Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Happy Birthday!

What an amazing day!! It was so surreal to watch this sweet baby girl come into this world. B was so calm and did amazingly well with the delivery. I think the easiest way for me to give you a glimpse into that day(because it's so hard to put into words) is to share with you my journal entry from that night. I kept a journal while we waited and wrote to the baby so it's as if I'm speaking to her.....

"Happy Birthday to you! You're here with us and you are absolutely beautiful! You are perfect from head to toe and such a miracle to us. You have the sweetest lips and the cutest nose I've ever seen! You have long pretty fingers and you have dimples. Oh, I don't think you could be any more perfect. I just cried and cried when I saw you for the first time.

B wanted your first hours of life to be spent bonding with us so we followed the nurses to the nursery with you. Your daddy got to listen to your heartbeat and your breathing. He also measured you to see how long you were. The nurse put you on the scale and it said you weighed 7 pounds and 10 ounces. The nurse let me give you your very first bath! What a privilege to get to do that. Usually the nurse does all of this while the mom is recovering in her room and you don't even get to see it all much less be a part of it. After I sponged you off we just stared at you. The nurse finished dressing you and led us to a room right off the nursery. The room had a rocking chair in it and I walked to the rocking chair with you thinking that I had waited a very long time for this very moment.....to rock my baby. I fed you your first bottle and your daddy just stared at you and kept saying how beautiful you were. We took lots of pictures of you and sent them to our families at home to let them know you were here!

Those first few hours with you in that nursery were so very precious. Those moments will be etched in our hearts and minds forever!! God is so good!!"







I had those first hours with our sweet baby girl and I was elated but as the time wore on my heart began to feel heavy. This baby's birthmom was just down the hall recovering from the delivery with her mom by her side telling her everything was going to be okay. She just gave birth and yet there was no celebrating and no baby to hold....because her baby was with us. I felt so terrible. We had to go check on her to make sure she was okay. We stepped into her room and she assured us that she would be fine and that we should go be with the baby yet I found myself not wanting to leave her and help take care of her and love on her. She was hurting.

Later that evening we left the hospital so B could have some time with the baby. We were so grateful that B wanted us there but over the next couple of days we tried our best to remember we were only guests visiting with this baby instead of mom and dad. We would come and go so B and her family could have time but is was so hard not to be there every second.

Friday was placement day...that's the adoption term for the day that the baby is placed with you as the adoptive parents....or in some cases...not placed with you if the birthmom decided to parent the baby. Little did we know it would take everything we had within us to make it through that day.

To be continued...

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