The Story of Clark - The Middle

SATURDAY MAY 17th
Another day in Mena. More breakfast at McDonalds (honestly I think we ate there for 7 mornings straight. Eww.). We got back to the hospital at 9AM expecting Lynwood to be there but she actually never came back that day. She's taken the Bennett's birthmom back to DeQueen and was finishing up family stuff so it was a bit frustrating to try and communicate without her but we managed. We hung out for another hour cooing over our amazing baby boy. We took lots of photos:

You know, I don't want to drag down the awesomeness of this day but for posterity sake I'm gonna try to be honest and honestly, Saturday was hard. Hemma had been released in the morning but didn't want to leave until Clark was released and we had no idea how long that would be. The nurses were great but didn't really attend to her very well and we found out later that night that they had given her a prescription for the pain but of course no one had filled it so she ended up breaking down in tears and Dana ran to the pharmacy at Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, they wanted us to stay the night at the hospital since we were first time parents so we got the room next to Hemma, which I don't think had been cleaned, and it was a bit hard to know if we should be in hanging out with her or with our own new little family. Dana will admit I was super stressed and sleep deprived too. Thank goodness for his even temper. All he cared about was holding this little baby. He knew it would work out.

 And it did. We left in the afternoon to check into our next rental. It turned out to be waaaay out in the boonies by a golf course but I know it was meant to be because as we drove down the highway I saw a building pop up and said "that looks like a church building." which of course was impossible because I'd searched LDS tools and there were no churches in Mena. But as we passed, that familiar sign: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I felt so calm right then and we knew we had to go to church the next day. I'm so grateful for that small miracle.

Our rental was literally brand new (they'd moved furniture in the day before) and aside from some lingering flies it was perfect. Ahhh if only we were there more often. As it turned out we only slept one night on the amazing king bed but we did shower there everyday and watched TV once:)

Around 10PM Saturday night we found out that Lynwood was coming back up to take Hemma home. She'd explained Clark might be in a few more days and Hemma needed help recovering. I think there was some coaxing from Paul too. We felt totally helpless and spent a few tense hours in our room trying to watch The second Hobbit movie without really watching it. We even got ice cream to eat with her but never got to it. In the end, it was a tearful goodbye because of her pain and I was more emotional than I thought I would be watching her kiss Clark goodbye and get wheeled out the doors. It really is an amazing person who can give their child away selflessly.

The rest of the night was so bizarre for us. We stayed awake with him. The nurses had us watch his first bath and they took his first professional baby photos (not sure I'm going to buy them. They are SO expensive!). They didn't want us feeding him though since he was still breathing fast so we were woken up every few hours but they would just wheel him out and then back in.

Some milestones:
1st bath
1st diaper changing - by Dana even! See his creepy little bellybutton:) Matt didn't know that got left there and was like Eww the first time he saw it. It fell off right before his two week appointment but we have no idea where so I have nightmares of it being tucked in the car seat somewhere. Umm..eww.

This was my favorite photo of him for a while. He just looks so sweet. That is really the essence of Clark. He is just a sweet baby. He is very alert and coos a lot.

It was a great night with him. Exhausting but great. Although we now understand what parents mean when they say babies are the loudest sleepers alive. Maybe it was his stuffy nose/fast breathing thing or whatever but he was soooo noisy. And then, he'd stop. And I could almost hear Dana in the next bed hold his breath as we both were like, 'did he die? breath baby. Make some noise' and then he would and we'd exhale but then wish he would take it down a notch:)

SUNDAY MAY 18th - TUESDAY MAY 20th
Yes, I'm combining these days because other than the events worth noting all we did was catch up on work, watch really odd movies on television and try not to go stir crazy while waiting to get discharged. I seriously pity women who spend weeks on bed rest.

Sunday we awoke, politely refused the nasty hospital eggs the nurses offered and headed back to shower and go to church. I seriously wish we could have taken Clark. Dana was so nervous every time we left the hospital. He didn't want to be gone too long in case the nurses thought we were neglectful and called CPS. Church was great. It's a nice branch although we found out most of the branch is one family--mom and dad, and their five kids all married with children who returned to Mena. We sat behind this couple and when they found out our story they insisted on us coming to family dinner that night. Another blessing. People are so nice but church people have a little extra niceness I think.

When we got to their house that night (a big beautiful fixer upper out on tons of land) Dana started laughing. He knew he recognized the man and sure enough there was his face plastered on the side of the truck: George Smith, State Farm Agent. We'd seen his billboard on the way into town:) George told us his whole family story and gave us a tour of his place that included this beautiful shot:
That's his backyard. A waterfall. Wow. Only in the south could you get a waterfall in your backyard and not be a billionaire. We ended up meeting the whole family and getting roped into some funny arguments about the merits of staying in high school football versus quitting. The new missionaries were there too and another stranger they'd met that week. Maybe it was because it was such a small town but it reminded me of our ward in Jacksonville. Same caliber of people to keep the church alive.

We could have stayed all night but Dana had CPS on his mind so we shuffled back to the hospital. The nurses didn't mind. In fact, they told us they'd love to have Clark stay with them that night so we could get some sleep. There were no other babies born until the morning we left so we were basically in a ghost wing. We relented and let them take Clark, which was good because he was apparently up all night:)

Look at that little hand. He had some serious baby claws.

