Luckiest People In The World!

Yep, that might be us! As most everyone who would bother to read the blog already knows, we're getting a baby - and soon! So here's the scoop...in January, I got an email from a gal I used to work with asking if we knew anything about the adoption process. Turns out, her niece was 5 months pregnant and had decided to place. Oddly, we had just started the adoption process again, so of course our first reaction was "we want the baby!!!" We tried to be a little less selfish and obvious than that, but we weren't too successful...luckily!

We first met the birth mom on February 8 at Starbucks (nice!). She's very beautiful, intelligent and is a really amazing girl. Incredibly smart and driven and confident, dark hair and lovely green eyes, and her mother was darling. Personally, I love that all of her emails are well-written!

We had such a great connection with her from the first minute that we all felt like this was meant to be...while secretly hoping it wasn't too good to be true! She's from Utah and having a girl, due at the end of May. We got to meet her boyfriend, the birth father, a few weeks later and he's wonderful too - very sweet, handsome, well-spoken and respectful of her which we really liked. He's also tall.

On March 3rd, we found out that they want us to have the baby! We were soooo (how many o's are too many?) incredibly excited!!!! How lucky that we get to have this fabulous experience twice! Our birth mom sent some 3D pix of the ultrasound. She's a little cutie! We thought it was so incredible that she would include us in this moment even though we couldn't be there in person.

A couple of weeks later, we got a little sobering news. The birth father is half native American and there are some laws (ICWA) in place to protect native American babies from being taken out of their communities, so we were all subjected to some potentially random laws that meant the baby could or would be offered to other family or tribe members with blood connections before we would be eligible to adopt her.

At this point, we already felt like she was our baby and part of our family so this was, uh, super scary! And (note to self), do not Google anything like this online because all you hear are the horror stories of babies being taken away when they're 1, blah blah blah.

We were as much concerned for the birth mom and dad as they had committed to such a difficult, heart-wrenching decision and were balancing their pain with hopes for their future - college, careers, marriage and their own family when they're ready. They both handled the situation with more maturity and consideration than we could have ever hoped for. Our freak outs, on the other hand, were happening on many levels!

Anyway, we found out just last week that the tribe has given its legal blessing to the adoption. Our little girl's birth parents have been wonderful and engaged and darling throughout the whole thing and we're really, really looking forward to another great experience with them.

Most of all, we're settling in with the fact that our family is going to grow - in 5 weeks! We have her room ready, are still debating a couple of names, and I am trying to temper my "gotta buy cute stuff for my little girl" thing. Tagg's learning to say "big brother" and "baby sister" but with his new cousin baby Harper, we're not sure he's really getting the concept that this baby is going to be living in the next room and stealing some of his attention!

Thanks to everyone for all of your love and support! We so love knowing that our family and friends support us and our family - unconventional though it may be, you would never, ever know it based on the amount of love and acceptance that surrounds us. Our kids may not know it yet, but they're really lucky to have all of you embracing them with your love. And so are we! Big hugs and kisses to all (and don't stop with the prayers, good thoughts, etc. till it's all a done deal ;-).