How It All Started - Part 1

Posted July 17, 2010 (1 day after Baby C's Birthday)My phone rang a little before 10am.
My DH took THE CALL at first.
Then we put her on speaker.
Our hearts were, still are, beating out of our chests.
Today our lives have changed forever. No matter what happens in the days to come.
At 1:15pm today, I held a baby that could be ours forever.
Tomorrow, we get to visit again.
More details to follow.
Now, we wait until Monday.
Pray for us. Pray for the birth family. Pray for the little one.

Posted July 22, 2010 (about July 17, 2010)
Saturday started off interesting. My DH was still upset with our oldest puppy, CHI. Friday night; I had caught her chewing on my DH’s night mouth guard. Then, he realized that his retainer was also missing. Sure enough, CHI had broken it! Needless to say, my DH was upset and wasn’t on talking terms with CHI even on Saturday morning. I even told my DH that it was partly his fault since he had left it out. I asked him, “What are you going to do when we have children?”

We had plans to attend a festival that our community hosts annually. I was going to go watch the bike/wagon parade and was to later on help out with the cake walk. At 10:27am I posted a status on F.acebook. I then went to take a shower. I always take my phone with me to the shower. Except for some reason, I didn’t Saturday. Someone in the family texted my phone and my DH checked to see what it said. Then, at 10:34am, my phone rang. It came up as Private Number. He answered the call. One moment I was in the bathtub and then next thing I know I heard a knock on the door. I said, “What do you want?” He said, “It’s ******** (the director of our agency).” I have never gotten out of the shower so fast. I grabbed a towel and out I went. We put her on speaker phone. She asked us if we were sitting down. So, we said that we could. She then proceeded to tell us that we had been matched. We were elated. And, the next thing she said rocked our world even more… the baby had been born the day before. The next 27 minutes and 45 seconds were spent discussing the ends and outs of the match. We knew that this was IT for us!

She asked when we could get to the hospital since the BFamily wanted us to take care of Baby C while she was in the hospital. We said that we would love to even though we knew that there were risks involved. All that I can say is that the BFamily hadn’t worked with our agency until Baby C was already born. The rest is our Baby’s story and we want to keep that to ourselves. This match seems like it was destiny!

We were in total shock. We still are. We finished getting ready and tried to call my sister to try to tell her that I would not be able to help her that day. She didn’t answer. We gathered our cameras and went to find my sister. Of course, she was busy working with the children at the festival. We pulled her to the side and simply said, “I won’t be able to help you out today at the cake walk. We are on the way to hospital…for a good reason!” We then ran off!

Of course we hadn’t eaten yet and we needed gas (K.roger). At the gas station, we got another call from the agency. We knew that the BFamily wanted to leave the hospital against the doctor’s orders and the BM wanted to meet us. Needless to say, we got the hospital pretty fast and I didn’t eat much of the lunch that we had just purchased (W.endy’s). Once we got closer to the hospital, the phone rang again. It was our SW asking how close we were (we were in the parking garage). We meet our SW where she tried to calm our nerves. We got our parking passes verified and then took the elevators to the 3rd floor. Before seeing Baby C, we had to wash our hands. That was a learning experience in itself. When we finished washing our hands, we turned around …. There stood Baby C’s BM. She recognized us. She was brief. She wanted us to name Baby C. We thanked her over and over again. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to hug her. The SW tried to help us all talk. Baby C’s BM asked me not to cry, I didn’t. As quickly as the conversation started, it ended and she left. We had to get banded before we saw Baby C. Our SW had to take care of some things in order to do that. That’s when I lost it. I had just met the BM of my daughter.

Posted July 24, 2010 (about July 17, 2010)
… After pulling ourselves together (the best that we could), it was time to meet Baby C. As soon as we walked into the area in which she was being kept, I saw her precious face. She was lying in her bed with her head facing towards us. Her eyes were closed and she had on the most precious hat. I could tell that they hat must have been made by volunteers. We were introduced as the adoptive parents and then identifying information was moved. Chairs were repositioned and within a few moments I got to hold Baby C for the first time (1:15pm, I looked at the nearest clock). She was so tiny and content. She smelled…like a baby. DH also got to hold her. The SW reminded us that it would be nice to take pictures. She didn’t even flinch. We then took turns holding her. We got to change her and feed her. Her little diapers were so cute; she had on P.ampers, preemie size. We even had to fold them down. That day’s feeding went slow. We weren’t completely sure of what to do and she was so tired that it took a while for her to finish.

Before the SW left, she was going to check with the clerk to make sure everything was good as far as us checking in and out, etc… The SW came back in and told us that they had just gotten a call from the Records Department; they wanted her name. We had no clue! Luckily, our SW was able to work it out so that we could have that evening to ponder over her name, but we had to get back to her early Sunday morning so that she could then call the Records Department.

Around 6pm, we decided to leave the hospital. We were hungry. We needed a car seat. And, we needed a name. I swear we walked around in a complete daze that evening. We went back and forth between being completely in shock, to pure nervous, to optimistic, to pessimistic, to scared… our emotions were everywhere. The first stop that we made was B.abies R U.S. Our SW said that we could borrow someone’s car seat that we knew or that she could dig one out that she has for situation such as ours. She also said that the baby could even sleep in one until we figure out something different. She also warned us that they more people we tell…the more people would have to tell if things did not work out. We decided to not tell anyone. So, we entered BRU on a mission. I felt lost. I wanted something perfect. I wanted something that I had time to research. But, I needed something right then. I needed whatever I could find. The gentlemen that helped us was terrific. HE asked us, “When do you need this?” I thought to myself, ‘we needed this like yesterday.’ He noticed our hospital bands and DH and I just laughed. He probably thought we left our newly born baby at the hospital to come and shop because we were so unprepared. Were we one of those cases where the woman didn’t know she was pregnant? Finally, I just told him what was up. His demeanor changed. His face lit up. He had a friend that had adopted, but that had a rough time with it. He said something to point of, “I gotta figure out something for you.” The next thing we knew we were offered a $300 set (stroller, cars eat & base) for $75. We couldn’t pass up that deal. It was also unisex. We told him that if everything worked out, that we would be back Sunday.

We then went to B.orders to pick up a book of baby names. I also found a cute, unisex, baby journal. And, DH found a fantasy football magazine. At the register, nothing was really said between us and the cashier, but when she rang us out she randomly have us 20% off of the baby journal. That made us smile.

We then went to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise. I barely ate. We looked through the baby name book over and over again. Some names we instantly threw out and others sounded pretty good. Eventually, we had narrowed down our list. We were able to come up with the middle names first. Yes, she has two middle names. My sister and I both do. And, both of the middle names are based on family names. I think that it was so tough to come up with a first name because we were so set on the middle names.

The car ride home was just like that car ride there and rides to and from the stores. Have you ever driven somewhere and not remembered how you got there? That was us Saturday, Sunday and still today for us. When we got home, we started to clean out the room that is to be the nursery; it had been used as a catch all room. We cleaned up a little around the house and tried to get some sleep. My heart was anxious.