These are just two of his amazing nurses. I love how squishy he looks here.

One in his basinet thing. We always knew he was coming down the hall.

One with me. By Sunday they took his IV out but I think he'd gotten used to his arm being left out because that's how he likes to sleep now. We're slowly breaking him of the habit however, because his hands are his worst enemy--scratching and pushing the binky out.

I think this was Monday. He finally finished a whole bottle. Is it weird that they were glass bottles? We dropped one the last day and it shattered and I was like, this is stupid. Anyway, that's two and a half whole ounces, people. I looked it up and an ounce of formula is 20 calories. 20 calories!! I don't know why that's funny to me.

This is the room we lived so many days in. I slept on the reclining bed (super fun, by the way) and Dana slept on the horrible squeaky, short, blue bed next to it. Needless to say, we would much have preferred sleeping on the king bed we were paying for:) We took turns most night getting up and feeding him. He was a pretty good eater but neither of us was really coherent those few days.

Clark either. Isn't he cute. We figured out the swaddle thing though. And we ate McDonalds and dinner at every other restaurant in town. Dana even got me out Monday night for a date night at the Branding Iron BBQ and Stakehouse joint in town and we enjoyed pie afterwards. Again, should have relished our last night just us but I was just so worried Clark wouldn't get out and we wouldn't make our court date on Wednesday. We kept up a regular text stream with Hemma and Paul and Megan and Sara. And, yes, I was super annoyed on Monday when the nurses wheeled him away to the doctor to check his breathing and then wheeled him back without the doctor even coming to chat with us and explain why he wasn't being discharged. Again, Dana had to talk down a crazy lady.

Finally, FINALLY!! on Tuesday, they got a hold of a different doctor who came in, we held our breaths, and he said we were good to go. He even wrote us a nice note saying he could fly. Huge relief since we again didn't have plane tickets:) This is so not the way to travel.

Everything happened fast then. We packed up. Clark blew out his diaper of course so handy Dana came up with this way of transporting said nasty onesie.

We put little boo in his car seat for the first time. The nurse confirmed Dana had put the car seat base in correctly (he was only a bit smug) so that was a relief.

And we were off! This was a fun moment. Driving back to our little bungaloo I think I took my first breath. Somewhere in the back of my brain I don't know why I had this feeling they were never going to let us out of the hospital. But they did and the five days for Hemma to change her mind had passed so we were almost scott free. Back at the condo, Dana got right to work while Clark settled in for his favorite position.

WEDNESDAY MAY 21st
It was finally here - adoption date. We showed up at the courthouse where Hemma, Lynwood and the Bennetts were waiting. We finally got to meet Sara as well. The Bennetts went up first to the judge's chamber and we stayed down so Hemma could hold Clark.

When it was our turn, Hemma carried our sleeping bundle up the stairs and into the chamber. The adoptions usually take place in the courtroom but a big murder case was going on (very scandalous we were informed) so instead we got to do it in the judge's chambers. He was really nice, asked us a few questions, then Sara read the questions she'd prepped us for. The judge signed the forms. Had them duplicated. And sent us on our way. Family of three. Done.

Hemma looked genuinely happy so we were glad she came up to say goodbye one last time.

A picture outside the courthouse.

Clark Pascua Gailan. All packed in and ready to go home. Doesn't he look thrilled:)

We wasted no time getting out of Mena, especially when Mom called to say she could use flight miles to get us tickets that night if we could haul butt to Dallas. Free tickets!! Not even a traffic jam outside of DeQueen (seriously) could slow us down. I sat in the back with this handsome little man who slept all but the last five minutes of the trip--which he screamed all the way through.

We soon found out why. After dropping off the rental car and boarding a hot bus to the airport (it was 95 in Dallas) Dana went to check our bags and I moved to the side with Clark in his car seat. I looked down to see how he was doing and saw green poop running down his leg. Awesome. Just so some skeptics out there know, I can handle myself in a baby poo situation. There was no bathroom in sight so I just found a spot of tile, threw down the black plastic bag Dana was going to wrap the car seat in again, tucked a blanket under his head and changed him right there on the airport floor. I'm sure the lady in the Information booth behind me was laughing her butt off. Dana came over half way through and just started laughing but at least he knelt down and helped clean out the car seat. We used a plastic bag Kristina suggested carrying (thank you thank you genius sister!) to carry the soiled pants and made our way through security. Maybe it was his tummy or that we kept pulling him in and out of the car seat or maybe it was because it was so hot and loud but Clark was MAD!! He screamed through security (which is probably why they didn't even scan most of our stuff). But once we found our gate, he settled down.

After that, Clark was a serious angel. People were blown away that we were traveling with a six day old until we told them why. He slept the whole first flight. Oh, excuse me. They slept the whole first flight. I wasn't thrilled that our seat mate was knocking back shots like they were going out of style but it turned out fine. We landed in Albuquerie. but didn't change planes so Dana fed Clark, changed him and the sleeping continued. Other babies were screaming but ours was an angel. I've never been asked if I needed extra peanuts so many times:)

Seattle was a sweet sight. We fed him again, jumped on the bus, picked up our car and wisely decided to stay the night at a hotel. Nothing fancy but that was good because we didn't sleep well. Poor Clark was worn out.

The next morning, we dressed our little slugger for the final push and headed home.