Thank you everyone for your support! Love you all!

2 Weeks Early! April 30, 2010

We are on our way to Missouri. Our baby was born early this morning, April 30th, weighing 6 lbs. 8oz. We are still unsure of the exact time. Corey rushed home from work and we booked the earliest flight we could. We had one lay over in Phoenix and we are writing this from the plane heading for Missouri. The weather in St. Louis is apparently HORRIBLE. They are having thunderstorms and tornado warnings. Hopefully by the time our plane lands in two hours the weather will be clear. It will be 12:30 AM in St. Louis. Our plan is to go straight to the hospital. Corey called ahead and talked to the nursery nurse about their visiting rules. We should be able to look at the baby, but will most likely not be able to hold him tonight. That might just be the most difficult thing we have had to endure through out this entire process. Corey asked the nurse how the baby was doing and she said he was doing fine but of course because of privacy rules couldn’t tell us anything more. As we were leaving Salt Lake International our social worker called us. She told us she had just found out that the birth mother actually gave birth in the car on the way to the hospital. And despite her wish of not seeing the baby, had to hold the baby until they got to the hospital. My heart aches for her. We love you all and will keep you posted.

Worst Case Scenario May 1, 2010 AM

We arrived at the airport in St. Louis to find two messages from the social worker left on my cell phone. On the first message she said that “it wasn’t looking good the birth mother had decided to parent”. Deciding to parent translated from adoption language means the birth mother has changed her mind and is keeping the baby. We had just traveled five hours to see our baby and were now hearing the most feared words in adoption language. The second message she left said the birth mother was now considering placing the baby for adoption. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being she would place the baby for adoption, she was an 8. This is obviously a difficult decision, and she was going through all the emotions. The birth mother knew from the beginning that if she held the baby she would have a difficult time placing the baby for adoption. We were told to not go to the hospital but to go straight to our hotel room. The social worker was going to talk to the birth mother in the morning and call us. When the social worker called us in the morning it wasn’t good news. Having the baby in the car on the way to the hospital, holding the baby, and ultimately bonding with the baby was unfortunately for us the reason the birth mother decided to parent.

So here we were in a hotel room in Missouri, all of our hopes of bringing our son home were shattered. We went through a lot of emotions. We cried, we were angry, helpless, and we felt grateful. Let me be clear we are not mad at the birth mother. It was a difficult decision, and difficult circumstances. And it was her decision to make. We were mad because there wasn’t anything we would have done differently. There was absolutely nothing we could do to change the situation. We were helpless. We were grateful because the birth mother had made her decision before we saw the baby, held the baby, or took the baby to our hotel room. We are sad that so many family members and friends had to endure the same emotions that we did. Hopes of having a son, a grandson, a great-grandson,a nephew, a great-nephew, a cousin were not realized today. We find peace in knowing that our journey is not over and we know that we will be united with our child soon. While waiting for a flight we purchased a copy of People featuring Sandra Bullocks adoption story. She waited four years for her son. And she believes that without pain and heartache in life she wouldn’t know the true happiness of life. That really hit home, and gives us the strength to continue our search for our child.

We have decided to road trip it home! We rented a car and will be taking our sweet time.

Getting Centered May 1, 2010 PM

We left St. Louis today, traveled across Missouri and are staying in Salina Kansas tonight. Corey asked for a non-smoking room and they said. “Oh well the whole town is non smoking”. And pointed to a sign on the desk that read “$250 fine for smoking and the police will do much worse”. Say What! CRAZY! Were from Utah and that’s still crazy! The drive through Kansas has been really relaxing so far. Everything is really green, rolling hills that go on and on, with blue skies. It’s quite and peaceful. We are really glad we decided to drive home. Were having a really good time together, reconnecting, and talking about what is really important to us. I managed to lock the keys in the rental car, oops. The cool thing is that the car has on-star. We just called them and they unlocked it! LOVE IT!