10 Days

So, we made it out of the hospital but there were still 10 days to wait. Ten days for Babymama to change her mind (ugghhh...),  at least ten days to get legal permission to cross back into our home state with Elaina. Lucky for us, a very generous couple let us stay in their condo in the state we were in. That made the time pass much more comfortably than if we had had to stay in the Holiday Inn. I don't even want to think about that. I don't even take my shoes off in the Holiday Inn.....feet touching that carpet.....ick. Weird but true.

We tried to stay busy but really there is not a whole lot you can do with a newborn that you don't want to expose to germy hands and just.....germs.

Little Tee-Tiny made her first trip to the Aquarium. She loved every minute of it. Her favorite thing was the Baluga Whales and her hand looked so tiny petting the stingray at the petting pool. She screamed her head off when we had to leave. Okay. Not really. She was cocooned in her covered stroller and her eyeballs never saw anything but the insides of her eyelids. And for the record, I don't do the "fish petting"......do you know how many nasty hands have rubbed the backs of those stingrays? Eww.
We were also able to have dinner with friends that lived in the area. Yummy kabobs of chicken (only a couple charred pieces :) ) and fresh pineapples and strawberries. It was great to be able to get out and see something other than the walls of our lush condo!
Tee-Tiny became a regular at a restaurant called "Shout". She was happy to watch me eat Mahi Mahi and I was happy to get a great dinner. If I had a dollar for everyone that wanted to peek at that baby and then tell me how great I looked for having a baby that small I would've been able to bribe my way out of the state a little earlier with a serious cash offering.

Luckily, this morning at about 10am I got the call I had been waiting for: "You're ready to go!! The paperwork is complete!" My mom and Bobby were very happy as well, because they knew that one more day away from my other kiddos and my nice, warm bed were going to result in some serious tears from me! I was ready to get on with it!! Bobby had already left on Wednesday so mom and I scurried to pack up the car and get the heck out of dodge. The Interstate Compact paperwork is finished and as of today we only have 3 more whole days left in the semi-scary waiting period.......the potential period for mind changing. Right now though I'm focusing on one thing.........GETTING HOME!! Wahooo!!!

Signatures a flyin'!

Today, Thursday, finally brought about some promising news. Our babymama was taken off all medication at 9am and the paper signing was set for 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It really didn't change our routine much. We were still staring at t.v., staring at each other, and then, of course, staring at the baby....and well, a little more staring at the clock than usual. At least now we had a time frame to be counting down. 

I decided to put my time to good use and give babycakes a little washin'. I was ready to get her out of her hospital issued garb and into something much sweeter. I added a bow to her little hospital cap (which, unlike the sleeper, I found to be quite cute).

She was really giving Bobby the once-over. "Ohhhhh......so you're going to be my daddy??"
Two o'clock came and went. As well as 3 o'clock.....and the 4 o'clock. By then I was really nervous that something wasn't going quite right. Bobby gave the hospital social worker a call just to check. Thank goodness every thing was going just as planned with the exception of a late to arrive notary. Thanks for the myocardial infarction people.......

Shortly after our conversation with the hospital SW, our social worker, Carla showed up with a pile paper and a mouthful of legal jargon.  I will admit that when she read the first line of "On May 6th, 2010, we accept the female child born the 4th day of May, 2010, as OUR CHILD.........blah, blah.........and give her the new adopted name of Elaina Marie..." I nearly spilled some tears. I had a huge knot in the ol' throat but managed to maintain my composure. I didn't want my signature to be all gobbledegook on those 800 pages. After all the signing we had a brief meeting with Babymama. It was a very bittersweet time but I was thankful for the chance to hug her neck one last time and let her know there is someone on this earth that loves her and will think of her every time they look at the big brown eyes of their Hondurican princess.

Here is sweet Carla (with closed eyes) on my right and the late, but friendly, notary on the left.
With an out loud, "Thank You Jesus!!" we were ready to snap that sweet thing into the car. Elaina is ours. Two years, 9 months, 1 week, and 4 days later. What a wait.....but oh, what a blessing!
When we started our adoption, I planned out a timeline in my mind (and maybe on paper a few times). I gave myself the timeline that the agency quoted me (which by the way would've had us already home with a child for over a year), then I made for myself what I called "the very generous timeline" so that if things started to not happen as quickly as I thought I could say, "well, we're still in the generous timeline.....". The ending point for my very generous timeline? Spring 2010. I had said to Bobby numerous times, "I think we'll bring her home in the spring of 2010." Little did I know that God had planted that seed in my mind and then just when I thought my timeline was going to be blown, He made it happen. HE MADE IT HAPPEN!!!

