Is this for real??

We're happy to share our great news during this amazing holiday season! Brian and I have finally been matched!!! We want to share the story with all of our loved ones...

We had asked to be presented to a situation early in November. All we knew at the time was that the birthmother was due in Feb in Indiana, and she didn't know the gender of the baby. We stayed in touch with Mother Goose Adoptions to keep up with the progress. Over Thanksgiving we found out that the birthmother had recently moved, and that she hadn't seen our profile yet.

On Thursday 12/3, I got a phone call from another agency in Utah at noon about a baby that had been born there the night before. They asked if we would be interested in presenting our profile, and if we were selected, could we fly to Utah that night. Of course we said yes! At that point, my mind started racing, and I was trying to figure out how we could make that work. We were scheduled to go to Las Vegas for the weekend, so we figured we could just change our tickets. We didn't want to get hasty, so we waited for the phone call.

Then at 2 pm that afternoon, we got another call from Mother Goose Adoptions telling us that the birthparents in Indiana wanted a conference call with us the next day (Friday). Since we were scheduled to be a plane at the time that they wanted, we rescheduled for Saturday. Now at this point, I was freaking out. How do we get 2 calls in 1 day??? Wow...

All we knew was that the birthparents didn't have any other conference calls scheduled. I asked for more information, which the agency sent over. Based on the form they filled out, everything looked perfect. We found out that the couple is a young engaged couple that knew that they weren't financially stable enough to raise a baby at this time.

At 4 pm that day, we got a call back from the agency in Utah letting us know that we didn't get picked by that birthmother in Utah. It was all good though because we still had something to look forward to.

During all of this, Brian had to remind me to stay calm, and to not get our hopes up. I was getting so excited, but definitely needed the reality check that this may not work out. I had cried about 3 times already on Thursday thinking about the possibilities that we could actually be parents soon!

On Friday 12/4, Brian and I flew to Las Vegas to meet my parents, and see some of the girls from Colorado. Christy and Tiffany were running in the half-marathon that weekend, and my parents had a reason to be in Vegas, so it was a perfect opportunity for us to go! We stayed at the Rio, thanks to my parents.

On Saturday 12/5, we got up trying to make it a normal day. I'll be honest, I didn't sleep well on Friday night, and my belly was full of butterflies when we got up. What could this day possibly bring? First, I had to find a fax machine to send a form to Mother Goose. Fortunately, the business center was open at the Rio, and I paid $7 to send a 2 page fax...gotta love Vegas! We met my parents for breakfast, and then met the group at NY-NY for lunch and to watch some football. Perfectly normal Saturday so far.

Brian and I left lunch early so we could be in our hotel room for our conference call at 3 Vegas time. I admit, we were starting to get a little nervous, and were trying to stay calm. The phone rang at 3, and it was show time! Jessica from Mother Goose was on the line facilitating the conversation. First she asked us to talk about how we met, and a little bit about ourselves. Then she asked the birthparents to do the same. We ended up talking for about 30 minutes! They are such an amazing young pair, and seem very comfortable about this decision they've made. It turns out the their due date is now Jan 26, and they still don't know the gender. We hope that she'll be able to find out at a dr appointment next week, but if not, we're totally ok with the surprise factor.

As we were getting ready to wrap up the conversation, the birthmother said "Brian, I hope you don't take this the wrong way...." and we just looked at each other...what was she going to say? She started telling us about one of the thoughts that went through her head when she looked at our profile. As she started telling the story, she made reference to Jeff Foxworthy's comedy team, and we both started cracking up. She thought Brian looked like Larry the Cable Guy!! You may not know this, but about 5 years ago, Brian was Larry for Halloween. How funny! We all got a big kick out of that, and she was really happy that we didn't take it the wrong way.

The conversation ended, and Jessica told us that she would call us back in a little while. We didn't know what to expect. We got off the phone with high hopes. Could this have gone any better? The phone rang about 10 minutes later, and Jessica told us that they had picked us. WHAT??? SERIOUSLY?? OMG!! We couldn't believe it!

Now what? We had to tell our families! I tried calling my mom first ... she was at the spa, but I was hoping she would be out by then, but I got her voicemail. I tried calling my sister - got her voicemail. I tried calling Catherine - got her voicemail. UGH! Brian got a call from Chad, and finally we got to tell someone : ). He called his parents who were thrilled. I tried texting my dad (he was in the casino, and we knew he wouldn't be able to hear his phone ring), and no response. We decided to go down to the bar to have a celebratory glass of champagne. While we were there, Erin called me back so I got to tell her. Erin's going to be an Aunt!!! After a while, we decided to try to find my dad. He was sitting at a video poker machine, and we got to tell him in person that he's going to be a Pop-pop. Holy moly - the look on his face was amazing! We loved it. So, then we started to make plans to have a drink before we were going to meet up with my friends for dinner. As we were headed back to our room, my mom called, and we got to meet up with her quickly to tell her. She's going to be a Grammy! YAY!!!!

We had a quick drink at the diamond lounge before meeting up with the group for dinner. I called Deserai who's pregnant and due in February to tell her that we're going to have babies at the same time....how fun is that?? Of course, she was ecstatic too. We went to dinner with Leslie, Mike, and Ella, Christy and Mike, and Janelle and Justen. I couldn't have asked for a better group to be among the first to hear our news. It was truly an awesome night.

The rest of the weekend was amazing, and ended up on a high note when my dad hit the royal he's been waiting for. What a great weekend!!! We hit the jackpot this weekend, and we'll never forget this trip. We bought a Vegas onesy to help commemorate the weekend.

We came back to Charlotte on Monday, and back to work on Tuesday. We started telling our friends here, and of course everyone was so happy for us. We are so lucky to be surrounded by so many loving friends.

Since then I've been in business mode. Forms to fill out, money to move around, etc. We are going to try to go to Indiana after the first of the year to meet the birthparents, if they want us to. We'll at least plan to talk to them on the phone as much as we can to get to know them better. Right now, our plan is to be in Indiana a couple days before the due date so we can be there when the baby is born.

We want to thank everyone for following our journey to be parents to this point. We appreciate your support and love over the past several months, and look forward to sharing more with you as we start our family.

Checking in

Once again, we've been terrible about updating our blog. But we just wanted to check in...

August has been a complete whirlwind, and I can't believe it's already football season! We had a wonderful opportunity to spend 2 weekends in Hilton Head with my parents. It was a reminder of how much we LOVE the beach, and especially Hilton Head. Brian and I wore ourselves out playing frisbee, paddleball, boogie boarding, and just playing in the waves. Our bodies aren't quite as young as they used to be, but boy did we have fun!

Clemson opened up the season with an expected win last weekend over MTSU. Sadly, I can't say the same for my Buffaloes. We are definitely excited for football season to be here. Tonight we're eating wings and watching Clemson play again.

On the baby front....we now have our nursery set up, ready to welcome our little angel. Still no news, but we continue to be hopeful that we'll get a call any day now.

We had good news in our family earlier this month. Our niece, Audrey, welcomed her second beautiful daughter, Abigail, into the world. She's beautiful, and we can't wait to meet her soon.

Stay tuned....