Happily Ever After

We had the best time on our cruise! When we woke up on the last day of the cruise (Saturday April 27th) the ship had arrived back at Port Canaveral in Florida. We got our bags ready, went to breakfast and turned our cell phones back on. We had received a few texts and phone calls from our caseworker, Lisa. We had an appointment with her for our updated home study so we didn't think anything of the phone calls. I called her back immediately and then realized that it was 5am on a Saturday in Utah. About an hour later she called back. We had just got off the ship and were in the terminal waiting for our shuttle back to the hotel. She had asked me if I was with Kurt. When I told her yes she asked if I would put her on speaker phone. I told her that we were in a noisy terminal and she would be hard to hear. She told me that she really wanted me to put her on speaker phone. Begrudgingly, I did it. She then told us that she was glad we went on a cruise because we won't have the opportunity to do that in a while since we are going to parents soon. I couldn't believe it! We both sat there with the cell phone to our ears and cried while she told us more details. We were going to have a baby GIRL and she is due July 25th. That is 3 months away. Whoa!!! When we got off the phone-Kurt and I hugged and cried! I then realized that people were looking at us. But at the time I was in my own happy world and I didn't even care. So here we are receiving the best news in the world and we are stuck in Florida for one more day. I wanted to tell everyone immediately but with little information and haven't been in contact with our birth mom yet, we were cautious. We took the shuttle back to the hotel and I remember that I would tear up at every thought I had. We were finally getting a baby! It all seemed so unreal. Lisa had told us that our birth mom, Meladie, would be emailing us soon. I checked my phone every 20 minutes waiting for that email. We had so many questions. It was 10 days later that we received an email. That was a long 10 days. But after learning more about Meladie we understood her life more and how busy she is. She works full time and has 2 young kids. Her first email to us was so sweet! My favorite part of the email said this....."Thanks again for letting me pick you to raise this precious little spirit". Each time I read that I get goosebumps. I can't even imagine the courage that it takes to choose adoption. We feel so honored and blessed that she chose us. We would not be able to raise our family without women like Meladie. Amazing! Our first face to face meeting with her was on May 29th. Until that time we continued to email back and forth to get to know each other better. We were nervous for the face to face meeting, but felt that it went better than we could ever imagine. We felt a connection with Meladie and got to meet her brother, neices and nephews and her 2 kids that same day. Her kids are adorable. Big, beautiful brown eyes! So cute! Now that we are in the middle of June, we have been working on getting the baby's room ready. We are (mostly) ready. I think as ready as we're going to be. The changing table is set up, clothes washed, diaper bag packed for the road trip back home from the hopsital (about 3 hours) and bottles washed. We are ready! We have been waiting 5 long years and with the difficult journey with infertility, surgeries, disappointment every month with no pregnancy, sadness and many, many emotions we are finally going to bring our angel home! This is a very special experience for us and continue to pray that everything works out as planned. We are so grateful for Meladie and are very impressed with her. She is a very strong-willed, independent, easy going person. She has been very considerate of our feelings during this process and is easy to get along with. We are lucky to have such a wonderful birth mom.