While many of you already know the details of how Elijah joined our family, there are many that we were unable to keep up with during the two crazy weeks leading up to his homecoming. So, here's the abridged story, with pictures. :)
It all started on the evening of Wednesday, May 17th, when we received a call from Julie at Buckner (our adoption agency) telling us that a birthmother and birthfather had chosen our profile!! Not only that, but she told us that the birthmother was 38 weeks pregnant!!! You can imagine our excitement and awe - let's just say that we didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night. The next step was to meet the birthparents as soon as possible so we could all talk and get to know each other and make sure we all wanted to move forward. We set that up for the following Tuesday, May 23rd.
The Match Meeting
When the birth parents and adoptive parents meet, it's called a Match Meeting. Basically, you get intimately acquainted in all of 2 hours or so and try to determine if you could truly form a lasting relationship with each other. Talk about nerves!!! - What if they don't like us? What if we say something dumb? What if we don't get along? It's a highly emotional time, as you might imagine. However, our meeting went amazingly well. We met Danielle and Matthew and the four of us were able to talk easily, enjoyed each other, and really wanted to get to know each other better. Not only that, but when we discussed potential names for the baby (which they then told us was a boy!), we all had chosen the same middle name - David. How cool was that? So, even though we were all supposed to go home and "sleep on it", we both ended up talking to Julie later that afternoon and confirmed that we wanted to move forward.
Since we didn't have a whole lot of time before the baby was due, we decided to meet up with D&M again that weekend just so we could get to know each other a little bit better. We all met out in Dallas and had lunch and played at the arcade for the afternoon. It was great! The we went to spend the weekend with some friends out in Tyler and were scheduled to meet at Buckner on Monday to talk about the hospital stay. On our way to Buckner that Monday morning (Memorial Day), Julie called and told us that Danielle thought she was in labor and was on the way to the hospital! WOW, it was all really happening! We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the mall again, trying to calm our nerves and staring at our cell phones waiting for updates. Danielle really was in the beginning stages of labor, but it looked like it would be an all day affair.
Around 6:00pm that evening, we got a call from Matthew saying that we could come to the hospital to wait with them - we were so thankful that we were invited to join them for the birth. So, we hung out with Danielle and Matthew as well as Matthew's parents while waiting for Elijah to come out and join the world. While Matthew was convinced that Elijah was going to make a midnight appearance, he actually came into the world at 10:56pm (not too far off). We were in the waiting room at that point and Matthew came in to tell us that Elijah David was born and was 7 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2 in long!!! He invited us to come in to see him about 15 minutes later. We felt so blessed to be a part of the birth of our soon-to-be son.
It was obviously late, and everyone needed rest, so we were going to leave. However, we asjed the nurses if we could watch him get his first bath. We peered in the nursery window and watched them as they poked and prodded and cleaned Elijah. It was a really special time for us because we felt like we could just watch and bond with him, even though we weren't in there with him.
Over the next two days, Danielle and Matthew spent time with Elijah and they invited us over to see him each day. They had family come over to meet him too and we were able to meet some of their family as well, for which we were very glad. We know that Elijah will want to know and keep in touch with his birth family and we wanted to build a relationship as well.
Entrustment Ceremony
On the day that Danielle and Elijah were discharged from the hospital, Buckner directed an Entrustment Ceremony for all of us in the chapel. It was a special time in which both birth parents and adoptive parents were honored as a part of Elijah's life and where the birth parents actually placed Elijah in our arms as a physical display of their entrusting us to be his forever parents. It was another emotionally charged time and was so special. We had it videotaped so that we can show it to Elijah one day and let him see how much he is loved and how he was enfolded into our family.
Quick Recap: May 17th, phone call; May 23rd, Match Meeting; May 29th, birth; June 1st, home as a family
That's not the end of the story, though. We have an open adoption, which means that we will continue to see Danielle and Matthew and they will be a part of Elijah's life. When we go up to Dallas for our monthly adoptive support group meetings, we get together with them. They have a chance to see Elijah and we all have a chance to continue to get to know each other better. We want to form a relationship with each other so that it is available to Elijah as he grows. At some point, we will let him be the guide in the relationship. But, for now, we want to get to know each other and be involved in each other's lives. So, here's to Elijah David and his future! :)
We just recently decided to let Elijah try out his exersaucer, and he loves it! It's amazing how many things he can do - he reaches out and spins the wheels and hits the buttons and drools the whole time he's doing it!
Here are some closeups of us having fun playing with Eli on the floor. We weren't able to get a picture of it, but he did roll the other direction from his stomach onto his back. He doesn't do it consistently yet, but he's done it the past 2 days!
And we can't forget to include this one, just because we get to use funny names. Here's Elijah sitting in his Bumbo playing with his Whoozit! :)
