For us, this chapter of our story started in May of this year (the week of Mother's day) when we received the news that Carter's birth mother, J, was unexpectedly expecting. She wanted to know how we felt about adding to our family. We were honored and filled with joy that she would consider placing another sweet babe with our family. We already loved J so much (and her wonderful family, too) that it was hard to imagine our love and respect could increase. Although baby number three was suddenly coming sooner than expected, we looked back on all the years of collective searching and waiting we had done before Carter and Ruby each came into our family, and we immediately felt a huge amount of gratitude and humility for the obvious blessings of this situation.
Next, we waited to find out the baby's gender. We eventually
spilled the beans about expecting here. There was my
The Luckiest post that followed the initial announcement and discussed being chosen again so soon. Then there was
this one about the background to the story.
This post followed after we continued to get a lot of questions. Finally, we learned of and
announced the baby's gender. We would have been delighted either way, but for some reason we felt a sister would be fun to have so close to Ruby. We were thrilled to find out we were expecting a girl!
We anxiously anticipated baby girls due date of November 23rd. We planned to drive to Utah a few days before her due date and were excited that our plan coincided with the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of our family lives there, so we looked forward to getting to spend Thanksgiving together with them for the first time since Carter was a baby.
As things progressed, it looked like J's doctor might want to get baby here sooner than the 23rd to prevent high blood pressure becoming an issue. Then I had the opportunity to apply for the
Oh Sweet Sadie Art and Gift Show that was to be held the second week of November in South Jordan, Utah. To be honest, I didn't think there was any way I would make it in, but was desperate to make some money to help with our adoption expenses, so I caved when the fabulous
Lindsey (aka Mrs. R) suggested I apply. Well, I made it in, which meant we had to end up leaving November 6th to head up to Utah.
Sidenote: The show went okay, but wasn't necessarily successful money or stress wise for all I put into it. I still am really grateful to have had the opportunity though, and for me it was absolutely worth it just to get to spend time with the lovely (inside and out), sweet, and amazing women (Kim, Leisha, and Lindsey) of
The R House Couture!
So we ended up being in UT almost three full weeks before Thanksgiving. Each day we got closer to her due date I got more anxious. We texted back and forth with J and she said her mom would call as soon as she went into labor. We lost my phone for a time, then after I found it, we lost Shane's phone (still MIA). I was all over my phone once I got it back -- looking at it constantly and waiting for it to ring. Kind of funny that when the phone FINALLY did ring the day after Thanksgiving, I missed
the call!! I saw it a few minutes later and quickly called back. I was in panic mode. Especially when Jolene didn't answer for several rings!
When she did answer, Jolene explained that we had a healthy baby girl that had been born the previous day, on Thanksgiving day! She said J still wasn't feeling very well, and her caseworker was out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday anyway, but would be back the following day. We planned to give her another day before we went to the hospital. Jolene sent us pictures via cell phone right away so we could see baby girl's beautiful face. She said:
Our sweet little angel is here. Born November 25th 1:46 pm, 8 lb 11 oz, almost 19 inches. Tons of hair, and gorgeous! She is a very good eater. She was born hungry.
Here are the pictures she sent:
