There goes our Christmas Taco’s

We know that this is a lot of detail.. so forgive us if we ramble. Our belief is, “the more information, the better.” I know that we’ve talked to a handful of you and have been giving you the status update as we’ve received them, during our 5 hour trip up north. Lets start from the very beginning… a very good place to start (okay, okay… I know. Sound Of Music references are not needed).

Doe, a deer, a female deer. (sorry, couldn’t help it)

A couple days ago, we learned that our birthmother wanted to move the date they scheduled to induce – from the 24th to the 26th. She didn’t want her, or the baby, to spend Christmas in the hospital, which we fully understood and agreed with. With that being said, Chris and I realized that our holiday plans would change. We originally thought we’d spend it in a hotel up north waiting on the call to pick her up. So we decided to spend it low-key, getting some of the final details of the nursery set up.

We spent Christmas Eve picking up the dresser/changer, having lunch with Mark and our nephew Mason, and we did a bit of grocery shopping – we decided we were going to have “Christmas Tacos” and were quite excited to do so. We bought all the fix’ns including Spanish rice and refried beans. After arriving back at our house we quickly unpacked the vehicle and then we were off to have Christmas Eve dinner with our close friend Fred.

We got home about 9pm and Chris wanted to bring the 200 pound dresser upstairs. I begged and whined not to, “we can get this tomorrow. We have the ENTIRE day to do this.” Chris won that battle and we lugged that sucker upstairs and got it situated in her room. All in all, it took about an hour but I was actually glad we got it done. Her room looks amazing.

So… about 30 minutes later, our birth mother realized she was having some contractions and headed to the hospital. (We didn’t even know.)

At 5:30am she had Kensington. At 5:47am we received the text message “Merry Christmas. She's here. She's beautiful and healthy."

Here is the crazy part… Chris and I slept in this morning since we didn’t have any plans. Duncan and Gossip, Chris and I, all snuggled in our places on the bed. Throughout the morning, you could hear the phones vibrating from text messages. Our thoughts were, we’re getting holiday greetings and can answer them when we get up. No rush.

When it was time to let Duncan out, Chris looked at his phone and scrolled through the messages. He came across our bio-mom’s message. He showed it to me. “Awe… that’s cute. Who’s it from?”, I say to him… (come one people.. no coffee yet. You have to understand). Two seconds later, I realize. “Oh Crap – get in the shower now!” Chris sent out a text message to let the birth parents know that we were excited and that we hope they are doing well. We got a message back, “6lbs, 6oz”.

Even though we were completely packed, it took over an hour to get things ready. We called Barb, our wonderful social worker who, not only congratulated us, but invited us to her home for Christmas dinner since we’d be up in the area.

We were on the road by noon. Thank God I saw a sign on Dunkin Donuts drive thru window this week saying that they were open today. Coffee was DEFINITELY needed!

While we were there, we ran into the Stagg’s (two of the most amazing people we know) getting their morning cup of Joe, as well, and were able to share the news with them. Karen finally got the name out of us J. Then we were officially off to upstate NY.

Our plans were to get up to the area to beat any bad weather that would be coming this way. The birth parents’ plans were set that once they were being discharged from the hospital, they’d call Barb and Barb would call us. Oh, how things change (and we were told that 80% of the birth plans do change). We got a call from our birth mom around 2:30 letting us know that things were going well and asked us if we wanted to come to the hospital. Do we want to come to the hospital?!?!?! You bet we do!

Flowers? Balloons? Chocolates? We have to bring her something, but EVERYTHING is closed on Christmas and I will not be stopping at a truck stop to get our baby’s momma a gift. No problem… we’re staying at a casino. They have to have a gift shop open and they did. We bought her a beautiful arrangement of tulips and lilies and got Barb some truffles (and I got a pistachio muffin as well). We called them at the hospital and were told that around 6 o’clock would be great. We ate at one of the many food venues in the casino and then headed to the hospital.

Once there, we spent about an hour talking with the bio parents… both looked exhausted, but in good spirits. Then one of her prenatal nurses came in on her day off because she heard that she went into labor and wanted to say congratulations. She came in and knew exactly who we were and told us all congratulations. She then went on to tell the bio-mom how proud she is of her, and how mature she is for giving us the best gift ever. She explained that in her line of work, she sees the same situation that our birth parents were in and that it is uplifting to see such a match being made. At this time, our birth mom and dad presented us with two gifts.

1) a pewter coin that her aunt gave the baby, on one side it’s a cross with a heart in the middle, on the other, “You are loved because he first loved you – John 4:19”

2) a beautiful baby ring. Our bio mom’s sister is getting married and had their grandmother’s wedding ring reset into an engagement and wedding set. They took one of the stones from that ring and had a ring made for Kensington.

The exchange of the gifts brought tears to everyone’s eyes. As we were wiping them away, a nurse came in with Kensington, who was asleep. We were told that we needed to wake her in the next 20 minutes to give her a bottle, and that her hearing test was spot on so they wouldn’t have to do another one tomorrow. It took us about an hour to get her up. She was perfectly asleep. She’d lift one eye, look around, and go back to sleep. The nurse told us to undress her (babies don’t like to be naked) and to rub her back (they hate that). And so we did. Kensi likes to be semi-naked and loves her back being rubbed. She started to smile and would stretch-out as we did it. We couldn’t stop laughing so the nurses came in and tried to wake her up. It worked (for a moment) and we were able to get about an ounce in her. Another nurse came in and explained that when quick deliveries happen, the baby’s don’t often eat that much in the first 24 hours.

We got her dressed and bundled up, and could see that our bio-parents were tired so we wished them well, thanked them for EVERYTHING, and told them that we’d be in contact shortly. Our bio-mom’s original plan was to stay in the hospital as long as possible (48-72 hours). She’s now planning on leaving tomorrow so she can rest in her own space. The agency will come in and do the paperwork with them, then when they are discharged, we’ll come in after and sign our part. The baby will stay in the hospital until Saturday (48 hours) and we’ll go back and sign the baby’s discharge papers with the agency. We also have to watch a couple of videos, mandated by the state, about SIDs, Shaken baby syndrome, etc.

Very exciting day, if I do say so myself! :) Love you guys and forgive us if we ramble on with typos etc. We just wanted to get something up for everyone.