Meet Claire Elise Shirley!

Ok...back to the hospital. When my parents and I arrived at the hospital, we were greeted by my friend Melanie and she showed us where the nursery was and where to find our birth mom. I knocked on our birth mom's door and spoke with her for a little bit. She told me that she hadn't seen the baby all day because she wanted me to be the first to hold her. :) The nurses gave me a wrist band that matched our birth mom's and the baby's and then led me into the nursery. I took one look at our little girl and couldn't believe that this day had finally arrived. My mom and Melanie stood outside the nursery window and snapped some pictures.

  

After spending some time with my brand new daughter in the nursery, we found out that the hospital was going to give me my own room for the night. I was thrilled! I had no idea that I would get to spend so much time with our new baby but our birth mom made sure that I was included in everything and that I was able to bond with her as much as possible. 

Meet Claire Elise! 

   I had waited so long for this day to arrive but never thought it would be without Darryl. We talked on the phone a lot and I sent him picture after picture. I even took a video hoping he would feel as part of this as he could from across the country.

 

Grandma and Grandpa also got to spend some quality time with their new grand daughter!

And thank God for my best friend Emmy and her husband Leonel! They drove to my house, picked up a bag that my Dad had packed up with clothes for my mom and me, and drove it out to the hospital in Murrieta. We now had pj's, toothbrushes, and pillows to make our night in the hospital a little more comfortable. :)

 

My mom and I were able to stay the night and our birth mom allowed for our little Claire to stay the night in my room! Our prayers were being answered one by one and this truly was going as smoothly as it possibly could!

 

When Claire was born she was put on antibiotics through an IV as a precaution for infections. Since she was born early the doctors wanted to play it safe and we were just waiting for the test results to come back to see if they would be transferring Claire to the NICU. 

The test results came back the next day and the nurses said she was perfectly fine and that we could be discharged that day! We were a little nervous, not knowing if our birth mom would allow us to take Claire home before she was discharged but she was absolutely amazing and said that we could! She however, had to stay in the hospital for a few extra days due to a C-Section and her staples coming out. 

When our social worker arrived on day 2 at the hospital, she had the birth mom and me fill out lots and lots of paperwork and explained that our birth mom would not be able to sign the relinquishment papers giving up her parental rights until she was discharged from the hospital. She told me that I could still take Claire home but that it may be a few days before the birth mom could sign the papers and then she explained that the birth mom had the right to have the papers held for 30 days or to have them filed immediately. I was nervous taking Claire home, not knowing what our birth mom's decision would be but I trusted that God knew what he was doing and that I needed to take this little girl home, love her, and be her mommy for as long as I could. 

Discharge papers were started at noon, and at 5:30 or so, we were finally released from the hospital and I was able to bring my daughter home! Before we left we took a few pictures with our birth mom and even took pictures with Matt and Melanie and their new baby boy Hunter! Melanie swears that one day our two little ones will be married and will have the story of a lifetime! 

After saying our goodbyes to the WONDERFUL hospital staff and our birth mom, we were on our way home!!!!

Claire's first car ride!

 

One happy Mommy!

 

 As we pulled up to our house we were greeted by an awesome sign that my niece and neighborhood girls put together for us! It says, "Welcome baby Claire!"

  And I must take a moment and say how blessed we are to have such amazing neighbors and even more amazing sister!!!! My sister-in-law Jen broke into our house and spent all day building our pack n play, our co-sleeper, our swing, cleaning our floors, washing clothes, buying some more baby items, and even going out and getting dinner for us!!!! My eyes still fill with tears when I think how loving that was of her and how long she has been waiting for this day! She has been so supportive and knows first hand the heartache we have gone through these past four years. Thank you Jen for being such a good Auntie to our little Claire and for helping to prepare our home for our newest family member. ( I know Claire's other Aunties would have been there helping too if they could have been) :)

Our good friends Kristina and George also surprised us with a giant present in our front yard! Unfortunately it gets VERY windy at our house and the winds picked up so much that night that I had to bring it indoors. I didn't want any flying pieces to hit anyone's car and I didn't want it ruined since we got to keep part of it. The bag will be hanging in Claire's new nursery. And thank you again to George and Kristina for all of the clothes they brought over for our Claire! They have twin girls and know how many clothes babies go through!

When Thursday finally rolled around we got the best present of all! Daddy got to come home and meet his beautiful baby girl! I will let him take over the story from here.