He has a name!

We are 18 days away from Little Man's due date!!!  We are both starting to get pretty anxious, waiting for him to arrive and then that everything goes as planned and smoothly.  Last Friday, we had our second meeting with the birth mother.  We talked about the birth plan and then she had some pretty deep questions for us.  I'm glad she is asking these questions now, so there will be less of a chance for conflict in the future.  The plan is for me to be present for the delivery and they also talked about giving me the second bracelet at the hospital, giving us access to Little Man when he is in the nursery.  When he is discharged from the hospital, he will go directly into interim care.  We also met with our lawyer on Friday, and he informed us that Little Guy will have to be in interim care a lot longer than we originally thought.  Since the birth father isn't being named, we have to wait 16 days after he is born for our lawyer to check the state registry to see if his father has registered for parental rights.  If his name isn't on the list, then we can file the paperwork for a court date, which takes about a week.  So we are looking at at least 3 weeks of him being in interim care, and we only get 2 visits a week while he is there. :(  We will then have to stay in the state a lot less than we were originally told, about 3 to 5 days before we can bring him home.  So because we have to wait so long to take custody, we are both planning on working as much as possible during those 3+ weeks without him in order to have more time with him once we get him.  It is going to be the longest 3 weeks of our lives!

Friends of ours threw us a baby shower on Saturday for our Springfield area friends!  We got some really nice things and had a REALLY good time! :)  Thank you again to all who helped and were able to join us for the day!  We REALLY appreciate it!!!!

The birth mother is still adamant that we name him, so Little Man's name will be Samuel Mitchell.  We picked his name based on their meanings.  Samuel means asked of God and Mitchell means gift from God.  I plan to call him Sam or Sammy when we aren't calling him Sammitch. :)

I've also come to the conclusion that I've already had my first parenting lesson.  How do we learn the meaning of hot?  We get burned.  How do we learn the meaning of sharp?  We get cut.  I've decided that my child is going to get hurt; physically and emotionally.  There is nothing I can do about that.  As much as I'm going to want to prevent it or take the pain away, I won't be able to.  We have just come out of a very long season of pain.  The why and how questions will forever be burned in our memories.  As much as family members and friends have voiced their longing to take the pain from us, they couldn't.  But we have grown as individuals and as a couple.  I guess what I'm saying is that when my child does experience pain, I know I will do whatever I can to comfort him, but I hope I remember that the experience is turning him in to the young man God wants him to be.  How do we learn the meaning of grace and mercy?  We experience it.  If this life was 100% comfortable, we wouldn't need Him.  And as a mom, I want my son to long to know Him.  I hope his seasons of pain are short and that he will be able to look back on them and see the purpose.  And I also hope he finds a spouse as good as I've found to walk through this life with him when we can't be there with him.  You know, when he's 55 and old enough to start dating. :)