So this story will be our story, and how we ended up with our little fourth princess.
Matt and I figured we might as well go for four kids. I'm not sure why, but we both felt like we weren't quite done yet. We knew we would renew our homestudy at some point, probably not long after Emiline turned one, but to be honest, I was fairly sure no expectant mom would place her baby in our family with three kids already.
Since we both thought our wait might be years long, we figured we would get the process started soon, but we weren't rushing. Not long after Emi turned one, I got all the paperwork from our local agency and from there we slowly got all our things around. We weren't in any hurry, again, because I was sure it would never happen. I called the agency in Evansville that we had worked with for a failed adoption back in 2012. I told them we were interested in being on their list and so they sent me their application and I was to fill it out, send it back along with the application fee and 3-5 of our profile books.
I did none of that.
I gave our local agency one profile, but didn't pay them the homestudy fee.
I interviewed with another agency in Muncie, but never sent them the application or fee.
Basically I was dragging my feet. I didn't want to have too many adoptions fall through this time, and truth be told, I was hoping to get pregnant (hmm, that feels familiar).
We began working with a mom that had a six month old boy, we had a great meeting with her on October 1st. While we would have been thrilled to adopt him, I was slightly nervous about having a 15 month old and six month old.
On October 7th, we got a call from the agency in Evansville, wondering if we were interested in the adoption of an unknown gender, the expectant mother being due in two days. Did I mention we were requesting a boy from all agencies? Did I mention we were hosting a five year old girl with Safe Families for Children until December 9th? (By the way, we had to stop hosting her when we were placed with the baby. That would have been out of hand, five girls age five and under??)
In this particular situation, the agency was picking the family, not the expectant mom. I called Matt to see if we wanted to throw our hat in the ring, I called our agency to see what they thought and they gave their full support to be matched with this mom, essentially giving up on the first mom we met with (she hadn't made a decision yet, not that we were hurrying her).
On Thursday the 9th, we got the phone call that we were the family the agency picked to parent the (unknown gender) baby should the mom place! I have no idea why. The social worker confirmed that we had two girls......I said "Yes....and I have one more girl. I have three girls. Are you going to change your mind about picking our family?" She shockingly said no! But she had forgotten that after our fall through in 2012, that I called them to be removed from the list because I had gotten pregnant. Anyway, I still wonder if she had remembered we had three girls if she wouldn't have chosen us.....
We didn't hear much Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. We were busy with four girls in our house already (we were hosting, remember?), and by this time, we knew not to prep much for a baby's arrival, although I did buy a boy sleeper. Because it was going to be a boy. So we weren't too worried, more curious as to what was happening.
Our social worker called us Monday afternoon and asked if we could be in Evansville on Tuesday morning by 10am. Due to the time change and how far Evansville is from us, we decided to leave Monday night instead of 3am on Tuesday morning.
We stayed with some college friends (Thank you thank you thank you Kelly!) Monday night. During the five hour drive down, we figured we would talk about names. I said we shouldn't even talk about girl's names because it was going to be a boy. But interestingly enough, we couldn't agree on a boy's name. I mentioned the name Parker for a girl and Matt was instantly sold. I told him not to get too excited about it because it was going to be a boy.
We arrive at the hospital Tuesday at 10am, our room was four doors down from the expectant mom's room. She did not want to meet us. We waited around, ate lunch, had a great time with the social workers, drank some chocolate milk, felt like we were in prison in the hospital....
A nurse came in around 1pm and told me to take my shirt off and put on a gown because they wanted me to do skin to skin (which I don't even remember doing with Emi so it's sweet I have the memory of doing that with Parker). I might have freaked out thinking this for real might happen. I had been telling myself it would be ok to drive five hours home without a baby.
At 1:52pm on October 14th a nurse bursts through the door with a baby wrapped in a towel and says, "You have a baby girl!"
Because of course.
Parker Hope.
How are we adjusting? Well, Hannah and Olivia are amazing older sisters. They are so helpful, it's incredible. Having my third and fourth kids 15 months apart is pretty funny. Hannah and Olivia were 15 months apart and I remember it was great for about a year and then it got crazy. So for now Emi's pretty cool with it. Sure, she pokes Parker and has whacked her a few times, but she doesn't seem jealous at all. Wait til Parker is one and Emi is two. And Olivia is five and Hannah is six. That might get out of control.
Adoption round three was great from our end. No fall throughs, our homestudy was technically complete on October 9th so our wait was five days.
Now, on Parker's end, she might have some challenges in her future, but God is good.
She's a great baby, she reminds us a lot of how Hannah looked. She is so sweet and sleeps very well (for which I am soooooooooo grateful).
As a side note, when we got to the hospital, they introduced their hospital as a "baby friendly" hospital. At first, we were thinking, "Ummm, good? Because you should never be unfriendly to a baby."
Now we know that's code for no nursery and the baby rooms with mom/parents for 24 hours a day! It was terrible.
I never want to do that again.
That's the story. I am still quite surprised how it all worked out. I have four kids. Four daughters.
FOUR!
