The Story - Part 1

I can't beleive I'm sitting here typing this with my baby girl on my lap.  So hard to believe!  Here is our end of the story on how we were blessed to have Camryn join our family.  The other half of her story -the birthparent side of how she joined our family is her story so I won't share it here.  That's one big thing that you hear over and over in adoption so we will save that for Camryn to hear when she is older and if she chooses to share it at some point it will be her decision.  Not sure how long this will be so I may have to break it up in different posts. 

The afternoon of May 17 we got an email about an expectant family who wanted to look at profiles.  The due date on the email was around May 22 and the baby was a girl.  It didn't take Jay and I long to fire an email back to Yes, please show our profile.  For the next few days I was surprisingly calm.  For some reason I felt really good about this situation, the timing was absolutely perfect and not that it really mattered but the baby was a girl.  That was something completely different for us, all our other matches were boys.  Finally on Thursday, May 19 at 11:30 I saw Jamie pop up on my phone before it even rang.  I knew we were the ones!!!  I talked to Jamie for a little bit - not even sure what she said and then I left work to drive to Miller to tell Jay.  Of course we were excited, but after everything we've been through you learn to keep all of the emotions in check.  We decided not to tell anyone until things were more certain.  I did get Jay's permission to tell my friend Shelley since she's talked me through a lot of this adoption stuff the last 18 months.  On the way back to work I debated on even telling Shelley - I was so scared I would jinx this match.  But when I got back to work Shelley had already emailed me to see if I'd heard anything because she knew we were being shown.  I told her she knew the right questions to ask! 

For the next few days we really didn't do anything to get ready for a baby.  We were terrified to do anything that appeared we thought we'd actually bring this one home.  We hardly talked about it.  We just carried on my normal day to day life like nothing was happening.  On May 25 I got a phone call that C, Camryn's birthmom was having contractions.  They were strong enough that she thought she might go to the hospital that afternoon.  Then we heard nothing from her for the next week.  We did not know what to think at that point.  We ceased talking about the baby at all during those days.  I was really neutral about the whole thing - I didn't feel like it was completely over but I also wasn't confident it would happen.  By Memorial Day evening I was physically and emotionally exhausted.  Tuesday morning I worked in our Greenfield office so I didn't really have anything to do.  I spent a lot of time that morning reading my Bible and praying.  I felt like all of a sudden God told me that this break in communication wasn't about me or us, it was about Camryn's birthmom.  I did so much praying for Camryn's  birthfamily over those days - mostly to just continue to give them the peace that surpasses all understanding about whatever decision they made.  A few hours later I got a call from Jamie and everything was ok with C and the baby.  She understandably was experiencing some anxiety and hadn't felt like making contact for the last few days.  But we found out Camryn was scheduled to be born Friday, June 3.

At that point the only other ones who know about the match, besides Shelley, were Lyle and Jania.  When we first thought she was going to be born we asked Lyle and Jania to watch Cade for us.  We really wanted to surprise our families by showing up with a baby.  That plan didn't quite work out for us because Camryn's birthday was the Friday of our county fair.  Now both Cade and Camryn's birthdays will fall at the absolute busiest times for Jay.  We debated over the next few days how and when to tell our families.  We knew we had to tell them because it would be obvious when I wasn't at the fair and we were going to have to have some help getting Cade and the animals ready and to the fair.  But we were terrified of actually speaking to anyone about the baby.  Jay finally called his parents late Thursday evening.  I waited and texted my family Friday morning.  Jay said the texting was a little cold - but my family understood.  I just didn't have it in me to go over the story 3 times.  I was so scared.

I figured she wouldn't be born until later that evening so I piddled around the house.  I was very surprised when Jamie called me that morning about 11 and said baby girl was here, healthy and what time did we want to meet her.  We met Jamie at the hospital at 3:30 that afternoon and she introduced us to our baby girl for the first time.