Introducing Marley Olivia

Thursday night I (Nathan) had a dream. In the dream I was attending a soccer game in a giant stadium. Typical to dream fashion my seat was the goal, I sat in the goal to watch the game! While I watched the game I had a feeling that a bomb was going to go off and that I had to leave the stadium. While walking with the stadium behind me I saw a jet plane fly over head and drop bombs on the stadium. There was a massive explosion! I looked around me and thought "life is going to change".

I woke up and shook my head at such a bizarre dream.

My day began as another: Left the house at 6:30. Parked. Walked in the chilled morning to the animal facility. Took care of the mice. Ate breakfast. Prepare for my meeting with my Advisor. Goofed off a little with my lab mates (that's when true science happens!!). Began crossing things off my 'to do' list. Went to lab meeting. At 1 PM the plan was to meet up with Linnley to go to lunch.

As I slid into the car Linnley looked at me. I thought she was han-gry with me because I was a few minutes late. In fact she had just gotten off the phone with our social worker, Lexann. She wanted us to call her right away.

We called Lexann. The conversation went a little like this:
Lexann: Do I have both of you on the phone?
US: Yes.
L: Good. Let me put you on speaker phone
US: (confusion)
L: I am here was a birth mom and she has selected you as the adoptive parents!
US: (shock)
L: We didn't think the baby was coming yet but she gave birth this morning.
US: (shock intensifying)
L: Do you want to come by the hospital and meet everyone?
US: Can we call you back?

Haha. Ok. We were absolutely floored! We were so scared and nervous. We didn't know anything about anything, how could we possibly say yes so quickly!?

We called Lexann back and told her we were honored to be selected and would love to meet everyone. On the way to the hospital I sent out a desperate plea to family to pray for us.

We arrived to the hospital and meet with the birth mom (who was doing wonderfully) and grandma. We sat and chatted for hours. Then finally got to meet the baby. The baby was born prematurely and was therefore in an incubator in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. As we walked the halls to the NICU, I remembered my dream and realized I just had a bomb dropped on me and that my life is going to change.

When we saw the baby all the doubt rushed away and we were consumed with peace. Linnley and I wept. We knew that she was meant for us. We believe that Grandma Scott and Grandpa Henrie had a part to play in sending her to us. We told our social worker, YES!

Arizona law requires the birth mom to wait 72 hours before the and relinquish their rights. However, due to scheduling issues we had to wait 96+ hours. It was excruciating! Each minute that passed by we loved her more and more and grew more and more anxious for the signing.

Marley Olivia was born March 4, 2016 at 10:57 AM weighing 4 lbs 4 oz. She is super tiny and the most adorable baby girl. We are in love!

                                           

Somewhere in the middle of 2015

One of our favorite family traditions is our family reunions and going to Bryce Canyon, UT where my grandpa owned and worked a ranch when he was growing up. We fish, hike, swim, horseback ride, fish, go four-wheeling, play games, eat from grandma's candy drawer, laugh, talk, and FISH! We've included some of our favorite pictures from this years trip.

Sunrise 

Stream fishing is by far my most favorite activity. (catch and release)

Hiking through slot canyons is always nice and trying to avoid the muddy pools is fun

We love our adventures together. Only missing our chocolate lab, Reese.

After the reunion we attended Linnley's sisters wedding and had some fun with the photo booth made available through Linnley's other sister, Melissa.

Emily's wedding had a remarkable view. But I, Nathan, found this one breathtaking.



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Upon returning from the reunion and trip to Utah we entered back into our daily routine but continued to have date nights and play dates.

Update

It's been two months since we announced that we were adopting. Feeling antsy, we are looking into expanding our adoption net. We are hoping to utilize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint's offer for one year free subscription to Adoption.com. We are also exploring the potentiality of becoming eligible to adopt through Choctaw Family Services. 

We sincerely appreciate everyone's support and prayers thus far, they are felt and appreciated. We continue to ask for your support as we continue on our journey and humbly ask if you are willing and able to contribute to our fundraiser that we set up to help with the adoption fee. (To donate, simply click on the donate button to the right of the screen or e-mail Linnley for our address to mail your donation, linnleymarie@gmail.com) 

By Luke Sweeney

Top 10 Fun Facts:

Here are some fun facts about Reese to get to know her a little more :)

She's a smart girl! 

10. She is a social eater. She doesn't like to eat unless everyone else is eating or if it's midnight. 

9. She LOVES her friends and going on play-dates. She knows her friends names and when we say them she gets really excited and runs to the car. 

