I have a million blogposts running through my head but I just haven't had time to write one yet. So let's see if I can follow a train of thought here.
It has been an absolute whirl wind... If you had asked me mid-April, I would have had no idea how drastically our life was about to change. Literally, I thought we had at least a few months to get the nursery ready and truthfully I wasn't ready to start having baby showers and get the room set up only to have to stare at it for who-knows-how-long. I had it all planned out on my "private" Pinterest boards... I had a girl's room and a boy's room carefully designed (because if you know me that's what I love to do). I had purchased one sheet (that's it!) and had it on reserve "just in case." This one sheet was for our "boys room" because this bedding could have been gender neutral if it had to be (although I didn't want it to be - I wanted the room to be super cute and girly if God gave us a girl and very boyish and masculine if God gave us a little boy - so you can imagine I wasn't excited about the possibility of decorating a room without knowing the gender for sure.) To some of you this sounds ridiculous... You're thinking, "why did you care? All I would care about is that sweet babe coming home." And you would be right, that was at the top of my "care" list but, truth-be-told, I love to decorate and I have dreamed of decorating this room for many years so that was also important to me (although, of lesser importance than out sweet baby obviously.)
The day we got the phone call that a birth mom had picked us (Tuesday, April 22) I worked all day and then after school we went straight to our conference call to hear all the details from the agency. At this point, it still wasn't real to me. I think I was still guarding my heart, not yet ready to trust that this was all going to happen because my heart had been broken so many times before. After that conference call we had dinner with some friends (which helped us to debrief) and then if I remember correctly we barely had time to get home and the get the house picked up for it to be cleaned the next day before we went to bed (praise The Lord that He had worked out this perfect detail already - our house would be cleaned the day before we brought Taylor home. If you have a 75 pound shedding golden retriever, then you understand why this was so important before she came home.)
The following day, my principal let me leave work a little early and I ran to Target to pick up a few things for the baby. I had a huge meltdown in Target (no one saw me) and in the car as I drove away. My melt down occurred because I was frantically scanning the baby aisles in Target and this very-pregnant-momma was doing her baby registry with her mom (I don't know why she waited until the very end, but she did). It was clear that her baby registry was way more important than anything I could be doing because I clearly wasn't 9 months pregnant. She would not let me look along side her and they refused to have any kind of manners or scoot out of the way so I could walk by. I wanted to yell at her to move out of my way because my baby would be home TOMORROW! (It's all very comical now… but I could write a whole other blogpost on just this 15 minute visit to Target… oh the drama.) It was also very hard for me to see her with her mom as they casually enjoyed this special time, because I knew that my baby would come home tomorrow but my mom wouldn't be there to meet her or help out like moms do (again a blogpost for another day).
After leaving Target, God took care of me in my weakest moment… he prompted one of my best friends to call just as I hit the "ugly cry." That was a good thing, because I did not have time for the ugly cry since we were meeting our birth mom in 30 minutes. (I don't recover quickly from the ugly cry and it would not have been a good first impression to make… Praise the Lord for best friends!) She listened as I told her my frustrations from Target and she did what best friends do… made me feel better and redirected my thinking to the more important matter at hand. Phew!
We spent the rest of the evening meeting our birth mom, her friends, and our sweet baby, then going to the foster family's home so that we could have our first visit with Taylor (feeding her, bath time, and bedtime). Finally we ran to our friends' house to pick up some items they were loaning us until we could have a baby shower. This is another amazing friend who had organized everything from loaner clothes, car seat, stroller, pack-n-play, toys etc. She had washed it all and had it ready to come to our house for the new baby! Wow… I can't even describe the incredible blessing.
By the time we made it home that evening, we did not have energy or time to move all the furniture out of the guest room to prepare the nursery, so instead we set-up the borrowed pack-n-play for her first evening home.
That weekend our good friends, Ryan and Traci, came to paint and set-up the nursery for us. They did the bulk of the work while we were out of town (we went to the Panhandle for DJ's mother's oncology appointment and also to take Taye to meet the family.) Ryan and Traci were such a blessing, because one of the hardest parts of our "quick" adoption was not having all the "stuff" ready. My dream of spending months getting the nursery just right before bringing the baby home didn't happen, but God had different plans for us and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
The room is much closer to being done now and I can't wait to post pictures of the finished product soon!
