The Best of Intentions

Warning- this may not make sense. Just a fair warning.

I posted an update in February with the intentions of catching up on our life and then posting again to announce the upcoming addition to of family of Holland Grace. I was waiting until the next week when we would find out the gender. Well, that never happened. I had also intended on blogging a post just on how awesome and adorable, and precious, and sweet, and funny and smart, etc. Easton is before he was taken out of the only child role. That never happened either. Now, I am in Tennessee, sitting in a hotel room. Tension is high around here. Waiting is not any of our strong suites even though we should be pros. Let me briefly give an update starting back in November.

 The Sunday after Thanksgiving I received a call from Aunt Terri. She is the wife of Jarrod's Dads brother. Follow that? Aunt Terri said that her niece was around 7 weeks pregnant and wanted to know if we wanted to adopt the baby. Wow. Not what we were expecting! We knew we wanted to adopt again one day. We knew good and well that it was ok for us to have a plan about when, but that ultimately God had a plan for us and we were just waiting to see what He had in store. Still, this surprised us because I know that babies don't just fall into your lap and the way Easton came into our life was just a miracle and blessing and not very common. I had assumed that the next time we would be searching and waiting a while before we were blessed again with another baby. We called Aunt Terri back later that afternoon after praying and told her we wanted to adopt the baby. We decided that since it was so early that she would tell her niece that we wanted the baby, but since she was only 7 weeks along to wait until she was a little further along (after Christmas) to contact us and talk about details. I didn't want to get attached to the idea because I was scared she may change her mind or complications could happen, etc. SO, we went along our merry way and kept the possibility of another baby the next year in the back of our minds.

Beginning to mid January is the first time Aunt Terri's niece, Alecia, called me. She is amazingly unselfish and knows she cannot adequately take care of another baby, She said it wouldn't be fair to her 2 children and it wouldn't be fair to the baby. She is not in the position she needs to be in to care for 3 children. How awesome is she?!! The situation is more complicated, different from Eastons adoption. Its out of state which means much more paperwork ($) and even though Alecia has been separated for over a year now, but because she is still legally married there is a legal father and a biological father so they both have to sign termination of rights. More hurdles this time, but that's ok :-)

 Alecia and I had a connection from the beginning. We were both comfortable talking to each other and have talked every day since then. On February 18, Jarrod, Easton, My mother, and I went to Tennessee to go to the gender ultrasound with Alecia. We found out she is having a girl! We also got to meet her boyfriend Chris and precious children Damion (3) and Dakota (1).

Since February we have turned the guest room into a beautiful nursery and gotten ready to bring home our little girl. We have gotten lots of pretty girly gifts and hand me downs and have started another collection of tiny size diapers.

We have known from the beginning that Holland Grace would come early. A cesarean was planned on July 1 at 39 weeks even though there was very little chance she would even make it that long. Alecia is tiny and she has big babies. She had Damion at 38 weeks and he weighed close to 8 lbs and Dakota came at 36 weeks weighing close to 7 lbs. Throughout the pregnancy she has had to go to the hospital to have her contractions stopped. We thought that we would have at least a weeks notice on when to come up to TN. We thought that when she got to 3cm her doctor was going to schedule the cesarean for the next week.

That was the plan. For serious planners a weeks notice can be a scary thing, but it was perfect for me! But we all know plans change..... 

To be continued.