8. She is very protective of Mommy. If she hears a noise she will position herself between me and the noise. 

7. Reese is a cuddle-bug. She loves to cuddle in our bed, and will climb in about an hour before Nathan's alarm goes off. 

6. Reese loves to have her paws massaged. I don't know of any other dog that loves her paws rubbed as much as Reese does. 

5. Reese waits to greet Nathan when he gets home from work and as soon as she hears him give me a kiss she will run and greet him excitedly. She knows she has to wait. 

4. Reese will tell Nathan when she's finished all her food for the day so she can get a treat. 

Just hanging out with one of her favorite cousins in Utah.

3. Reese loves to go running with us. She gets so excited when I put my running shoes on. 

2. Reese loves to sleep in all sorts of funny positions. 

1. Reese loves nothing more than she loves to play fetch, and only with her ball. She has a favorite ball and if we go play fetch she will play until she is run into the ground. She won't stop unless we make her stop. She just loves playing. 

*Bonus: Reese is SUPER patient, and loves kids!! Especially when she can lick their faces or eat their crumbs. 

Family Adventures

Nathan and I really enjoy just spending time together, however with still being new to Tucson and Arizona we like to take little stay-cation adventures to see the sights, get to know the area and have some family fun.

Over the last 2 years we've been able to visit a lot of great little places when Nathan get's his time off of school. One of our favorite's was the Titan Missile Museum just South of Tucson in Sahuarita, Arizona. We also visited Biosphere 2 up North of Tucson where they have gardens, a ocean simulation, a rain forest and of course the desert. For our 5 year anniversary we went indoor skydiving (that's as close to the real thing as I'll get). Reese our 2 year old Chocolate lab mix was able to go to the indoor skydiving place with us and there was a sweet girl there that wanted to walk her while we tried it.

We have been able to go hiking, trail running and even swimming with Reese too.

The top of the Titan Missile 

In the Rain-forest at Biosphere 2

Nathan's perfect form indoor skydiving

Me trying to keep good form and not fly up

Approved and How you can help the Sweeneys

Nathan and I received our court approval/certification last week. Which means we are now on the waiting list until we get matched with the right birth parents. We are eager to meet our little one, whenever that may be.

Many of you may know that adopting isn't cheap. While we wouldn't take this step unless we absolutely knew we could, we are still asking for donations to help alleviate some of the adoption fee strain.

With humility we ask for any help in this process. We've set up a PayPal account if you would like to donate money and gift registries with Pottery Barn and Target if you like to donate baby items (help us out parents, we need your expertise!).

Our Story

    Nathan and I, Linnley, both attended the University of Utah in beautiful Salt Lake City. He was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and I was working towards mine in Health Promotion and Education when we met at the University Bookstore. I remember well the day we met, he was purchasing chocolate covered cashews in his blue track-like jacket when I rang him up at the cash register. Since I was an employee he was able to see my name and  he made a mental note of it for later use.

     Not long after that, he stopped me in a chance passing on campus and said, “Linnley, right?” We soon began dating and quickly fell in love. We married in 2009 and moved into a tiny one bedroom apartment. We didn't have much. We didn't need much. We had each other! When you’re in love and busy, life moves quickly. Time passed. I have always longed to be a mother, and after years of negative pregnancy tests, we sought the help of doctors. The moment I found out we couldn't have our children naturally, my world stopped. Though it was difficult, we came to understand that God had another plan for us, that plan was for us to be parents through adoption. 

      After Nathan graduated he decided to follow his passion in cancer research which has led him to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Arizona in Cancer Biology where he is currently. I work as a personal trainer helping and encouraging people to obtain their personal fitness and wellness goals.

    If we had to pick one phrase to describe us, we’d choose old fashioned. For example, we pray together, play together, kiss each other when we come and go, we cook and have dinner together every night - often followed by a chocolaty treat.We love doing things as a family. Most of all we love the simple things. For example, a daily walk with our dog, a chocolate lab named Reese, whom we adopted at Christmas in 2012.  Reese has brought us immeasurable joy. As a family we like to run, go hiking, swim, watch movies, take road trips, and visit family. In addition to family time, we never miss our Friday night date night. These date nights have a broad range of activities but our favorite is - country dancing. Nathan has quite the moves and loves to twirl me around the dance floor and I love to be twirled! 
      
   Adding to our family will be one of our greatest blessings and we are overjoyed at the prospect of becoming parents.

We sincerely appreciate your support and love,
Nathan, Linnley and Reese