The Story of Clark - The Beginning

The post we've been waiting for. It's gonna be a long one so strap in, people. Clark is three weeks old today so let's travel back in time to the second week of May. After the wedding and the mother's day lesson, we went off to work all week and waited...and waited. On Wednesday, we had a few calls from his birthmother, Hemma, that totally flipped me out but turned out to be her just being a bit bored and wanting to chat:) That night Dana went to mutual and I went to my presidency meeting. All the same questions: any news? No. No news.

THURSDAY 5/15/14
Thursday morning at 6:42AM the phone on my bedside table rang and a very nice Australian woman asked a very groggy me if we were ready to have a baby today. The woman was Megan, our paralegal in Arkansas. She laughed at my rather confused response and gave us the good news: Hemma was in labor. Clark was breech so they'd scheduled a cesearian for that morning. Should we come down? Yes, right away.

And thus began what I can only describe at the most disjointed, exciting, exhausting day of our lives (so far...all you parents are thinking it:)). Dana scrambled out of bed and got in the shower while I place the first call with the big news to....some lady in Arkansas. Yes, I know, what? My first thought honestly was, we have nowhere to stay tonight. So I got on trip advisor and pulled up all the places I'd looked at and of course most of them had booked up earlier in the week but I called one bed and breakfast on a whim and the sweetest lady answered and said they had room Thursday and Friday. Sold! She was the first person who knew about Clark and she was so tickled.

Next call: Mom. I think she probably had flashbacks to my phone call about getting engaged to Dana; I was all business then too. She started hunting for flights while I called Sarah to get her hunting for flights too. Sometime in this madness Dana was out and dressed, I showered quickly and got ready in between more calls and texts from Mom (southwest might have tickets or could we fly out of Portland and do a nonstop?). Thankfully our bags were packed the night before (yes, even Dana was packed early) so after a quick sweep of the house, starting the dishwasher, and an early morning favor from Telly who agreed to take our spare key, we were off...er, to work. Oh, that's right. We're crazy. Yes, on the day our baby was born, we made it to management meeting on time.

On the way a quick stop for gas at Costco, and Mom had us booked on flights through Albuquerque and then on to Dallas. At work I confirmed a nice little condo rental for Saturday through Thursday. Mom booked rental cars. Taylor offered his Aunt's house in Dallas to stay that night. And then Megan called with the best news ever: Clark had arrived! No picture came with him (our co-workers were very miffed about that) but he was here. 6 lbs 17 ounces. Dana was the first one to point out that a pound is only 16 ounces so....yeah, I didn't care honestly at that point. He was here!

I wish I could say we paused and took in the finality of that moment, just Dana and I, that we had a son. But, we didn't. Instead, Dana rushed through our meeting and we jetted out with a wave and our laptops for a looooong drive to Seattle. More phone calls on the way to siblings and our bed and breakfast lady to cancel for the night but keep the Friday night (we also shortened that reservation when we found out our court date was Wednesday morning). Honestly, I was blown away with how flexible all the people in Arkansas were. Either they were happy to be a part of such a cool story or they could tell the lady on the other line was quickly losing it; either way, very nice.

We stopped for lunch at Arbys, which neither of us really ate and picked up a garbage bag to put the baby carseat inside of--this turned out to be Dana's best idea ever as it was scuffed at the top when we got off the plane. There hadn't even been a baby inside it and it already was marked! Thanks a lot Southwest:(

On the way, we got our first picture of Clark. And a call from Hemma to say she had put the photo up on her facebook page. Again, I wish I could say we had a tearful, happy conversation but it was hard to communicate and we were getting off the interstate at that moment so my GPS kept talking over Hemma (take exit 205 to the I-405 and stay in the left lane). When I pulled up her facebook page, this is what I saw:

 

So cute:) I squealed and Dana immediately leaned over to try and see which wasn't a good idea barreling down the interstate at 65 so he had to wait until we got the airport parking to see him son. I meanwhile just stared at him. We were cutting our flight very close and both our nerves were frayed when we stopped at the parking lot to drop our car off with only an hour and a half before our flight left. Thankfully the airport was slow so we sailed through security and had a few minutes to fire off Clark's photo to friends and family. Thus began what I shall call information overload. Note to self: when you post a photo of your amazingly cute baby boy on facebook, your phone will explode and you will never ever catch up with all the texts for at least a week. Sorry if I missed anybody:)

Some of us slept. Others of us just stared at the back of the seat for a few hours, trying to remember if we turned off the oven. We were super unimpressed with Albuquerque's options for dinner, but landed in Dallas a full hour late and then stood in the longest line at Alamo for our rental. By the time we were done, it was 11PM Dallas time and we still had to get to Taylor's Aunts. Can I just say, Southerners are really nice. His aunt waited up until midnight for us and then informed us that they were heading out of town the next day and she had to get up early for work so we barely got to chat before we headed off for bed. Everyone was gone when we got up so we didn't even get to say thanks but let me say it here: THANK YOU!! It was nice to be in a home on our first night as parents.

