October 10th, 2007, Meeting Charlie....

First off, I know! I am sorry, I am a HORRIBLE person!! LOL I have taken forever to write a new post....I was having a really hard time after that last one emotionally and had to take a break....but I am SO happy to report that I attended the Colorado F.S.A. weekend and my birthmom batteries are recharged!!!! Full Speed ahead!!!

So we left off me getting wheeled in to the O.R. to receive my Spinal....the scariest part of this whole thing right??.....WRONG!!! So a piece of cake! I guess I am stronger and braver than I thought!! LOL
So I get my spinal and I am a happy camper, my mom and Kate come into the room and I was not feeling a thing....it took about 15 min to deliver Charlie. I honestly did not feel a thing, no pulling tugging, notta! It was AMAZING!! LOL So they pull out this 6 lbs. 7 oz., 18 1/2 inch, perfect, beautiful, amazing baby boy out of me at 5:35 pm. I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!!!.......You know how you hear people say.."Wait till you have kids, you would do anything for them and it is this instantaneous love that could over power anything." Well, I had heard that all my life and let me tell you a little secret......THIS IS THE MOST TRUE, POWERFUL THING ON THIS PLANET!!!! This little tiny cry came out of this perfect little bald baby boy and my, heart, my mind, my soul, my guts, my every fiber of my being was IN LOVE, the BEST kind of love our Heavenly Father ever created!!! I would fight a tiger for this little boy that I have known for 15 second and has been growing under my heart for the last 8 months. Sure I loved him while he was growing inside of me, making me sicker than a dog, and kicking me in the ribs everyday, LOL But this was different. This was NO Matter what Charlie did I would love and protect him to the ends of the earth no matter what kinda love!! That is powerful!!!
So they cleaned him up, asked me if Kate could bring him over to me, I said of course, and they wrapped him up in a little receiving blanket (I still sleep with that blanket every night) and handed him to Kate, she kissed him and walked over to me and put him near my face....Now remember that love I was talking about in the last paragraph?? Okay, now that I have seen his perfect, beautiful little face it just compounded by a kazillion (that IS a real number) and this was the first time I thought, "I don't know if I can do this, He is perfect and he is mine, how am I ever going to part with him?" But I couldn't think about that now. I had just witnessed a miracle, Charlie Mark was brought into this world, my world stood still. Kate just held him, kissed him and let the tears flow freely, I can't blame her, he is perfect!! My mom looked at him and kissed him, then the nurses told Kate they had to take him to the nursery. He was having a little bit of a problem breathing, this is normal for babies that are born a few weeks early, their lungs are "sticky" so they just put them on a breathing machine for a few hours and usually they are good to go.
Kate was so cute, she was worried about him and sat there at his bed side in the nursery and held his little perfect hand. Mark by this time had gotten to meet his son, he came into my room with tears in his eyes, came over to my bed and kissed me on the head and whispered, "Thank you, he is perfect." So I am a huge nerd and had this irrational fear my whole pregnancy that Charlie would come out ugly and that Mark and Kate would change their minds, they would just laugh and me and tell me I was silly and that they would love him no matter what. So I had to ask right, LOL I looked up and said, "Mark are you sure he is not ugly and that you still want him." I don't know if it was the drugs talking because I thought he was the most amazing thing I had seen to date!! LOL But Mark through his tears started laughing (my favorite emotion) and said, "You silly girl, he could not be any cuter." I am glad we were on the same page with his cuteness factor. LOL

My hospital experience was the most beautiful, spiritual, emotionally hard, happy, sucky, amazing 3 days of my life. We all shared Charlie, his family and my family. There was no jealousy, awkwardness, just love, love that permeated everything. We were just one big happy family melded together in love over this perfect little man who would change all of our lives forever. The nurses said, we were "weird" LOL I asked why and they said that normally their adoption situations are just awkward, two different rooms, who gets the baby when, we were just all together all of the time.
Oh so My sister Shannon was induced and labored for about 9 hours before she had to be rushed in for an Emergency C-Section. Canyon was born at about 1am, same Dr. delivered both of our boys. She was amazing. So Canyon and Charlie are about 8 hours apart but have different birthdays. Crazy I know. Charlie and Canyon spent a little bit of time chill laxin in the same bassinet, getting to know one another. LOL it was crazy to think that potentially these cousins might never meet again.....
Anyway, next up....Relinquishment....Quite possibly the hardest blog entry I may ever have to write.....