Placement

To start off, I just have to mention what an amazing experience an open adoption has proven to be.  We have the most amazing birth mom who had allowed us to be extremely involved in her pregnancy and the actual delivery of little Adelé, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect situation!  When first pursuing adoption we knew we wanted to keep it open but having the level of openness that we have with Allison and her family has been the greatest blessing in this journey. 

On Tuesday morning I met Allison and Kim at the hospital to start out on the next step of this journey.  What I saw Allison go through gave me a whole new appreciation not only for mothers but especially for birth mothers.  She is a welcome addition to our family, we have not only been blessed with the addition of Adelé, but of Allison and her family as well. The following days after Adelé was born we were in and out of the hospital.  Our caseworker had told us this was a time for Allison to have with Adelé and so we wanted to respect that and allow her to have all the time that she needed.  But as always Allison was great and let us spend some time there with her as well. 
The time we got to spend at the hospital we couldn't get enough of our newest addition. 

Thursday was the day placement occurred.  That morning we anxiously awaited any word from the hospital as to when placement would happen.  Kim texted and let us know that we needed to do some education so we started to pack everything up and head over.  To finish up our placement gift I wanted to get some pictures printed to go in the photo album we had for Allison and so we needed to stop at Wal Mart and quickly print some of the pictures.  You know how Wal Mart goes, when you are in a hurry everything seems to take FOREVER!  Once we got the pictures in the album her gift was complete. 

When we got a less than a quarter mile away from the hospital Dale called to let us know that Allison would prefer not to see us and so we needed to wait until they were gone from the hospital.  As soon as we got this phone call my heart broke for her, I couldn't even imagine the heartache that she must be feeling and didn't blame her in the least bit for choosing for it to happen this way.  We were given the clear to come in.  We followed Dale to the cafeteria to sign all of the papers.  It was all still kind of surreal that this was happening.  As we got about halfway through I received a text from Allison and I could no longer hold it together.  I hate to get emotional in public but knowing how hard this decision was on her and how blessed I felt there was no holding back. 
Once the papers were signed we went into the nursery to see our little Adelé, oh how perfect she was!  It seemed as though the education we needed to do and the papers we needed to sign for the hospital were going to take an eternity, all I wanted to do was stare at this perfect individual that had been brought into our family.  Eventually we got to leave!

 

We had promised Oley's mom that we would stop by her office on the way home and so we headed over there.  As we were there we got a phone call from the hospital that they forgot to take the tag off Adelé's umbilical cord and so had set off the alarms at the hospital when we left.  It was a tease that she really was ours, haha!  After they got the tag off it was back to my mom's house to really get to spend some time with our little princess and to meet the family. 

After a long day of meeting family and having a photo shoot she was ready for bed and so were we.  Our first night together was spectacular, we could not have asked for a more perfect baby!

Dinky Loves his new Sister

 

Throughout the first day on our own I couldn't help but continually think of Allison and how grateful I am for her.  What a strong person she is and how grateful I am to her for this beautiful little girl!