I'm beside myself with excitement. Now, we've got 10 days to count down. I think my tenuous stomach will let me branch out and eat some salad tonight. I just got a newborn baby girl, people! A BABY GIRL!!!! Woot, Woot!!!

Ohhh, The Waiting!!

We got back to the hospital this morning at about 8am. I wanted to be able to give the baby her bottle. We made it just in time to see the doctor do her little check up. To our surprise he gave her the green light to be discharged. Unfortunately we have to wait for the birthmother to be off of her medication in order to sign the papers so that we can formally be discharged. Paper signing is not looking good today being that she's on a morphine pca pump. Waiting. So.much.waiting.

Bobby took his turn at feeding the tiny sack-o-sugar.

There's really not a whole lot to do while you're waiting on a birthmom to come off of Morphine. We were so thankful that the NICU nurses let us camp out in a rooming in room that, praise the Lord, had a television. We caught ourselves watching a little Maury Povich in disbelief, then we stared at each other and then stared at the baby.......then we stared back at each other. Finally we challenged one another at a travel game of Blokus.
Time to hold the baby again. Feed the baby, burp the baby, change the baby, stare at the baby. Repeat every three hours. Take trip to bathroom because your GI tract realizes that you are indeed still waiting for papers to be signed so you can then call the baby by the baby's name. The name you don't actually want to say for fear that something may go awry.
Kiss the baby.
We've had great nurses that have been very kind. I tried to get them to violate HIPPA and tell me how the birthmom is coming along with the whole Morphine thing. I don't get why they can't just hike it down there and check it out. Why can't I just go down there and discontinue the pump? I surely know how. And besides, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Now I'm overqualified.

Unexpected

I had things all planned out. My calender was marked up with things to do, places to be, errands to be run. I was counting down the days until our Babymama's scheduled c-section. Eight more days. Eight more days until I see my baby.....or so I thought. 

This morning at 10am I get a phone call from our social worker. "Your baby is coming today!" Ummmmm. So sorry. Whadusay? Yep. My Babymama was going early due to high blood pressure. She would be going into surgery at 12:30. Too soon for me to make the trip in time to be in the delivery room as planned. You know what they say about the best laid plans.......

We got to the hospital around 6 and had to walk into quite a stressful situation that neither of us were prepared for. The first time I put my eyes on the tee-tiny little face of my daughter she was in the arms of the woman who so graciously decided to give her to me. (But who had also said she wouldn't be seeing the baby. at. all. A million horrid thoughts run through your mind at that time.)

We spent about an hour with Babymama and her boyfriend while they held little baby. Stress.Full. Finally, babycakes was taken back to the NICU where she would remain for the duration of her hospital stay. Not for medical reasons, but the hospital protocol for adoptions. We had to wait for shift change to be over and then FINALLY Bobby and I got to spend time alone with the babe we had waited so many years to hold. This is how I felt by that time:

Ha. The charge nurse gave report to the night nurse and when the night nurse asked if I had any other children the charge nurse said, "I really don't think so. She was so frazzeled this MUST be her first child." Oh my. If she only knew :)
I fed her a bottle that night and marveled at her petite size. 5lbs 9oz and 18 inches. Much smaller than any baby I've ever birthed. Bobby was in awe as well.

We said many praises to God who orchestrated this whole adoption and we are so thankful that even now He is blessing us three-fold for the years of waiting. Beautiful. Healthy. Hodurican. What more could I ask for?? It didn't take me long to squirt some jelly in that baby's hair and stick a bow on that tiny head!
We stayed at the hospital until about 11pm. Just holding. Staring. Not believing that our day had actually come. What a blessing.
Now, if my stomach would just settle and let me eat a little I'd be a bit happier. Stress. It does a great job of making one feel skinny for a day or two :)

H2o....and Lots of It!

The rain started falling on Saturday morning and didn't give us much solace from the beginning. Our backyard turned into a lake once again but this time it was much deeper and larger than the time before. Bobby's golfing green was obviously submerged but the flag was still poking out of the top of the water about 12 inches. One bright side, as suggested by a friend, was that if we ever decided to put our house on the market we could advertise as "seasonal lake view". Ha.

