Part III: Meeting "Baby Girl"

We loaded up quickly from my parents house and set out for the hospital both of us feeling unsure if we were truly ready for this. Most people have 9 months to prepare for having a child.

An hour ago we were preparing for a Super Bowl party. Life comes at you fast.

Since this little girl was born a few weeks

premature, we had to go see her in the NICU. We met the social worker from the adoption agency just outside the NICU a little after 3pm. She led us back to where the tiny baby was laying. She was hooked up to a few different monitors but breathing perfectly fine on her own. I had visions of her being in one of those little "incubator"-looking things but it was really just a normal baby bed you see at hospitals. The two things that stuck us right away were how tiny she was and how beautiful of a baby she was. She was born just a shade over 5 lbs. She was 18 inches long with skinny little legs and long little feet and hands. She had a little pink hat on when we first saw her but under that hat was a full head of beautiful black hair. I'm usually the guy that says all babies look the same, but this little girl was the cutest baby I had ever seen.

All of the nurses were calling us mom and dad and asking us all kinds of questions. It seemed so strange all of a sudden like we were still unsure if we had really just done this. They asked us her name and we looked at each other without a clue. That would be the first item on our list of things to do, along with everything else. For now, her monitors just read "Baby Girl".

We sat in the ICU feeling overwhelmed with emotions. It's hard to describe feeling scared, nervous, happy, thankful, etc. etc. etc. all at the same time. The nice thing was, A and I both felt the exact same way. We knew we wanted this baby but how could we be sure we were ready? Our friends have expressed feeling the same way even after 9 months of preparation. We stayed at the hospital that afternoon for a couple hours. My parents were beaming. I really think it sank in with them that they had become grandparents, even before I realized I was a dad. My dad couldn't get enough of this little girl, snapping pictures all throughout our visit.

We left the hospital that evening as proud new parents but still not really feeling like it. She was our new little girl, but we had only known her for a couple hours and we wouldn't sign the papers until the next day. We didn't even have a name yet. Not to mention we hadn't done a single thing to prepare for having a child so quickly (except for a random pack of diapers we got from the grocery store a couple months ago as a joke). Three and a half years of infertility had been tough enough, we didn't need the daily reminder of an empty nursery next to our bedroom while we waited for a child. We went home that evening anxious with anticipation. Our small group did come over for the Super Bowl, even though it wasn't much of a party. We shared our exciting news with everyone. They were all just as shocked as we were. Watching the game that night we vocally bounced names around throughout the game. If she had been a boy, we probably would have ended up calling him Ben or Santonio or Warner :) But naming a girl is a much tougher task...