The rest of the story

About a month ago I let you in on a little secret that we'd been keeping from you - but only for a whopping three months or so. We were starting our adoption journey. Back in June is when we actually started our Home Study, the first step in the process. The home study was completed in late August, and we went to work on our profile. That tool a lot longer than expected (you'd think that since I scrapbook that I could document our life - family, community, relationships, etc. easily, but no.) and when we finally got it finished up we submitted it along with the first round of paperwork to a second agency (someone else did our home study). That was shortly before I posted this post.

Well, about a week and a half after posting that first post we were notified that we were one of the final few choices for a birthmom with a little girl. We were beside ourselves - couldn't sleep, had trouble focusing, etc. Tom said that this is what the end of pregnancy was like for him - poor guy. Anyway, that situation was a no go - they lost touch with the birthmom and we were bummed, but we moved on. Two days after that was settled we get a call about a situation in another state - this time a boy - and we need to be ready to go the next day. Talk about no time for emotions - it was all business. The cat was off to the vet for boarding and the boys were off to the friend's house (also for boarding, but that's kinda weird to say). Well, this one too fell through, and we were emotionally exhausted. Two weeks into our journey and we had basically gone through two situations. Well, about four days after that we get a call on a Sunday about the first little girl - that the birthmom was meeting them on Friday and we needed to be ready to go then. Great! We had time, but we weren't going to get too wrapped up in this as we were still pretty wiped from the first two go rounds, and Friday was a full week away. So Monday afternoon rolls around and we were going about our business when I get a call from the agency saying that she moved her appointment up to the very next day, and that we needed to be ready to hit the road at about noon Tuesday. Talk about kicking it into high gear. We were in a little better shape as it was now about two and a half weeks since we started our wait, but still, nothing was a done deal.

So, the next day rolls around, we get the call that we have a daughter, and we head up north to go pick her up. Turns out that she is 11 weeks old, beautiful, smiles a lot, and is as delighted to see us as we are her! We spend the next few days hanging out with her in one place, then Tom heads back to VA to coach three soccer games over that weekend, and everyone here in VA gets sick. Toms' folks were here, and even Tom caught the bug, so thank goodness they were. So, Lucy and I drive a bit south towards VA, never leaving the state that we were in, and spend the next week or so hanging out in a small town (at least there was a Target and a Walmart!) getting to know each other. Wouldn't have traded that time for anything. I would loved to have had Tom come back up, but after hearing the war stories about the nasty viral thing that they were sharing here I wanted no visitors whatsoever.

Then we get the call that all the paperwork had made it's way through all the states that it needed to, and we were allowed to come home. So, 11 days after we left home with three kiddos, I return with our fourth. The boys are falling over themselves trying to help her, feed her, and play with her to the point that we had to talk about what overstimulation was. Poor girl wanted to see everything that they were doing and just wore herself out! We have settled into a much better routine, the boys get their time and Lucy gets her naps, and all is well in our house once again. Even the cat has taken a shining to her - he loves to sit on her lap too.

So it was a short but wild ride emotionally. We started this whole thing back in June, and here it is October and we have another child in our home. We were thinking this would take months or even a year and had prepared not only ourselves but also the boys for the long wait. Who knew that three short weeks after we started that we would be meeting our daughter. Wild...simply wild.

Lucy

The boys entertaining their sisterMax feeding Lucy