Sorry for the lack of updates. Life with our daughter has been so sweet and happy. I love our baby girl so much and I am so thankful that I am finally a mommy! Being a mommy just feels right. It's what I was born to do. I love that God was preparing us all along for our sweet girl. I am going to hold off posting any more about her story until the final hearing with the birthfather passes...and we are not sure when that will be now. I would like to ask that ya'll keep us in your prayers. Thank you!

Once Courtney and Roxanne told me the good news I was excited but still a little cautious. Courtney even understood my cautiousness and said she knew I wouldn't be fully ecstatic/in belief until I had my baby in my arms...which was totally true. I felt with all of the other matches everything seemed to line up perfectly when BAM - they all fell a part or fizzled out.

After chatting with Courtney and Roxanne a bit longer I calmly walked back into the kitchen were Kyle and our neighbors were eating dinner. After sitting down I looked at my husband. I said, "So, there was a baby girl born on August 5th who is named Olivia. Her birthmother has chosen us to be her parents. We will be leaving tonight after dinner." Everyone was so excited and I told them all the little I knew about the situation. We finished eating the delicious meal (I barely touched mine because I was so excited...which if you know me you know I always finish my meal!). Our neighbors were so sweet and said they were going to leave so we could get to packing for our trip. We bagged all of the food up (in the south you always make enough food for a few days or to feed a small army) and I insisted that they take it all. After all, we were hoping to be gone for a while. After our neighbors left and the dishes were clean (thankfully I always clean up while I am cooking so I hardly ever have a big mess to clean up after dinner) we got to packing. I say "packing" very lightly because honestly I was already packed. The diaper bag was already packed and in the car (the diaper bag had been packed since January as well as my suitcase). The stroller and carseat were already in the car. We just had a few odds and ends to pack and then we finally hit the road about two hours after we got "the call". We were on the road by 8pm and had to make a pit stop in the next county over to meet up with my younger sister so she could let us borrow her GPS (mine had finally died after four years) among some other things. She also gave us a bag she packed full of snacks for us which came in handy. Kyle and I drove for about 4.5 hours or so until we reached Valdosta and decided to stop since it was really late/early in the morning. We found a clean and decent motel and slept as well as two people whose dreams were about to come true could sleep. We awoke early the next morning to get some breakfast at C.hick-fil-A and get on the road. The goal was to check into our hotel in Florida with plenty of time to relax and get ready for dinner that evening. We only had about 3 or so hours to drive so it was quite pleasant. After driving around the destination town for a couple of minutes we settled on a clean motel that we felt comfortable enough with.

Fast forward to a few hours later. It was time to head to dinner to meet Roxanne, our birthmother, our birthmother's father and our baby girl! I was really nervous at that point and kept feeling a little bit dizzy and like I was going to faint. What if she did not like us? What if we said the wrong things? What if I ordered a meal for myself that she did not approve of? What if we did not talk enough? All of those questions kept running through my mind but I kept telling myself that we could only be ourselves and we had to remain true to ourselves. Once we were at the restaurant we met up with Roxanne who was already there. We were really glad to see her since we have known her sine January and she knew us pretty well at that point. We went ahead and got a booth to sit in and chatted for a few minutes. Roxanne's cell phone rang and it was our birthmom asking her if she was there yet - she, her dad and the baby named Olivia were in the parking lot. Roxanne went out to meet them and while they were outside Kyle and I were busy praying. We knew God was in control of this meeting and we knew that He knew about this meeting and this baby long before we ever did.

Alrighty, I will write more either tonight or next week! I am very long winded and I am just trying to write a little at a time. Thank you for reading this! Olivia is still napping right now but I need to get some things organized around the house.

THE CALL

On Tuesday, August 30th we had our neighbors over for dinner. I cooked a healthy, delicious meal (if I do say so myself) and about five minutes after I got the table set with the food and we sat down to eat the phone rang. It was my friend/consultant Courtney. I excused myself from the table and went into our bedroom. Courtney was calling after 5 pm so I knew this call had to be either some good news or maybe she was going to call to ask if I wanted to be presented on a situation. As soon as I picked up Courtney quickly said that the coordinator from the agency was waiting to be conferenced in on the call...so I waited for about three seconds before I heard both of their voices. I immediately heard excitement in their voices so my heart started to race (let's be honest, my heart raced whenever Courtney or the agency called!) but for some reason this felt different. I've heard excitement before but I knew at this point that they would not sound excited if something great weren't about to happen...we had been through too much at that point.

Courtney and Roxanne told me that there was a baby girl born at the beginning of August. And.............that her birthmom wanted to meet us the next day. They felt like we would be a great match and that we were the type of family that this birthmom and this baby needed. When they said that I quickly said, "So she wants to meet us so she can decide if she wants us to parent her baby?" (and while I said that my heart started to sink because I knew we could not travel to Florida again for what could be a match that would fizzle out). That is when they said, "No, she wants to meet you because SHE HAS PICKED YOU!!!!!"

-I will write more later. My daughter is up from her nap :)

Mommy Mary :)

So the day after I last wrote a post we got THE CALL! Jesus brought us to our daughter and we had her as ours when she was 1 month old. Tomorrow she will be 6 weeks old. Praise the Lord! I will write a lengthy post with her story soon.

