you her baby, you hope. And knowing like we'd heard stories of
 you know ones that had failed and stuff like that. So just you know there's it felt
 I don't know. There's a lot of nerves. And it's also weird because we know very little about her.
 Yes. She knows very little about us. Right. And you're supposed to kind of know very little
 And then there's that weird of like, I don't know where the line is between
 What's inappropriate to ask about and what's appropriate to ask about which obviously is an environment I thrive in. Yeah sure
 Well, and you're having dinner with two social workers that are like one that's assigned for us and one that's assigned for her
 Yeah, it was just the strangest dinner and to start with I mean
 She sat down and just started talking a mile a minute
 but she said I was super nervous I've been so nervous to meet you and
 And I was like, yeah, we can understand that.
 - She was very sweet. - Very sweet.
 - Very kind. - Yes.
 - And very supportive and encouraging of our decision.
 And the more we got to know her,
 the more we got to hear her side of the journey
 in picking our family. - Yeah.
 - But it was quick dinner. - It was very quick.
 And then she was-- - See you there.
 - That's it, we'll see you tomorrow.
 - And it's important that when we say,
 when we tell the story of this week,
 We didn't know anything that was gonna happen this week.
 So there's a danger that as we tell the story,
 it sounds like this was all planned.
 No, this was us flying by the seat of our pants.
 Like we learned that night
 that we would be at the hospital the following morning
 at 6 a.m. for the delivery of our baby.
 - Yeah, we didn't even know that.
 Like at the end of dinner, we were like,
 "So, what does tomorrow look like?"
 They're like- - Do we show up?
 - Right, do we, and they were like,
 "Yep, be there at six."
 She's having it at six, and we're like,
 "But, okay."
 We knew we wouldn't be in the operating room
 'cause you can only have one person.
 And so her social, like her worker from the agency
 is like her closest person here.
 And so she was gonna be in there,
 but we knew, hey, as soon as she's back in the room,
 we'll be able to go in.
 And so we just went to the hospital for six.
 - Which is our second night of really very little sleep
 because the first night, we maybe got three hours of sleep.
 - Yeah, three hours.
 - And then that night, we were probably so excited.
 We get up early, get to the,
 I keep coming to hospital hotels.
 Get to the hospital about 53545.
 Meet our social worker at six.
 Which was tragic.
 And by 658, this one is born.
 Do you want to show her off to the camera?
 No, she's sleeping on show her off at the end.
 Look at her.
 She's so adorable.
 She's very, very adorable.
 But you're jumping ahead.
 658, she's born 5 pounds, 3 ounces, 17 inches long.
 She's just little, tiny little thing.
 She is heavier than my MacBook Pro.
 She's heavier or lighter?
 There's not much in it, it's about the same.
 She's actually smaller than my MacBook Pro.
 (laughing)
 But she was born 658, and then they call you into the room.
 Yep.
 And that's also weird.
 Yeah, it was strange.
 Like we came in and our birth mom had her,
 and basically as soon as we walked in,
 she was like, come and take her,
 like come and cuddle her and whatever.
 and yeah, our birth mom was really kind.
 She let us have lots of cuddles and she took lots of pictures of us.
 Now, here's the thing that I was wondering about is having three biological children.
 How am I going to bond to this baby?
 Am I going to bond to this baby?
 Will I feel the same sense of love for this baby as I have my other ones?
 Yeah.
 And it's remarkable because it's a light, it's like a light switch that just gets flipped.
 instantaneous. Pick up my baby and I am in love with this little sausage. And so I'm holding her.
 She's a couple of hours, not even hours old. I'm holding her and I'm praying in tongues over her
 and I'm prying over her in the middle of the room. I don't know what our social workers are
 thinking. I don't know what our birth mom is thinking, but she radiates peace. And I'm trying
 to work out if it's because she radiates peace or because it's our fourth and so we're less stressed.
 What do you think?
 - I don't know, she is really peaceful,
 which is kind of surprising,
 considering the circumstances,
 but she is very peaceful.
 I know I realize I'm rocking through this entire video.