Our house has been the gathering place for friends during times of inclement weather. We had buds over for the blizzard of twenty-ten and when the rain showed no signs of ceasing, we called over the troops again.

Once the rain stopped and the waters receded, we sent our boys outside with Bobby thinking they were just going to look at rogue logs, dead fishies, and miscellaneous junk that ends up in our yard when it floods.

Nope.

One minute things are fine. Everyone is looking. Next thing you know, shirts were shed, shoes thrown off, and we've got 8 boys doing swim races and cannonballs. Apparently Bobby wasn't paying attention when the news guy sent out the warning that it wasn't safe to play in flood waters due to contamination by sewage.....yum. My germophobe self was cringing.

I felt better after giving them soap and making them take redneck showers outside.
It doesn't look like anyone minded.

Nothing like having friends to keep a smile on your face......even in the midst of never ending rain. Praise the Lord that we, personally, were not devastated by this flooding. Those who have lost all are in our thoughts and prayers.

26.2 Take Two!

Cade and his bud signed up again this year to run the Music City Kid's Marathon. I wish I could say that he was as gung-ho this year as he was last year but I'd be a liar.  

In fact, during about our 20th mile run he said to me, "Ummmmm, when you sign up for the marathon are you allowed to quit?" to which I replied, "Nope. This family is not made of quitters." That turned into quite a long speech about finishing what you start and giving your best and yada yada yada. I didn't tell him I quit the basketball team in the 7th grade. I loathed the basketball team but I gave it my all in that one game I actually got to play in the night I quit. We can talk about the full story over coffee sometime. That is, if I actually drank coffee.

Give up the props to the mom that ran in the chemo duck costume. She wasn't as fast as the Franklin Classic Hot Dog but I gave her two thumbs up nonetheless.
Here's a nice out of focus picture of Cade about halfway through the race. Running strong. Holding his own. No problems.....or so one would think unless you were to take a much closer look. (Let me remind you how tough it is to get a good running picture of your child in the midst of 3,000 other runners while you, too, are running. Not easy.)
I headed to try to get a decent place towards finish line. I was sidetracked by a well-meaning friend that claimed she had a great place to watch from and there was plenty of room for me. Unfortunately, as we walked to get to the "great place" she couldn't remember where it was. You know who you are, Tonya Dodd. Thanks for nothing.

I finally squeezed in between some people just in time to catch the mishap. 

Please note exhibit A as to why Cade did not, as anticipated, come in first place. With the finish line in sight his shoe fell completely off. Bummer.

We had an apparent shoestring malfunction. Note to self: If child runs marathon next year, personally tie his shoes....in double knots. The shoe fell off two times and man, that just kills your time! I asked him why he didn't tie it and he looked at me like I was a moron and said in a "duh" tone, "I was running."

He still crossed the finish strong and what's the one thing you want as soon as you get done running? Mmmmmm. A nice, cold..........chocolate milk?
Gag. In any case, it hit the spot for him. I'm proud of my boy for sticking it out even though it was tough going this year. One more step in character building and hopefully fostering a love for physical activity.
We're up in the air on next year. Running a race is kind of like childbirth in that you can never really get a true answer of whether you'll do it again right after it's over. The pain is too fresh. By the time sign ups come next year he will have forgotten all the hard work and only the shiny medal and cheap t-shirt will come to mind. Don't count us out yet!

Honesty

Grant had the major task of reading a book on an insect and then give a book report in the form of recreating the book to share with the class. He chose ants. I'm sure it was so that he could gain some insight into their lifestyle and to find out if they enjoy it when he stabs at them with sticks in the backyard.

So, he read the book. All approximately 15 pages of it. He answered the questions on habitat, food, what they look like, etc. I noticed that he had not answered the last couple questions so on Saturday I made him sit down to finish it. He got in the chair, finished the report, and went on about his business. 

On Sunday night I thought I had better take a quick peek at it to make sure it was all complete being that Monday was the official turn in date. The last question was "Write about something interesting that you've learned about your insect".
His response:
Needless to say, I appreciated his honesty but at 7:30 on Sunday night we were coming up with interesting facts about ants. Lesson learned: never assume that "done" means "done correctly".