She's Here!!

This is Part II of Landrie's birth story. If you missed the wild and crazy part I ("My Water Broke"), you can read about it here.

So after driving at breakneck speeds to get to Wichita Falls, we finally arrived at the hospital. I was still in my dress and heels from my baby shower!! I didn't want to waste a single second by changing clothes. We were so excited!!!

We stopped in the hospital parking lot to pray for our baby (she still didn't have a name!) and our birth mother. We also snapped this picture. It's the last picture of us before we were parents!

We were greeted by two of the ladies from the adoption agency, and we headed upstairs. Our birth mom should be the poster child for perfect labor! She looked great! She had a friend there too, and we all spent several hours together. She eagerly asked, "Well, do you have a name yet??" Mark said, "We still had 2 weeks and 5 days to decide!" :) We shared our top 2 names (well, actually, our only 2 names...) and her eyes lit up when we said, "...and Grace for a middle name." It turns out that is the one name that she had been thinking about! Before we knew it, she was at a 10 and ready to push! We headed out to the waiting room. Some of you were still awake and waiting on updates! I texted that she was ready to push. We talked and prayed with Judy (from our agency) in the waiting room. Meanwhile, our birth mom waited for the doctor to get there, delivered Landrie, and had some alone time with Landrie. Before long, her friend came out and asked if we wanted to go back. DID WE?!?! It was all I could do not to run down that hall. It makes me cry to even write about it!

We walked into the quiet room. Our sweet birthmom looked like she'd been chatting on the phone, not giving birth! In her arms she cradled the tiniest bundle. She smiled and lovingly offered her to me. Oh my goodness. Words cannot even express what we felt when we first saw her and held her.


We all stayed together in the delivery room for several hours. We passed Landrie around over and over again. All of us had our cameras going like crazy. We unwrapped her and checked out her 10 tiny fingers and 1o long, dainty toes. We marveled at her head full of hair!!

The nurse snapped the official hospital bracelet on my wrist. I felt like I was officially a mom!

We all headed to recovery rooms at about 4am. Judy stayed with us the whole time! Thank you, Judy! There was a Home Suite available for adoptive parents and parents of NICU babies, but we opted to get a room next door to our birth mom. I wheeled Landrie's little basinett into our room. We sat, just the 3 of us, and held her and cried. She's such a precious miracle! We got a few minutes of sleep before a nurse came in to take Landrie to the nursery for a bath. We groggily went back to sleep. I woke up a little while later and realized Landrie wasn't back yet. I found the nurses station and told them, "I need my baby back!" They directed me to the nursery, and there was our beautiful daughter. When I got back to the room our cell phones were ringing off the hook! We promise that we didn't mean to leave you all wondering all night long! We were just so enraptured by our baby that nothing else mattered. We had to take a quick break from the phone calls to decide on a name. We knew the middle name had to be Grace, and we loved the name Landrie, so it was finally settled!

Whew! Once again, I've written a novel, and I'm still not finished. Landrie's grandparents are due to arrive any minute. I know they are beside themselves excited to see her, so I'd better go now and finish this later!