 - It's amazing.
 - Little sweet thing.
 Yeah, she's super peaceful.
 But also, yeah, I think having had three preemies,
 it's not intimidating that she's five pounds,
 like that she's really teeny.
 She's really teeny.
 Yeah.
 Super thankful for that because I realized like, oh God, like, you know, so many times
 in life you realize God uses seasons of your life that you learned hard things and later
 you're like, I'm so glad I went through that because now it's applicable and I have peace.
 And that's what this feels like.
 It's like, okay, yep, she's really tiny and she's two weeks preemie and we're okay.
 We know lots of that.
 Yeah, we know what to do.
 And the rest of the week for us just looked like we actually got to stay at the hospital.
 So this hospital was amazing and we had our own hospital room with a fancy couch.
 So there was two bits that we got to set up in so that we could stay with little nugget
 because the policy is that the babies don't go home until the mom has gone home.
 So our birth mom needed some extra time.
 And so we spent the next four, four days,
 five days in the hospital.
 And the hospital staff were amazing.
 - They were wonderful.
 - I mean, it's not probably a great way of saying it,
 but there wasn't a single dud.
 You know, like there was, it was like every nurse,
 every person that we talked to was like,
 you felt like they were there to help you.
 They were happy that you were there.
 You know, they were happy to help you with anything.
 So it was really, really great.
 Yeah, our birth mom had her own room.
 And then across the hall, we had our own room.
 And then little baby Sophia-Joy Charis Jones,
 would stay with us.
 The birth mom was so gracious and kind
 once we'd signed the papers.
 She was like, that is your child.
 And we would go in for daily visits with her birth mom.
 Yeah, we'd bring her in a couple times a day to visit
 and have a cuddle and whatnot.
 But she was with us.
 But she's with us.
 And the nurses to have her so sweet.
 they would say, "Hey, take advantage of all the help while you can."
 - Yeah.
 - And so she's in a three-hour sleeping feeding schedule.
 So every three hours we'd feed her and then overnight,
 the nursery staff would take her so we could get sleep.
 - Yeah, I mean, I didn't get much.
 I'm so bad at sleeping if there's weird lights, weird sounds,
 weird anything, which is--
 - Which is a hospital, there's lots of--
 - A hospital, yeah.
 - All of those.
 I've decided I want a hospital bed at home.
 - I know you weirdo.
 - That whole thing where it tips you up,
 I'm like, I'm all about that lifestyle.
 You're hysterical.
 I spent too much time in a hospital,
 but as a child, I want one at home.
 So, yeah.
 - You can see where that might have different memories
 for you.
 - So we stayed at a hospital all week,
 which I really enjoyed,
 apart because I like pretending I'm a doctor.
 - And there was a Starbucks across the street.
 - And there's a Starbucks right there.
 - Literally across the street, so it was like brilliant.
 - And we're in Utah, so we'd often leave the baby
 with a nurse staff and we'd go out
 and maybe go get lunch or we'd go shopping.
 - Yeah, 'cause we'd have to fly in here
 and then go get things because we hadn't had the shower yet.
 - Yep.
 - And so there's a whole bunch of stuff sitting
 in our house, I think, that we didn't have with us.
 And all of a sudden we were like, uh...
 - Well, and also, like, we didn't have much time
 heads up to pack, so we packed a bunch of dirty laundry.
 - Yeah.
 - So I had to come home and do laundry, home being
 where we are right now in our Airbnb.
 But they discharged us over the weekend,
 and now we're here, we cannot travel back to Tennessee
 until we get the courts approve our adoption.
 So we're waiting, we filed paperwork a couple of days ago
 and Tennessee reciprocates.
 Once we get a notification of that,
 we can hop on a plane and fly home,
 which is good because we desperately miss our children.
 - Yeah, I can't wait to see your kids.
 - And amongst all our joy and celebration
 on this side of the country,
 we were hugely saddened to hear of a tragedy
 that happened in our hometown.
 On the same day that Sophia Joy was born,
 a couple hours after she was born, somebody entered preschool, very near us, and shot
 and killed six people. And there's no getting away from that horrible senseless tragedy.
