Ups and downs

This week has been truly chaotic. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. I don't have the time to start telling you our story yet, but I can tell you that Elizabeth "Ellie" Rae was born yesterday at 5:39pm. She is 6lbs 6oz and 20inches long. She has a full head of hair and is absolutely beautiful. So far she appears to be healthy.

I'm looking forward to sitting down and giving details. Just as a teaser, our social worker has given us the award for most dramatic/ridiculous birth story ever!

Please continue to pray for us. The birth mom is struggling both physically and emotionally. We are praying she can stick to the plan.

Quietly panicking

Jon and I will be making the 2 hour trip to meet the birth parents of our little girl in a little bit. I'm incredibly excited, but ridiculously nervous. I have an idea of what I want to say/ask, but I don't know if its too personal, emotional, none of my business etc. However, she is handing over her baby for us to raise. Is anything really off limits at this point?
We found out that she does not want to see the baby after shes born. Its kind of a relief, but it makes me really nervous. Its good because she is mentally preparing herself to say good bye to this baby. However, she said she doesn't want to see the baby so she wont have the chance to fall in love with her. That scares me, especially because they recommend moms see the baby to say good bye. I have a thousand what ifs going through my head. I know they are all pointless to worry about now, but I can't help myself.
I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst, but it kills me to think that this might not work out so I'm trying to stay positive. How do you balance the two extremes? How do people choose to adopt a second time?

Arus

Jon and I were out and the boys were with his parents. Ben was helping Gram wrap a present for our little girl. When she got to the to/from part she said she was going to put it for Ben and Sams sister. Ben said that Gram had to write her name. Gram tried to be sneaky and asked Ben what her name was. Ben spelled out A-r-u-s. I have no idea where he heard that or why he would think thats his sisters name, but he is insisting that is her name and gets very upset when we tell him she has a different name. We wont be changing her name to Arus, but something tells me we haven't heard the end of this one!

Prayers answered

The boys were down for their naps and I was watching Bringing Home Baby, one of my TLC guilty pleasures shows. This couple was adopting a baby. I've been praying quite a bit today because a birth mom was scheduled to have a c section today and we were waiting to find out if it was a girl and if we were picked. When the show came on, I was hoping it was a sign.
About 20minutes later the phone rang. It was our social worker. The c section was bumped for emergency patients so we have no information on her. However, they just met with another girl and wanted to pass on her social/medical information to us. This mom has some issues. At this point, I can't go into the specifics. I talked to Jon and our pediatrician and while their is one area of concern, we can't say no to this baby.
I called our social worker back and asked her to submit our profile to the mom. She asked me to make sure we were confident in this decision and not just getting impatient. Any potential issues wont be known until she is born or beyond, and she could be fine, so I assured her we wanted to proceed. She said great, because she already has your profile and she picked you!
I don't think I said one coherent sentence for the next few hours. It was a lot of laughing, crying, are you kidding and so on. It still hasn't completely sunk in yet.
The birth mom will be induced next week. We'll be able to bring her home for New Years.
We still need some prayers though. We need to pray that this baby is healthy, that the boys adjust, that they will be ok for the few days we spend away from them. We have to travel to meet her and then travel for the birth and pick up and probably stay for the 72hrs in between. We also need some prayers about those 72hrs. They start once the baby is born and the birth mom can change her mind at any time until those papers are signed.
I'm shocked, excited, nervous, scared, grateful, anxious, giddy etc etc etc. This next week and a half is going to be the slowest ever, but it will be so worth it in the end. Thank you for all your prayers and please keep them coming. We'll post more as we get more information and things become more official.

Hope

Every week we check in with our social worker and every week she tells me that nothing is happening, no movement, no ER's, no calls etc etc etc. Every week we walk away feeling a little bit defeated. Their have been a couple times that something might possibly be happening, and even though I tried not to get my hopes up, I did, and walked away with my head a little lower. I thought about writing about those situations, but it SUCKS to tell everyone something might happen then have it fall though. All you're left with are people asking what happened and where is your girl?
I was going to keep my mouth shut now, but some things are happening and we need prayers more than anything else. Our agency has 3 girls delivering in the next week and a half. They don't know if all of them are girls and they don't have a good read on all of them--our social worker has a pretty good track record of guessing if they will go through with the adoption or decide to parent. While each girl seems to have her own set of problems, this is more activity than they've had in months, so I can't help but get excited. They also have 2 girls that have a bit more complex situations, but you never know what could happen so I can't rule out anything.
So I beg you, send up some prayers for us and for these girls. If one of these situations works out, I promise you will be the first to know. If you don't see any major announcements or get any excited phone calls, please think twice before you ask about it. As excited as you are for us, we are 150% more excited, nervous, scared and potentially let down.