11:45 AM – Everything is looking really good! Our social worker called and assured us once again that the baby is healthy and that everything is still in place. We are going to St. Louis tomorrow morning to meet the birth father. We will probably spend the afternoon shopping in St. Louis and spend the night up there as well. We will then bring the baby home from the hospital on Tuesday morning. As for today . . . it’s Tyson/Rachel day (since we will probably not have another one of those for a while). We plan to enjoy our last hours of ‘just-the-two-of-us time’ and then go out to dinner and a movie this evening.

6:19 PM – The baby is born. It’s a BOY!!! Just at 6 lbs and 19 inches long. . . he’s little but he’s healthy. Birth mom had to undergo a c-section. Obviously, she’s tired, but we’ve been assured that both birth mom and baby are fine. As far as where we go from here . . . legally, she and the birth father are not allowed to sign TPR papers until 6:19 on Monday night. So we really don’t expect to do anything tomorrow (we probably won’t even get a phone call until sometime on Monday). So at this point, we wait. It’s going to be a long 48 hours.

10:30 AM – The agency called to tell us that the birth mother’s water broke this morning. As of Noon today, she is at the hospital in labor. We still don’t know the sex of the baby but we are frantically trying to get things ready. If all goes well, we will probably bring the baby home on Monday.

Very exciting developments this week!!! Don’t get your hopes up too much just yet, but it looks like we could have a baby in about a week. We got a call from the agency on Tuesday, Jan. 15. They said that there was a birth mother very interested in us and that she wants to set up a meeting to talk to us in person. They scheduled the meeting for Friday so we went to the LFCS office in St. Louis and met with the birth mother today. She is a very sweet young lady named Whitney. She was an adopted child, herself. Which, in part, led her to our profile (Since Tyson, too is adopted). We like her very much. She is due within the week and she has definitely decided that she wants Rachel and I to be the adoptive family. So as of now, the only concerns are whether the baby is born healthy and whether she falls so in love at first sight that she decides to keep the baby at the last minute. This is a very real possibility and we we are trying to stay grounded and not get too overly excited so as not to set ourselves up for major disappointment. If the adoption does go through however, there are several positives in this scenario that we have not had in some of our previous close calls:

#1. She wants us to take the baby from the hospital (like 48 hours old). She does not want the baby passed through lots of hands before we receive him/her (by the way, we don’t yet know the sex of the baby . . . nor does she). But we will definitely be getting an infant. Which is what we had hoped for.

#2. She and the birth father are both involved. Often times, it is very difficult to find the birth father. Much less, to have one willing to cooperate. He is planning to drive to Missouri when the baby is born and sign the Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) papers along with the mother. This is VERY VERY good news for us. Not only legally, but also because we will have background information on both birth parents.

#3. They’re smart. Both of the birth parents are seniors in college with degrees in Chemical Engineering. Good genes . . . yeah!!!

#4. They are open to providing information to us through the agency if we ever need to know anything, but they are not wanting to be so open that we are uncomfortable. They do not want to know where we live. They don’t want to know our last names. Neither of them are interested in visiting with us or the baby after the placement. A yearly letter and a few pictures (not sent directly, but through the agency) will probably be the extent of our post-placement correspondence.

Keep the birth mother, the baby and us in your prayers.