 And unfortunately, it's a, hey, I haven't said this, unfortunately, it's an uncommon
 experience in America.
 Right. So very sad. We know lots of people who...
 Well, that's what's hard. It's in your city.
 Yeah. We're on the other side of the world. And while we don't know anybody directly involved,
 we know lots of people who know people who are directly involved. So we have a whole community
 of people that we love deeply and want to be with and comfort and help. And they're
 aching and we're on the other side of the country. And so that's been hard. I think part of our
 hearts are long to get home and be with our community in grief and solidarity and help as much to
 to be canceled, we're over here praying.
 So that was hard to be over here and hear that.
 - Really, we didn't even, I didn't hear until the evening.
 - No, we were so close.
 - Because we were just lost in baby land.
 We weren't like, I wasn't on Instagram or anything else.
 So I had no idea what had happened.
 And we heard from somebody in Australia who texted us and said,
 "Hey, are you guys okay?"
 And we were like, "What now?"
 Yeah, the day for us was about celebrating
 the birth of Sophia Joy.
 And so it's, yeah, it's really sad that it's, you know, a day of a huge tragedy.
 Huge tragedy and huge loss.
 We want to thank so many of you who have reached out to us this week in joy
 and celebration in all the congratulatory texts and emails and social media comments.
 It has made us being away feel a little bit closer.
 So thank you for that.
 Thank you also for all of your generous support.
 We are astonished at the outpouring of financial generosity.
 We started two weeks ago needing $25,000.
 That came in more than that came in.
 And then we thought, while we've got two or three weeks
 to raise the next law and we found out we had a day,
 we were left with a $13,500 medical bill.
 And we had five days to raise that money.
 And again, thank you for your generosity.
 $10,000 came in in five days.
 And so we just want to thank everybody who gave everybody
 who's been praying for us, everybody who's supported us on this journey.
 And if you'd like to help us with our final bills, you can do that by just going to
 our website, alynandaj.com/adopt.
 We just, we still have some things to cover, but we're so, so thankful.
 Thank you.
 For your generosity for, yeah, just all the posts and the way that you've reached
 out and supported us this week.
 Thank you so much.
 Now, maybe I think the people have been happy to hear from us,
 but I think what they really want is they want to be able to see little Sophia Joy.
 I know, but she's down to sleep and she's on a schedule
 and she's supposed to be asleep for another 23 minutes.
 Can we just... Can we just...
 Can we not just attach... We will post pictures.
 We'll attach pictures or like a little video at the end
 so you can see her when she's awake.
 There you go, that's our compromise. There you go.
 Thank you for tuning in for our Not A Real episode.
 We don't know when we're gonna return to regular programming.
 We actually don't know how long we're gonna be in Utah for.
 - Yeah, we've known it yet.
 - We've completely forgot to talk about how beautiful Utah is.
 - Oh my gosh, okay.
 Everywhere we drive, it's like you turn a corner
 and there's these massive mountains everywhere.
 So like gas stations look pretty
 because there's these mountains behind them.
 So we keep--
 - Walmart looks pretty.
 You come out of Walmart or Target
 and you're like, this might be the most beautiful car park
 I've ever seen.
 - We keep driving and going.
 - It's all these mountain.
 - Like we'll turn a corner and go.
 (gasps)
 - These snow-capped majestic mountains everywhere you look.
 We're surrounded, absolutely surrounded.
 - And we're actually the news forecast, no,
 the weather forecast is that we're headed
 for a winter advisory.
 They've had 70 feet of snow in this season.
 - It's the highest since like 1980 for,
 - And they're calling for two days of snow tomorrow.
 So hopefully we're not snowed in.
 - Yeah, I wanna be able to leave when we can leave.
 - Yeah, hopefully we get our permission to fly really quickly.
 and hopefully we can return normal life.
 But again, thank you for being with us.
 We hope that your week is gonna be amazing.
 We really appreciate your encouragement and support.
 And we just wanted to pop in and say hello.
 - Thank you so much.