The Story Part 2

Wednesday, August 17^th

We woke bright and early and were on our way to the airport at 3:30am for our 6:00am flight.  Luckily, I was able to get a little sleep on the airplane, which made the trip go faster.  We had no delays and everything went smooth.  Grabbed our luggage, got our rental car, ate lunch, and we were on our way to the hospital.  It was about an hour drive.  When we arrived at the hospital we stopped in the gift shop and picked up a pretty arrangement of flowers.  Then we made our way up to Ava’s birth mothers room.  I swear it felt like a maze of hallways and thinking back it was quite a blur!  Finally a nurse recognized us from our adoption profile and led us to her room.  My heart was pounding.  I mean, I was about to meet the woman who had picked US to parent her daughter.

When we walked in and met eyes, a sense of calm came over me.  We exchanged hugs and talked for about 30 minutes alone together before we went to the nursery to meet our baby.  When I first saw Avalyn she was in her little bed behind the nurses’ station with a little pink hat on.  I still remember them wheeling her around and seeing her precious face.  They allowed us to go into a private room to spend some time together.  At first her birth mother didn’t want to hold her, but after asking her a couple times she agreed.  I have a picture of them together and it will be special to share it with Ava one day.  We spent about 2 ½ hours together and talked about all kinds of topics.  I spent a lot of time just gazing down at Ava’s face, I was so in awe.  

We left the hospital for a short while to find a hotel and get situated and eat dinner.  We finally got the call around 8:30pm that the birth mother had signed all her paperwork and discharged.  Ava would be discharged the next morning.  We had to go back to the hospital and sign the rest of our adoption paperwork.  We were exhausted and thankful we had one more night to get caught up on our rest before bringing our baby home!