Memory Lane

This past week+ has been so full of memories for me. On April 4th 2012 I received the email that forever changed our lives - we learned about Abby (she was 9 days old.) On the 5th I met with her biological grandma (she's the one who emailed me, we taught in the same department at TCU) and she told me more about Abby and the situation and showed me the first pictures I saw of my daughter. On the 6th (it was Good Friday - we now think of it as Best Friday) Ryan and I met her (she was in the NICU at Cook Children's). We got to hold her. On Saturday (the 7th) we told Cheyenne (Abby's awesome birth mom) that we would be honored to adopt her and she told us that she wanted us to be Abby's parents. We went to the hospital again and took our first family picture. Sunday was Easter, we visited again - took her a bunny. I got to feed her for the first time, I LOVED getting to do something for her, like a mom smile emoticon. Monday I spent most of the day at the hospital. Cheyenne was there for the first half of the day, then I had a few hours alone with Abby. Being alone with her I first started feeling like her mom, that's when I started to let her take over my heart. I didn't get to see her Tuesday, it was hard. But Wednesday I was added to the list of people that could visit Abby whenever, which was fantastic. That evening Ryan came to the hospital after work. While he was there he gave her her first blessing, it was amazing. Thursday I had planned to be at a conference so I had already scheduled for my TAs to cover my classes. Instead of going to the conference I spent the day with Abby. She got a new pediatrician that day who decided she wouldn't learn to eat until she had to and decided to pull her feeding tube. Once she had to work for it Abby learned to eat quickly. Friday as I was getting ready to head for the hospital my case worker called to say the hospital had contacted him and thought Abby was going to be ready to be released from the hospital on Saturday. That meant Ryan and I would need to take over Abby's care right away including spending the night at the hospital. I was beyond excited. I headed to the hospital and started "rooming in". They took all the wires off Abby and I could hold her and walk around the room and not have to worry about being attached to anything! My mom and oldest sister flew in to be with us. After Ryan got home from work, walked our dog, changed his clothes, and packed some things my mom and sister brought him to the hospital to spend the night with us. I didn't get much sleep that night, but i hadn't been sleeping more than a couple hours a night since we learned about Abby, I was too excited. Saturday was crazy with all the things we had to do to check out from the hospital and everything that goes into placement. It was exhausting and very emotional. My sister came to take pics of Cheyenne and her parents with Abby. And after everything was finally done, we brought Abby home. That was April 14th. So for just 2 years we've had the incredible privilege of being Abby's parents. It's been awesome! I love my baby so much! (I blogged about this experience in much greater detail - there was lots more to it. If you wish to read more about it, feel free. I'll link to the first of the posts about it - it is a series of posts called "Abby's Story". There are 17 parts, 17 posts, just fyi: http://bigadventuresblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/abbys-story-part-1.html