GOTCHA DAY!

We arrived at the airport a little before midnight and God blessed us with all of our bags arriving safely. We carried our empty carseat to the rental car place and found our paperwork with our reservation confirmation. The lady behind the desk  confirmed our reservation and said they had their economy car confirmed for us. She then looked down at the top of the car seat and asked where our baby was. We told her that we were arriving from Texas to come and pick up our son the next morning. She began to tell us that we needed to instead rent an SUV because we’d have too much stuff to fit in the 2 door economy car and the car seat would be a tight squeeze. We kindly declined and told her we needed to stick to our budget car and that we would mostly be at the hotel anyway and not cruising around town.

She then told us that she just couldn’t send us out with that car and upgraded us to the next size vehicle for free! Praise the Lord! So we got a cute little VW jetta instead. We got checked into our Pricelined hotel and were surprised that it was right on Tampa Bay and ended up not being too shabby, as this would be our home away from home with our newborn for up to 10 days while we waiting for interstate paperwork to process and got to bring Eli home. 

Florida!

 The Sunshine State!

 Ok, so maybe we did need a bigger car for all this stuff!

We got our room all set up with the pack and play (which again was hard and confusing…geez!) and got our suitcases unloaded, required paperwork, camera battery charged, and diaper bag loaded with the essentials for the hospital. The next hard part was going to sleep! Colby and I looked at each other, and realized it would be our last night with just the two of us in our little family, and spent some time in prayer thanking God for bringing us to this place and orchestrating the details.

Ground Zero

 

Tadaa! All put together...only missing one thing!

The next morning, we were up bright and early and got things ready to go. We asked the hotel front desk member if she would take our picture. She kinda looked at us weird and then came around the desk and saw the empty carseat. We are going to pick up our baby today we exclaimed! This was followed by the rest of the hotel staff cheering for us in excitement. They kind of became our little family that week and asked to see Eli every time we’d walk in and out of the hotel. 

 On our way to the hospital, it started raining, which Colby and I thought was perfect, as it rained on our wedding day as well. It only made sense for the 2^nd most important day in our life to include rain also! We made our way to the Starbucks in the hospital, where we were supposed to meet the Gladney case workers. We were sad that our case worker couldn’t hop on a plane with us, but Megan and Erica were so sweet and great as they explained all the details to us. Our birthmother had met with them that morning and had signed her paperwork, which was a relief, but moreso another reminder that God had our best in mind. We spent a little over an hour doing paperwork, signing, initialing, reading through requirements, and then….making it official!

 Arriving at the hospital

 

Breakfast and waiting for the caseworkers

 

Signing Paperwork!

 

Blessed!

 Finally….we were going to be able to see and meet our son! We weren’t allowed to see any pictures of him prior to this because of confidentiality reasons, so the anticipation was thick. We got checked into the Transitional Care nursery as official vistors, got our hands washed, and then our case workers talked to the nurses. After this moment, the nurse pointed in the corner over to a bassinette where a little baby was wrapped up and in the corner by himself and said, “He’s over there!”

I guess the rest of the story can be understood by the pictures. Tears, PURE JOY, and an overwhelming sense of pride for this sweet baby boy that God chose to be in our family and made our responsibility to raise and love. Colby scooped him up first and we marveled at him while the case workers snapped photos, which I’m so thankful for. We kissed his fat little cheeks, nuzzled him and let him know that we were here, how much we loved him, and that he would no longer be by himself. Be still my heart. Throughout those first 48 hours that he was on this Earth, I prayed that God would surround him, would give him the best nurses to care for him, and that He would send him our love from afar and know that we were thinking of him and waiting for him to be in our arms.

Seeing his sweet face for the first time

 Hello son!

 Our most amazing blessing

 

Our First Family Photo

 Mama holding you for the first time!

 This is really happening!

 Thank you Lord for this gift.

 

Eli Shane

With our wonderful Florida caseworkers

 We spent several hours at the hospital as we waited for lab work to be completed, were able to feed him and put cute clothes on him, and snapped pictures to send to family as we were finally able to share his sweet face and name with them.

100% O2. Thank you Lord for protecting him!

 Family photos just don't get old

 Can we see your eyes?

 Getting you dressed for the first time

 You were pretty squirmy, and so little!

 Your old man face

 Daddy was a baby hog!

 And then we were discharged, and got to wheel him out in the bassinette and load him up in our rental car to head back to the hotel. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how in the heck to install the car seat, as we had little time to prepare beforehand, so this was pretty funny as the medical assistant watched us struggling with this. Finally safely strapped in, we pulled away with our little family of THREE!

 This can't be THAT difficult?!?

 All loaded up and ready to leave the hospital!

 

We got back to the hotel, showed him off to the front desk staff, and as we sat down holding our little 6 lb. 3 ½ oz bundle on the hotel bed, we just stared at each other in complete awe and wondered…what do we do now?  It was probably the most surreal feeling in the world, since our birthmother was not at the hospital, and it wasn’t a typical placement where she hands him over to us. Instead it felt like us playing house with a kid they let US take away from the hospital, but we knew instantly that he belonged with us!

We skyped with family, got our 2 hour cycle down pretty well of feeding and changing, and celebrated our Got-cha day by ordering a nice meal from the hotel’s restaurant. We sat out on the pier of our hotel where it was quiet and ate our dinner as Eli snoozed away.

 Back at the hotel for your photo shoot...since the couple hundred we took at the hospital wasn't enough!

 

 Well there are your eyes handsome!

 Big Yawns!

 Getting some Florida Sun!

 Florida was so green and beautiful!

 Great Daddy!

 Token newborn shot :)

 Our hotel was right on Tampa Bay, which was a beautiful place to be "stuck" at for a week

 God's grace was definitely with us!

 Our celebratory Gotcha Day (To-go) Dinner on the Pier outside our hotel

 That's better! Good night sweet one!

We spent the weekend mostly at the hotel, but did take a family drive to see the Tampa Bay stadium and then drove over to the Gulf side and walked on the beach for a bit with Eli in the sling. Do you typically take a 3 day old on the beach, nope, but you also don't typically have to stay in a hotel on the bay with a newborn either. :)

 I have to note and remember that two different people stopped us on the beach asking, “whatcha got in there?”  One person thought it was a dog and the other a bird. Really? Yep lady, I carry a bird around in a sling on my chest…ha!

Morning devotional Bayside

 First "bath." Our sweet baby bear

 All of the newborn clothes we had were huge!

 Baby "B" that we had been praying for was now Baby Eli :)

 We realized after your first "bath" that you had CURLY hair!

 Huge clothes for a wittle bitty boy!

We wish we were able to have brought him home sooner to meet family, but we had to stay in the hotel and in Florida until the interstate paperwork was completed. This really was a sweet time of just the three of us with no other obligations or chores to do around the house, just loving on our little man and we didn’t have to share!