It's always PENNY and me tonight!

As many of you already know, our daughter was born 11 days ago. Her name is Penelope Carol and we call her Penny. Yes, we intentionally named our child after one of my favorite Hanson songs and are proud of it. Plus, Penny just suits her so well. We love the name.

We've known about Penny since right before Thanksgiving. Her birthparents picked us and let me just tell you - I was blessed enough to meet them at the hospital when Penny was two days old and wow, that meeting with her birthparents was every adoptive parents dream. They made me feel like her mom from the very first second I walked in the door to their room. It was such a precious time and I will never, ever forget that.

Meeting Penny was another moment I will never forget. From the second I layed eyes on her I felt like her mom. Yes, it is quite different with Penny than any other baby or situation we have encountered. I don't live in fear with her. I'm not afraid that each day is going to be my last until I have to give her back to her birthparents. I don't panic every time the phone rings wondering if it is agency/lawyer. I live in peace and joy with Penny. I love in complete happiness and contentment. Before saying bye to her birthmom, she asked me if I felt peace. She then went on to say that she hopes I feel peace knowing that no one is ever going to take Penny away from me because she is my daughter. That made my heart swell with pure joy and gratefulness when her birthmom told me that.

I will try to post a little bit about the first time meeting Penny some other time. I imagine I will get even more slack with writing. So, there you have it. We have our Penny. We thank the Lord every day for her. I understand why everything that has happened in the past 13 months has happened...and even more recently in the past 3 months. God is good and even though our journey had much heartbreak to it, that heartbreak was so worth and it and honestly that heartbreak was necessary. You see, I was almost to the point right before we learned about Olivia that I wanted to put our adoption journey on pause. I told Kyle that if we did not have a baby by our anniversary (October) then for my heart's sake I thought we needed to pause our journey for a while. I think God brought Olivia to us so I would not give up so fast. He showed me that He did indeed mean for me to be a parent but I'm pretty sure he was trying to remind me that it is in His time, not mine. Yes, taking that baby named Olivia from us was pretty drastic at the time but honestly I was able to heal from that pretty quickly. Even though it saddened me, I almost immediately felt a sense of peace. I also told my husband that I no longer had to live in fear every time the phone rang or every time the doorbell rang. Yes, I truly believe that God brought Olivia into our lives for that short time so I would keep on and not put our whole journey on pause. I believe He had us in mind to be Penny's parents all along. This situation just worked out beautifully. I love her so much and I just feel like her mom (I know I am her mom!).

Okay, enough rambling for tonight...I didn't even think about what I wrote - I just let my fingers do the typing.