He's Here!

We can hardly believe it, but Sunday night at around 8:30 we got a phone call from Christa, the SOFA social worker who works with birthmothers. She said that our baby’s birthmother was at the hospital, in labor, and her water had broken. Two and a half weeks before the due date. We started scrambling around the house to pack things to take with us, expecting several hours of labor and then at least 72 hours in the hospital waiting for the adoption papers to be signed.

We had found out Friday that the birthmother had wanted me to be in the room with her when she delivered the baby, and was OK with Mark being there up until the pushing started. We were very excited at the prospect of watching the birth of our son. But, it didn’t quite work out that way…We were in the car on the way to the hospital, about 15 minutes away, and we got another call from Christa saying that after only about 30 or 45 minutes of labor, our son had been born. So, before we even had a chance for it to sink in that we were even on the way to the hospital, our son had entered the world.

We arrived at the hospital and were asked to wait in the waiting room until the birthmother was ready for us to come in. We had told her several weeks ago that, while we were hoping to see him as soon as possible after the birth, we knew that “as soon as possible” meant as soon as she was ready for us to see him. Once we were asked to wait in the waiting room, though, I kind of forgot about that earlier commitment for a few minutes. We were really anxious to see him! But, we didn’t have to wait long. [A little aside--I will try to write more about our relationship with the birthmother sometime. I had intended to write a post about that before the birth, but for now I’ll just say that, so far, it has been really amazing. Referring to her as “the birthmother” sounds a little impersonal, but I don’t want to use her name to protect her privacy.]

We got to see him when he was about an hour old. He was born at 9:22, weighing 6 lbs, 6 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is very healthy and very beautiful. I got to feed him his first bottle, and Mark and I were able to have him in the room with us the first night. I’ll write more about the days in the hospital later.

I am eager to post pictures of him, and some of you have already seen some through emails or FB. We’re somewhat in limbo here until tomorrow morning when the papers are signed, so I don’t know if I should post the pictures quite yet. Things are going smoothly, but I think I will wait until tomorrow to post all the pictures I want to share. I will tell you, though, that we named him Isaac Robert. And, he’s making little squeaking noises in his little basinet at the foot of my bed as I write this. I think I’m going to have to go pick him up soon…

More later…