FRIDAY MAY 16th
Even without much sleep, we got up early and headed another four hours up to Mena. I took this photo as we passed over a bridge. It's our last just Dana and Kelli selfie.

Finally, we rolled into Mena. It's a pretty tiny town but actually bigger than we were anticipating. We passed the courthouse on the way in and smiled a little at the thought that we would be back the next week. On the advice of some of the other adoptive parents, we picked up dinner at KFC and since we didn't know if there would be just the three of us or a whole bunch we got a TON of food.

And then...the hospital.

Turn out, this is just the maternity wing and the real hospital is behind this but at the time we were thinking, wow what a small hospital. We checked in at the front desk with our flowers and food and asked to see Hemma. They buzzed us in, we walked into her room and there she was. No Clark, which was good so we could just talk with her first. Again, I think I always imagined it would be this tearful embrace kind of moment but it was a bit awkward. We all smiled a lot and things picked up when Lynwood our translator arrived so we could communicate better. Dana went down to the nurses station to find some plates for dinner and came back with this big grin on his face and said "He's down there." They wheeled him down and we got to hold him for the first time.

My first thoughts? So much hair!! Everyone has said it but it truly was amazing and so soft. Second was, why is there an IV in his arm? The nurse explained that his heart rate was elevated, not seriously, but enough that they had a sugar water line in just in case they needed to medicate. The heart rate issue ended up keeping us in the hospital until Tuesday which I did NOT love but better safe than sorry. He also did this funny fast breathing for the first week that was pretty cute since we knew it wasn't serious. The tacheapnea (sp?) happens often with caesarians.

Dana's first thought: awesome. Pure awesome.





This is his favorite sleeping position, by the way. We call it the "guppy".

We made sure to have Hemma hold him as often as possible but my worries that she would be overly emotional about the process were totally not necessary. She constantly referred to us as his 'mom and dad' and wanted us to hold him too. She seemed happy when we were happy. Lynwood filled us in on a bit of her story that I won't share here but she is truly a wonderful person. Lynwood had her daughter with her as well so that was fun.

Ahh yes, his name. So, funny story. We shared our name with Lynwood but I guess Hemma wanted to name him too so when the doctor asked for the name, she told him Royce:) So for almost a week, Clark's name was Royce Laidren Laidren. Yes, the last name twice. It's going to cause all kinds of fun with medical billing and his social security stuff. Oh the fun.

This little scratch is still on his head. It was from the IV. The nurses were super sad about it but we think it makes him look a little rough and tumble, like there was a throw down in the nursery and he totally dominated.

The rest of Friday went in a blur. Hemma was pretty exhausted so we left after only an hour to check into our hotel but on the way we noticed a large white van packed full of kids and remembered Paul, the attorney, telling us that another adoptive family was at our hospital. Their baby girl, Joy, had been born two days before Clark. So on a hunch, we introduce ourselves and met the Bennetts. What a cool family. They are from Utah (not Mormon though:)) with seven other kids, one adopted just seven months earlier, and they were so sweet. We got to know them really well it turned out because of an error in our hospital release paperwork that our Arkansas attorney, Sara, was working on frantically. We ended up going with the Bennetts back to their house and trying in vain to print the updated forms on their printer. Eventually, we gave up and called a third attorney (yes, there were a lot involved here) to print our forms and come up and be our notary. Whew. Long story. Long day. And it didn't help that the hospital nurse who was causing such a fuss over these forms sent the attorney away the first time:) It all got worked out and we signed as witnesses for the Bennetts and they signed for us. Then they were discharged with Joy. Such a cool thing to see.

Finally, we made it to our bed and breakfast which was seriously the nicest place. The family built a whole bunch of rooms behind their house and so we were right behind this rolling lawn and chickens and a big garden and a serious white picket fence. The room had a claw foot tub and cookies on the table waiting for us:) We only stayed one night and most of the time were were vegged out zombies but it was the nicest way to spend our first night in Mena.

We spent another hour that night with baby Clark and then said goodbye. We'd be back!