Thanks to everyone for the prayers. All of the other situations that either failed or fizzled out were meant to end. As I have been telling people...I cannot even remember what the sadness and grief from this past year felt like. When I look at my daughter it all makes sense. We were meant to be hers and she was meant to be ours. It was definitely all in God's timing and I am so thankful for that. We are a family of three now and it's all because of His glory and goodness and the guidance he gave to our baby girl's courageous, amazing and beautiful birthmom.

We are hanging on with smiles on our faces.

This past weekend was pretty good. Every single time I started to get sad or start sulking or start asking the question, "WHY?!" I kept thanking God for a different blessing in my life. Everytime I started to think about the ups followed by the downs of our adoption journey I quickly started thankging God for the beautiful life and blessings he has given to me.

I'm so worn down right now but I'm trying to keep a great attitude about everything. Everytime I do start to ask the question, "WHY?!" I feel guilty and then the thought, "Why not?!" pops into my head. Why not me? Why not us? I keep having to remind myself (sometimes while biting my lip and gritting my teeth) that God does not give us anything that we cannot handle - which, is kind of ironic because I am very sensitive and am the person in my family who worries non-stop about everyone.

I was playing out the scenarios that we've been through in my head and we've covered almost all of the adoption-cliche bases now so I thanked God that I was able to chuckle about that (I do find it humorous and I always say if I don't laugh at something I will cry so it's better to be able to laugh!).

Kyle and I are hoping the 5th time is the charm and we are just hoping the 5th time comes quickly. It's interesting/funny because a couple of days ago marked exactly nine months that we've been working with our agency (and really, that's too long to work with this agency since they are small but I firmly believe that the situations that we have been in have in no way been the agency's fault). The only one I kind of shake my head on them at is the 3rd situation in which we matched five months early. Honestly, that should not have happened. I am so against agencies matching families that early because that is a long, long time for anything to happen. I know I always say this but praise the Lord for our consultant Courtney (she does not work for the agency...I just wanted to make that clear)! She has been so wonderful to be the liason between us and the agency and she has just been super. I really cannot recommend her enough!

Case closed.

So that excitement was short lived. Even though the birthfather has criminal charges of abuse the state of F.lorida has decided to let him parent his baby boy.

All I want to do is mope around right now but I am not going to because I am going to stick with my word and still praise God.

Just waiting.

Lately I feel like my adoption journey has been kind of like the ending of the movie The Truman Show. You know, where Truman is paddling or sailing (I can't really remember) on a boat in the ocean trying to get away and all of the sudden what looks like the sky rips and he realizes the ocean is not really an ocean but just a television set. He came so close to escaping but his journey soon came to an abrupt end.

Okay, so I know my adoption journey is not really like that because I know it will not come to an abrupt end. It just seems that each time we get a match or a potential match or even a potential son or daughter that as soon as we can almost say we are parents something happens and a tear is made in our hearts. Or it seems like we are stuck behind a sliding glass window that is so clean and clear that you can't even tell it's glass...and right when we run up to it it knocks us back and leaves us bruised.

Some of you know by now that we were going to be presented this past Tuesday on a baby boy due mid to late September. Some of you also know by now that that precious baby boy was born a month early on Monday night. We were still presented along with two other families on Tuesday and the birthmom was going to wait to choose a family at signing. Well, some issues have come up with the birthfather and so that is the only hold up. Kyle and I were feeling pretty confident that this was our son and when we have talked to eachother about the situation this week we have used the term "our son" and saying how we just want to hop in the car and drive down to meet "our son". Yes, we are very much attached to this baby boy even though we just learned about him and his birthmom last week. We were attached to him even before we knew he was going to be born a month early. Since we learned of his early birth we have debated on names and we narrowed it down to two and then we finally narrowed it down to one (the names we both agreed on were Luke and Milo. I left the decision up to Kyle and at first he was leaning toward Milo but thankfully he decided Luke is to be our son's name). Anyways, all of these feelings and talk are really kind of dangerous of us to get this attached to this baby boy and this situation because 1) we are one of three families being presented to the birthmom and she could choose a family other than us and 2) the birthfather may very well parent this child.

So...we kind of feel like we are stuck behind a glass door where we can see what we have been waiting for but the glass is in our way and it is knocking us back.

I feel really bad for my darling husband because this is the first time he has gotten attached to a situation (not counting the baby we had to walk away from back in January). The fact that this baby is a boy is not what has made Kyle so attached. I think the fact that this situation just felt right to both of us is what has made him claim this child as his son. Even though it hurts me so much to see my husband's heart hurting, it has been a relief to finally see my husband attached to a potential match. He finally is feeling what I have been feeling all this year whenever we had a match or a potential match. He is finally feeling the same anxiety that I have been feeling all this time. Everytime his phone rings he gets into a panic and gets sick to his stomach just waiting on his phone to ring.

We, along with our family and friends, have been praying all week for this boy and for this boy to be our son if this is God's will. I sure hope we find out soon either way.

For the most part Kyle and I have remained quiet about this situation on purpose. We are really tired of being hurt and hurting our loved ones everytime we get excited about a situation only for it to not work out.

No matter what happens and what the decision is with this baby boy we are going to praise our mighty God. We will praise him when we are glad and when we are sad because we know that He has a plan for us and His plan is too awesome for us to understand or see right away sometimes.