The Call

Well, it happened!

Yesterday at 11:15 am the kids and I had just doused ourselves in sunscreen for the day and jumped in the pool when my phone rang. It was Deaconess! It was our precious social worker, Sandy. Same social worker that called us with Owen.

She asked if it was a good time to talk. I knew this must me good. I said yes and listened as she told me we'd been picked by Mama O. Oh praise Jesus. Much like our Sadie-cakes, our newest bundle was already HERE and we were asked to be at the hospital at 12:15 to meet the birth family and baby.

I quickly negotiated with the kids to get everyone out of the pool quickly. I asked Owen if he wanted to spend the night with Gigi and Papa Joe. For almost 4 months now he has told me that when we have a baby, he can't wait to spend the night with them. He was so excited to go to their house, so I asked him if he knew what this meant. He wasn't really paying attention, he was distracted by all of the kids swimming...then that question made him perk up. He looked at me with such joy, "Does this mean we have a baby?" Yes, pumpkin...we do. I reminded him that we didn't get to bring KK home and we thought we would have her forever, so I asked him to just pray that this baby would come home with us.

{{{Let me stop here and note that this call came just 5 days shy of when we said we were going to have to pull our profile because of the move. Again, how great is our God? HOLY COW! I so didn't think this was going to happen!}}}

I called Blake knowing that he was in surgery. The nurse picked up his phone, "Dr. Shockley's phone." Oh Lord, how do I say this to let him know? "Hi, this is his wife. Could you tell him something for me? Tell him that we have #4 and I need him to meet me at OU @ 12:15." She held the phone down and relayed the message to which I heard an excited, "I am kind of tied up right now." Luckily my odd message stirred up some conversation in the OR and Blake had to spill the beans to everyone in there that this is how he finds out about his children and that we now have 4 kids! The attending was SHOCKED as he didn't know our story and quickly told Blake, "Well do you need to call your wife? My wife would be ticked if I didn't call her back!" The attending let Blake scrub out and call me for more details. The other residents covered for him so that he could meet me at the hospital! What a HUGE blessing!

I called our parents and both of our moms dropped everything they were doing (and both of them were busy!!!) so that they could come help with the kids! I met Gigi at quite possibly the busiest Sonic in the metro and plopped the kids in her car. Their clothes were packed in a grocery bag!!! It was hard to change clothes, shower, pack for them, me, and a baby in less than 20 min!

Blake and I met and quickly started discussing names! Mama O named HER Faith and not only did we want to keep it, but she asked us to keep it. So we named our sweet baby girl, Emery Faith. We actually just finally named her late last night! When we got to the hospital there were still a lot of details to work thru, and we really did not want to try and come up with a name in a hurry. We kept joking that we never thought we'd be ones without a name!!!

We got to spend about 5 hours with Mama O before she went home and for the first time, we got to meet a birth father. Emery is beyond blessed and will forever treasure the pictures that we got of all 4 of her parents together. We even got one of both of her birth parents together holding her. We are blessed yet again to have an open adoption and we are so thankful that all of our children will get to experience that incredible bond with their first family. Her birth father asked me how quickly I could get pictures of them to him and he wanted to make sure he could have visits. Of course! He loves her so much and knows this is what is best for Emery. I was in awe just being around the both of them.

SO, Emery was born sometime around 10pm on Wednesday, June 23rd weighing 5 lbs 2 oz and is 18.5 inches long. She is an incredible blend of several ethinicities, but mostly African American. Her hair is exactly like Sadie's very soft and straight, but just more of it than Sadie had. She dropped down to 5 lbs before we left last night, so she is just the teensiest little thing! Her preemie diapers just swallow her and her bottles look enormous in comparison.

We are SO stinking excited about all of the miracles that God has performed in the last 48 hours, so many of them we will forever keep protected for Emery to share one day. It was an incredible sight in the hospital watching all 4 of us parents stand united for one little peanut to come home with us. What a mighty God we serve. And may I just say...I love and adore our agency. It was incredible to watch them work their tails off to protect the birth family, the baby and us all at the same time! We will forever sing your praises Deaconess!

**more pics to come**