My baby is 1 year!! (Caution: LONG post!)

Wow, I'm failing at this blogging thing, oh well let's try again! Things have been crazy around here. Since the last time I blogged we've had Cooper's Gotcha Day (he will get his own post soon:), we had a college Spring Break retreat at our house, we took a trip to Tulsa to see one set of grands, bought a bigger car while we were there (which I love!!), went to Muskogee to see Maddy's birth mother, went to Arkansas to see the other set of grands, and Maddy turned 1!!!! Oh yeah, and we became officially active with our adoption agency and have been "waiting" for #4 since March 7th. This waiting thing is no fun, and it hasn't even been that long, ha! I'm just not used to it because the last 2 happened so fast. We did have to wait about a month for Cooper, but it was so long ago I don't remember it. Time does fly though, when you're so busy!
Since Maddy is officially 1, I'm going to let this blog be about her.
A little over a year ago on March 15th, 2010, we were in Santa Fe, NM hanging out with our church college group after breakfast and Ryan told me he had a message from Deaconess and wondered if I did too. I checked my phone, and sure enough, I did. We were both losing reception a lot during the trip so we didn't get the call. I called back, thinking they were calling about when they would receive the last few things we needed to get to them and instead Holly asked, "Are you driving?" I knew what that meant and I was completely caught off guard. I said ,"No," and I started crying, and I don't cry easily, as Holly informed me that we had been chosen by a birth mom to parent her daughter who would be born by C-Section on that Thursday, March 18th! I was a basket case then. I could not believe that it was all going so fast, again! I told Ryan, he was as blown away as I was, and then we told the kids, they were so excited!! I had originally said that we wouldn't tell very many people until it was official, but being with the college students on a retreat, one of our sweet students came out to me and asked me if that was about adoption (I was sitting right outside their room, so they heard me.) I told them everything and from there we told everyone else who was there. It was so fun, and we weren't going home from Santa Fe until the next day, so time was going to fly by before the big day! We spent our whole drive home talking about names for our little girl and Ryan would not give in on the name I was in love with. In fact, we ended up settling on me choosing the first name and him choosing the middle name.
Wednesday we scrambled to find our baby essentials in storage and then after church that night, we were on our way to Tulsa! Maddy was born in Muskogee and Ryan's parents live in Tulsa, so we stayed the night there. Thursday morning, we woke up at 6 and left at 7 in order to get to the hospital by 8. The C-section was scheduled to begin then. That's the first time we met Holly face to face, she is such an amazing person and I'm so glad we got to work with her. Ryan and I waited in the waiting room for what seemed like forever and then at 8:45 they came and got us, our baby girl was in the nursery, waiting for us!!! This was the first picture I took of Maddy, outside the nursery before we went in.

I had told myself to guard my heart and not get too attached, but as soon as I laid eyes on her I felt as if I had just birthed her myself. She was perfect and already so alert! They let us in the nursery right after that and we got to hold her and feed her the first bottle, we were both so in love with this precious baby.

In the nursery, we talked about what her name would be. I asked Ryan what he came up with for her middle name and he said, "Hope." He had been studying and writing the sermons he was going to be preaching over the summer during our pastor's sabbatical that night before and that night he just "happened" to be studying over the hope we have in Christ through the cross and our salvation. So Hope was to be her middle name and I went through my list and Madelyn Hope sounded very pretty to me.
We were taken to our own room with Maddy and got to spend all but about 2 hours with her, her birth mom "C" had her for those 2 hours. Everything was going very well and we wanted so bad to meet "C", but she chose to wait until her court date to do that. However, we did get to meet her sweet friend Mary who had helped her with her decision. It was very special.

Ready to go home from the hospital!

Cooper and Marin were so excited!!!

"C"'s court date wasn't until April 27th, due to the fact that she didn't want to relinquish rights until birth dad had. No one expected any problems from him, but on April 27th I got a call from Dierdre that he had shown up to court and said he wanted to parent. I was in the process of getting everyone in the car to pick up Ryan so that we could meet "C" at the agency and now I was lost. I didn't want the big kids to know so I just tried to stay normal until I dropped them off at childcare. As soon as they were out of the room, I lost it. What was I going to do without my sweet girl? She was 5 weeks old by this point, we could not lose her. However, I also knew the reality that we very well could. "C" still wanted to meet us and see Maddy. She was heart broken as well, but thankfully we had Maddy to cheer us all up. We had the choice to allow a Deaconess foster family take care of Maddy until everything was final, but we couldn't do that. Even if we were going to lose her, we wanted all the time we had left with her.
The new court date was set for June 25th, yes 2 MONTHS later! It seemed like forever away and to make it worse, they ended up rescheduling it to July 13th! I couldn't believe it, I just wanted it all over with. However, Dierdre talked to the court and they allowed us to keep June 25th just to see if he showed up. During this time God was so faithful to remind us that He has full control of the situation. He knew what He wanted for us and for Maddy and we just had to trust Him in that. I clung to Proverbs 3:5,6 and tried so hard to believe it, but it was hard. Thankfully, on June 25th, he didn't show up!!! Our girl was going to be ours forever!! "C" went back to court on July 13th to relinquish and we saw her on that day as well. It was a celebration for us all. One thing about all of this though is that I can tell Maddy that her bdad did care enough to fight for a little bit for her.
Here's "C" with Maddy on July 13th and at our most recent visit, March 12th. She's so precious and we are so glad we get to see her often. What an amazing woman.

Well, I'm pretty sure this post is long enough, haha!! I may be too long winded for this blogging thing. Here's one more pic of my pretty girl at Chuck E Cheese in AR on her actual birthday.