On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

Dad is holding little Joshua. He is the most adorable baby in the whole world!

Got to meet birthmom’s friend Katy that brought birthmom to the hospital & stayed through delivery. The birthmom didn’t want to meet us or exchange information, but we exchanged information with her. We’re going to email her photos of the baby and us and if sometime in the future the birthmom decides she wants to look at them, she can.

Katy shared with us what has been going on with birthmom. I guess birthmom was crying this morning and was having a hard time, but still wanted to go through with the adoption. When he was born, the doctor held Joshua up, and birthmom told him, “I am not doing this because I don’t love you, I’m doing this because I love you.” Katy shared that the birthmom has no interest in changing her mind, she wants to give us the baby, and is prepared to sign any and all documents. That made us feel a lot better. We told Katy to please tell the birthmom how brave she is, how courageous she is, and how much we appreciate what she’s done for us. We’re going to write the birth mom a letter and give it to Susan (our social worker) and the birthmom can decide if she wants to read it sometime in the future. It was neat how excited Katy was for us, and she was happy we were adopting the baby, it was a great experience.

Birthmom wanted to go home right away today, but she couldn’t relinquish the baby to us until 12 hours after birth. So, our social worker is going to meet with birthmom tomorrow to have her sign the relinquishment paperwork. For now, we are caring for Joshua with a signed Power of Attorney; his birthmom is giving us ability to make all health decisions and keep him in our care until she signs the papers tomorrow. I guess the dad’s parental rights will need to be terminated at court in 2 – 3 months. Donald and I were talking about it and we think we’ll have Joshua baptized at our new church after we move and after the adoption is finalized.

It feels wonderful, it’s nuts that we are this baby’s PARENTS. We aren’t babysitting, we aren’t keeping him for a while, but he is OURS. What a beautiful gift we’ve been given!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Originally uploaded by metamorphilia.

Joshua Arden Salsbury

7 pounds, 19 inches, and more beautiful than we could have imagined! Lots more pictures here!

Social worker called this afternoon…birth mom is still planning on being induced at 7am tomorrow! Hubby and I are planning on hanging with nephew and sister in law tomorrow until we get the phone call. Otherwise, we’ll just be anxious, sitting at home, staring at each other.

The social worker wanted to know the name of our baby….so we told her! We will let you all know just as soon as possible….

Current plan is for the birth mom not to meet us, and to have us care for the baby in another room for 2 days. Our social worker said stuff can change at the last minute, so we’ll need to see.

The social worker asked us if we had all the placement money, and I was like, “No…we had 12 days!!!” So, we’re going to give the agency as much as we can, but they’re going to have to wait for all of it. We just didn’t expect this to happen so fast. Well, it feels like we’ve been waiting forever, but now if feels as if everything is speeding by at 90 miles per hour.

We will probably send out emails and put photos on our respective blogs sometime tomorrow. Be watching!

Hubby this morning packed the car with our overnight suitcase, the baby’s bag of clothes, blanket, formula, and our car seat and base. This is nuts! We’re as ready as we’re going to be!

No less than 5 people asked me that question today at work. They said I looked “stressed” or “upset.” I don’t feel particularily stressed or upset, but I guess it’s showing on my face.

Sunday we agreed with our buyer on a price. So, our house is sold, and since we had a contingency on our Gardner house, we can buy it! We move on May 21st. We have to be out of our current house by May 31st. Our realtor actually came over to the baby shower after it had wound down so we could sign the papers. So, within a couple weeks, we’ve found out we’re adopting a baby and sold our house.

Talked to the social worker again today. No new changes – the birth mom is still scheduled to be induced Wednesday between 7 and 8 am. I asked the social worker if we could go to the hospital but she said no, we need to wait for her to call. The birth mom didn’t want us there for the birth, and the current plan is for her to go to another room and have Donald and I care for the baby for 2 days in the hospital, then take him home. Our social worker has told the hospital about these plans, and they’ve agreed we can stay there if they have room.

Having our social worker tell us we can’t come to the hospital until she says so put me in a little bit of a panic. “What if the birth mom changes her mind?!?!” Well, I guess she could. Seems very unlikely since no one in her family knows she’s pregnant, she doesn’t want to meet us or see the baby at all, and she wants a totally closed situation. If she changes her mind it will be a big change in all her thinking up to this point, but she can’t sign away the child for 48 hours. I will definitely feel a lot better when the 48 hours are up!

We’re planning on still taking off Wednesday because I don’t think either of us will be able to even think, let alone work. It’s been hard enough the past week. Wednesday we drop our dog off at the vet to be boarded and then we’ll pick her up on Saturday; that will give us some time to hang at the hospital for a couple of days.

