Charlotte, part 1

So, here is what happened. I will probably not get done as she is sleeping on Daddy and soon he will want his computer back.

I got a call while in Chicago for work, one week ago today, from our adoption referral service about a potential situation in Dallas. The BM was a 20 year old Native American/Hispanic healthy female, BF a caucasian healthy male. No drugs, no alcohol. DREAM situation. And she is due on Nov 24th. Our only pause was HOLY SHIT Nov. 24th? I called Jeff immediately and we agreed to be presented with other potential birthfamilies.

The next day I got a call at 1pm from Terri, our referral service, yelling into the phone "You are going to be a mommy! You got picked!". Now, we have been here before, as you know, so while we were excited we were still cautious. J and I decided that it was time to tell our work so I sat my two bosses down after a long day of meetings and told them I would be gone in a week. While they definitely felt as freaked as I did, they were 100% supportive, having both been aware of my history of m/c and being parents themselves.

That night J and I talked many times, made flight reservations, and planned out how we would spend the weekend. I hardly slept, thinking of this baby inside her mom's belly and how she may be ours.

Til Terri called again and said she was probably going to go on Sunday and could we go Saturday?

Well, ok!

Except then the next day, when I had a 5 hour presentation to the senior partners in the agency, biggest moment of my career thus far in my new job, I got a vm from J during our bio break. Mom was being induced that night and we were leaving the next morning. I can tell C that I heard of her impending birth while peeing.

I took a deep breath and grabbed both my bosses again in the hotel hallway. I told them, and again while they were totally freaked, as was I, they were great. Meanwhile my amazing husband was booking a hotel, car, flights, calling his family, getting directions, and basically managing this entire process.

Somehow I made it through the rest of my presentation, and then left for the aiport in a full car, so I still couldn't call my family or talk to J.

Once I got to the airport I called my office to do a conference call with my team to tell them I wouldn't be coming back to work for awhile. I had a 5 page document with to dos that I basically delegated out to everyone. They were thrilled though, again, this happened so fast they had no time to react.

Of course my flight was delayed 5 hours so I arrived home at 10:30 pm, in time to throw somethings into a suitcase, take care of our pets, run around the house, etc. Imagine getting ready for a 2 week vacation with 1 1/2 hours of warning. Yikes. J and I were in the zone, barely talking but instead communicating through grunts and hand signals. Good partners.

All night I kept waiting for the phone to ring and terri to tell us it was off.

Instead we got a text message at midnight saying "Congratulations! Its a girl! 6 pounds 13 ounces, 21 inches"

J and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. It really hit me that we were about to become parents with about 48 hours of notice.

Ok gotta get off the computer now. Looking forward to finishing this, probably at 5 am. First doctor's appointment today!