Well, its been a little bit since I lasted updated everyone. I could blame it on schedules or hectic life, but more than likely its my laziness. However, we do have some things that have been happening and this update will tell you all about it.
So last we spoke, we had just been matched and had gone to meet them at the hospital for an orientation / birthing class. Since then we have had many talks with them and even met them out a couple times to get to know each other a little more and talk about the future and our lives that have suddenly become extremely intertwined.
Its been a completely different ride this time around, we are being included in things we never even would have imagined. We've been invited to birthing classes, midwife appointments and also asked if we would like to have another ultrasound so that we could actually get to see her. Which we did get to do last Monday.
My plan was to post about that soon after, but Erin and I found ourselves with mixed emotions afterward. On one hand it was absolutely amazing to see her in there, to see her feet and to see her sucking on her little thumb are something we will never forget. But it also made the whole situation very real to all parties involved, including the birth parents. We've really bonded to them through this and they are two really great people who we would be proud to call friends. Knowing that what can result in the greatest day in our life will probably be one of the worst in theirs. It just really makes you think about a lot of different things that you've never really considered.
It was amazing of them that they even offered us the chance to experience such a thing, but afterwards the doctor voiced some concern about her size being smaller than she'd like to see. However, if you were to see her mom you would not be shocked at all at that kind of possibility. All of her blood flow and fluid levels seem perfectly fine, shes just a tiny little thing. But all of that put some extra stress onto someone who's already at the end of their rope. Bittersweet is probably the best way to describe everything that we've experienced in the past few weeks.
Something else that we knew we would have to deal with if we did go see an ultrasound was the realization that shes a person and not an idea. Clearly obvious, however up until this point, in this adoption as well as the last. The baby was just an idea, she was just the baby that hopefully one day would come live with us. We knew that once we saw her moving around and heard her little heart beating and got some grainy, hard to make out pictures to take home we would be in deeper than we've even been before. And if something went wrong like before, it would be that much harder to deal with. We decided to just have a little faith and trust our own thoughts and instincts. If she does end up coming home with us, the opportunity to have been able to see her ultrasound would be completely worth it in the end.
Another thing we've decided to do with them is come up with her name. In our conversations we all thought that it would be really special for her to know that a group of people that all love her worked together to give her a name. We have two front runners for a first name, but we think we're gonna wait to see her to decide which one fits the best, so feel free to guess away, but know you'll probably be wrong.
Some people find it hard to understand why we would have so much involvement and be willing to work with the birth parents on things like the name but Erin and I have always went into this process with the understanding that we will be our child's parents, but we are not the ones who gave her life. And nothing we can do will ever change that, so we embrace it. We've seriously lucked out in the situation we've been dealt, and it probably wouldn't happen this way with someone else, so we will continue on working together to make sure that this little girl is loved and cared for more than any other little girl on the block. Its really all about love in the end anyway, right?
Right now we sit with about 3 weeks until her due date. This morning we went to her midwife appointment and heard her heart beating again. Its all just so surreal.
I don't think anyone is actually anticipating her making it to her date.
So here we sit, again.
Waiting for the phone to ring, again.
But hoping this time its the call that we have been hoping we would receive.
My guess is the next posting won't have this much time elapsed. We appreciate all the nice things people have said to us and all the prayers that have been offered. Right now is probably a good time to ramp those bad boys back up.
Love Wins,
Erin & Adam