I feel so weird. Can’t even explain it.

Our social worker called about 4pm…the birth mom went to the hospital!

But then, she was sent back home….

We’ll just have to wait and see! Mom in law suggested we pack a bag just in case, which I think is a good idea. I’ve had a bag packed for the baby since last week, but hadn’t thought about packing a bag for ourselves.

also, our realtor told us we should be getting an offer on our house tonight.

W0000!

I think I am going to wait to take pictures of the nursery until the little guy is here…. the stuff we’ve gotten so far is SUPER cute. I am so thankful the gals at work were able to pull together a shower on such short notice.

It’s countdown time, less than a week! So crazy.

Tomorrow our co-workers are throwing us a shower – fun! The guest bedroom has the bed out of it and it now has a crib and a bassinet. I need to get taking some photos! It is weird coming in the house and seeing baby stuff all over….it seems so weird still.

No new news from our social worker. Left her a message today just checking in, but told her she didn’t need to call me back if there isn’t anything going on.

Found out for sure yesterday that our leave is all UNPAID because it’s not for medical reasons, it’s just leave to bond with the baby. We have 12 weeks to share between the two of us. I think what I’m going to do is use my vacation and personal time up and then use maybe 6 unpaid FMLA days. Hubby will probably use his days to take off Mondays and Tuesdays for a while so we don’t put the baby in child care when he’s so small. I am SO THANKFUL we’ll only need childcare for Mondays and Tuesdays…. and that I at least can work at home sometimes if needed.

Went to Michael’s Art Supplies after my all day meeting and got a cross stitch pattern for MY BABY. This is so weird. I haven’t bawled my eyes out like I normally do, but I’m sure I will when I see the baby. I CAN’T WAIT. I’m glad I got a cross stitch to keep myself busy.  I am going inbetween being really, really happy and really, really nervous, so nervous that my heart races and I am shaking. This is crazy!

Went to Wal-Mart today. I went into the BABY SECTION. This is a big accomplishment for me! Usually I steer clear of that particular place…..

….but, I was thinking, what if the baby comes before next Sunday? I don’t have ANYTHING to feed him with, clothe him with, diaper him with….I know that friends have offered things, but I just wanted SOME stuff that I’d picked out for him. I keep saying his name over and over and thinking about maybe what he’s going to look like, if he’ll be fussy or happy or tired the first time I see him. I don’t know if I’ll get to meet the birth mom yet or if she’ll give us any photos of herself or her other children, there are just so many “ifs.” But this is fun, I am very excited, and tomorrow is going to be a little crazy….but let’s not think about that! I’m happy knowing there are some blue onsies in my washer as I type this, and those onsies are for OUR baby!

So, I got Dreft, bought some outfits, some diapers, some wipes, formula, and bottles. I am washing the clothes and the bottles and making up a little “emergency kit” that I’m going to take with me everywhere – especially since the hospital he’s being born in is close to work. I want to be ready! The only glitch is the car seat is with the Grandparents, so we may need to borrow someone’s car seat to get him home if he’s born before 4/13/08 – so I’ll need to check on that with some folks….

….anyhoo! What a nutty weekend! I can’t sleep and I’m nervous and happy and jittery — Crazy stuff!

Jayhawks beat North Carolina!

Hubby’s best friend said last night “I think that since you got the call you’ve been waiting so many years for, this is the year that the Jayhawks are going to win the National Championship! I think it’s a good omen!”

Well, it was fun watching the Jayhawks win on the big screens at Allen Fieldhouse (check out Hubby’s blog, he’s probably got video and all this stuff for you Former Lawrencians that want to get a glimpse of downtown).

I keep looking at our baby registry lists over and over, thinking “That’s really us.” Some people have even bought us some stuff! I’m just a little worried if he comes early how we’re going to get the car seat to take him home if it’s before April 13th, but we’ll figure it out. I have to call our social worker today to see if she has any new news on the birth mom – this is just crazy. 10 days!

Our realtor last night (the realtor that is SELLING our current home) said 1 guy is coming back today for the 3rd time and he’s gone to the bank and planning on putting in an offer. Excitement! The other guy who was buying a house for his grad school son seems to have fizzled out – he’s looking to buy his son a house in the 140,000 range and then lowball offer to 130,000 – which is weird, but oh well, at least we’ve had a lot of showings and a lot of interest in our house this season. We had another “new” person come by yesterday. We just need a contract on our house by May 22nd so we don’t lose our contract on our Gardner house! That’s all I want. I think with baby we’re DEFINITELY hiring movers…..I don’t see any other way to get it done!

Well, I’ll probably be updating here more recently, daily, multiple times a day, letting you know what I know.