She is here!!!!

Sloane Parker Cawood entered into this world on 12/29/09 at 11:42am. She weighs 7 pounds 15 oz and is 19 3/4 inches long. She is perfect in every way. She has some dark, wavy hair and eye brows already!!! I think she has eyes but she has yet to show them to me :)

Birthday story:

We picked up the BP's (birth parents) at 8:30 am and all headed to the hospital. When we arrived the hospital told us that they had tried to call (no messages on any of our phones) to have us come in early for the c-section. The nurse said they would be rushing us right on through and would be getting the c-section done early. YAY! Her original one was scheduled at 11:00am. So by 10:45 I am a nervous wreck thinking that they should have already been done by now and where is my Sloane?!?! About 10:50 the birth father texted me and said they were scheduled still at 11am and that he would wheel Sloane out the second she was born!!! There were two other families in the waiting room. One had a section at 8 and one at 9. Both were out exactly 45 minutes later. We kept waiting on the clock to hit 11:45. It did, and then it hit 12, then 12:15, then 12:30. At this point Drew and I are about to loose it. He stops one nurse who says she will find out what is going on and then let us know...she never came back. Nice! Then Drew knocks on the door to the recovery room and asks another nurse. She says, " oh they just wheeled them back!". Seriously?!?! I have been sweating, almost throwing up at this point and you just wheeled her back. Not 5 minutes later they came and got us and let us go into the recovery room. Whooo! They normally only let one person but they let Drew and I both back. We held Sloane, I fed her, we took 999 pictures. It was wonderful. The room was 78 degrees and we were all ready to get out but they were slow moving beds....ugh. So we waited and waited (which was fine b/c I just kept holding my baby girl). Finally we got up to the room and all visited. We left about 5:30 and are getting ready to head back. I hated not having her home with us but they said they will release her on Friday. We are hoping with some nice talking she will get to come ring in the new year with us at home. We shall see....

I said I wasn't posting pics but here she is. We love her sooo much. Thanks to everyone for all your prayers. They mean the world to us. I will post more pics once we are "official". :)

On the eve before we become parents...

1 IUI, 2 IVF treatments, 2 miscarriages, and at the end of it all we are going to be parents tomorrow!!!! I cannot believe it! We haven't talked a lot about our struggles on this blog but many of you that read it or know me IRL know how difficult our journey has been to become parents. I was adopted myself, my brother was adopted, and I have 4 cousins that were adopted. I guess it just runs in our family... :) I feel so blessed to share the experience with my daughter. How cool! I wanted to take a quick minute to thank all my friends and family who have been soooo supportive during this long roller coaster. It has truly meant the world to us. I feel so blessed to bring Sloane into a life with so many wonderful people we call family and friends. I also want to thank Drew b/c he has been my rock. He is the one that looked at me one evening and said we don't need to keep doing this to ourselves can we please just adopt. I kept saying to him... I was adopted and I want my "own" child. He looked at me somewhat cross eyed and said ... wake up this will be "your child". I said, "but he or she wont look like us." He then proceed to say..have you met your family, you look just like them. God placed you in the perfect home and he will place our son or daughter in the perfect home. I guess he couldn't have been more correct. I love you Drew so much and thank you for being the most amazing husband. You are the best husband to me, best daddy to Tyrone and Jackson, and will be the best, best father to Sloane. I LOVE YOU!!!

Tomorrow at 11am is the c-section. Please say a prayer for us. I will not post pictures until they sign the paperwork which should be 24-48 hours after she is born.

WHOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

New date!

Well they changed the c-section date on us! The doctors felt better doing an amnio to make sure Sloane's lungs were fully formed. Amnio is 12/28 and if all is perfect c-section is 12/29 at 11am!!! Please say a lot of prayers for us. I am starting to become very nervous now. Please pray that the birth mother signs the papers and that we bring home our bundle of joy sometime before January 1! Please also pray for the birth mom and birth father as we know this will be incredibly hard on them. We are soooo excited!

Baby Shower #3

My great friends Whitney Miller and Laura Slyman Piers through me an amazing baby shower a couple of Saturdays ago. All of my high school girlfriends (minus Shannon who was home with her newborn) were there! Many of them drove and flew long distances to be there... I have such wonderful friends! Lots of my mom's friends and some of my aunts were there as well. My step mom, step sister Amy, and nieces made it too! Wow I feel so lucky to have so many people that care about me. I truly had the best time and came home with TONS of gifts. Now I just need the baby girl to go with them!

The hostesses Laura and Whitney

The most amazing cake that Whitney's sister Lindsey made. She has 4 kids and whipped up this! I couldn't believe it!

The soon to be Gram and I

The food table was so beautiful and the food was amazing! Laura did a Paula Dean brunch.

Diapers and notes the ladies could write to me...

Betsy and Ashley writing notes to me.

I got so many amazing presents. This moses basket from Whit and her mom

Creative idea woman Laura gave me these adorable onsies. Sloane will get her picture taken in them each month to show how much she has grown. I loved this idea!

Martha Stewart aka Jennie Councill MADE these blocks for me. She also made Sloane two adorable dresses. Jennie has two kids at home and has time to be Martha??? I don't know how she does it! I LOVE these blocks and they are already set up in the nursery.

I love this picture of Besty and Rena. I asked Rena to write down all the gifts b/c she knew most everyone there. Well Rena has no kids and had no clue what any of the gifts were. Betsy had to tell her everything and then finally took over the job herself. ha!

Whitney and all of the girls in her family came to the shower. So sweet! Lindsey the cake maker is in red on the left.

My mom and her best friends....

Ashley, Ann (Shannon's Mom) and me!

Nena, Sara, Maggie, and Amy. Maggie was our flower girl in our wedding...she is so big now!

All the ladies.. I love these girls!!!!

Been friends forever!!!

Mimosas of course!

And this baby carriage?!?! Seriously adorable!

Thanks to everyone that came! It meant the world to me!

Its Christmas in the Cawood house...

I have a love/hate relationship when it comes to decorating for Christmas. I LOVE, LOVE it when all my decorations are up (the Saturday of Thanksgiving...tradition) but I HATE the job of putting them up. This year I didn't have the help of my Mom b/c we spent Thanksgiving in Atlanta. When we got home Friday, I had Drew and his dad help me get everything down from the attic. They went to the Clemson vs Carolina game on Saturday and I turned up the tunes and started decorating. Not only did I decorate, I cleaned every once of dirt that was in sight while I was decorating. It was exhausting but I was so happy to show Drew and Nick once they got home! I cannot wait for Sloane to help me in the years to come...

still need a stocking for Sloane....

our mini tree. Yep we did it again. Drew said we needed larger than 7 feet and I said no way. Yep, here you have our mini tree b/c I didnt listen to my husband. 1/2 of my ornaments didn't go up this year b/c the darn thing is sooo small!