To Zion

The following us a song written by Lauran Hill. I used to listen to this song when I was younger and am just now coming to the realization about what it means. How perfect that our little one shares this name! Enjoy! Click on the link below to listen to this song.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktgHNJ4RmIY

Oh how we have waited to not get any sleep! Days 1-6

So I think you can be told over and over and over again what it will be like to have a newborn. But none of that will sink in until it happens to you! After we left the agency and started to drive back to the hotel it started to sink in the we had been given the much anticipated opportunity to be PARENTS! Over the last 6 days we have experienced all the firsts.... First feeding, diaper change, change of clothes, being puked on, peed on, and first middle of the night feeding. I had no idea all of these things would EVER happen for us and we have enjoyed every single one.
I forgot to mention in the previous posting about Abigail's stats... She was born February 14, 2011 at 8:42pm. Thats right this Hart baby was born on the national day of love! She weighed 7lbs 4oz and was 19 inches long. Her APGAR scores 8 and 9. We found out at our first peds visits that she was a preemie at only 34.6 weeks gestational age! She spent no time in the NICU and was given a clean bill of health from the Doctor and clearance to fly home to Idaho.
We got good news this morning our interstate compact ICPC was cleared!!!! This means that we are allowed to take her out of Texas home! This is huge for us and was so exciting to us. We have been anticipating our travel home all week and are so excited to get her home to meet our families and friends that are so anxious to welcome her. She has no idea yet how much love is awaiting her.
She is just a miracle! We are so thankful to have been given the opportunity to be parents and will NEVER take that gift for granted! We will be traveling home Saturday and Sunday with a small lay over in Seattle Saturday night (Grandma List is SUPER excited about this!).
I would just like to take a moment to say  a big THANK YOU for all the support we have been given. It has been really hard to be away from home at such a time as this. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. We never thought this time of life would come and I think we forgot that our infertility and adoption process affected not only us but so many others. It brings tears to my eyes to think of everything we have been through to get to this point. Thank you thank you thank you for your love and support. We couldn't have ever gotten through it without.

Our daughter is so much more amazing then we could have ever imagined. She is just BREATH TAKING. Thank you Lord for this amazing gift. We promise to treat her with love and respect and NEVER NEVER take her for granted.  Here are some more pictures of the last week!

Praise the Lord Abigail Zion Hart finally has arrived!

Our many years of prayers have finally been answered! Over the last month a lot has happened for us. We got a call from our agency February 3rd, 2011 about an adoption agency in Texas that was in high need of adoptive parent. So our profile was overnighted to Texas. One week went by and we didn't hear anything. Then we got another call on February 11, 2011  about a baby in New Orleans that needed adoptive parents. We had our profile Fed'ex overnight to and were told that our profile would be looked at the following Monday February 14, 2011 by that baby. We were told that we would hear if we got picked that day for the following day. We didn't hear anything and became very discouraged! We got an email from our adoption coordinator February 16, 2011 that we did not get picked for that baby. Needless to say we both felt sad and frustrated because we were so hopefully. 

Thinking all hope was lost we returned our daily activities. On February 17, 2011 I (Katie) was on my way to a doctors appointment and received a call from our adoption coordinator. She said "Katie are you sitting down, I have some information for you?" {I at this point really didn't think anything of this call just thought she was calling to process with me about not being picked for the other baby} I said, " Yes whats up?" 

Lori: "I am calling to let you know that I received a call about a birth mother in Texas that has picked you and Brent for a little girl!" 

Katie: " WHAT???? ARE YOU SERIOUS???"

Lori: " I am serious. Are you interested?"

Katie: " Oh my God yes!!!!"

Lori: " Call Brent and then come and meet me over at the office so we can sign some placement paperwork"

Katie: " Okay. Oh MY GOD!!!! Thank you so much!!!!"

At this point I am balling! I hung up with Lori and called Brent right away

Brent: "Hello"

Katie: "Are you sitting down because we have a daughter!"

Brent: " Really??? WHAT!?!"

Katie: " Yes really, she is in Texas and we need to go get her. I need you to leave work and come meet Lori and I at the agency to sign papers".

Brent: " OH MY GOD! Okay I am on my way."

So we went over to the agency and met with Lori. We found out some information about this little girl and about her birth mother. After this meeting, still reeling from our great news, we went home and started making preparation to leave town to go pick her up. We got lucky and were able to get a flight from Boise to Houston with only one stop for Friday February 18, 2011. At this point we were asked to come up with a name... Okay... In a matter of 2 hours... WOW! We had been told that the birth mother had named her Zion Angela. We had planned on asking our child's birth mother to help us give our child a middle name. We LOVED the name Zion and decided to give her that as a middle name. Zion means The Holy Land or Heaven. When then decided on Abigail after many phone calls to Lori and much discussion. Abigail means Father's Joy. We found this out from my mom. Thanks Grandma List. So her name is Abigail Zion Hart. We hoped this would fit her well and anxiously anticipated our flight the next morning. 

 The photo above is when we got to the airport in Boise at 5:30AM ( thanks to Mom and Dad Hart for taking us to the airport.)

With very little sleep from being SO we flew from Boise to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Houston and arrived in Houston at 2:00PM. We had been told that we would not be able to pick our baby up until 4:30PM.  So we had time to find out hotel and then go get a car seat. At this point I should say NEVER and I repeat NEVER trust a GPS that is not updated. We drove about 30 minutes out of town to a Babies R Us... Needless to say when we arrived at said store the store was no longer there... OH BOY! We then turned around and looked it up on our phones. Turns out there is a Babies R Us literally right behind our hotel... So we drove the 30 minutes back and by this time we were running late to pick our daughter up. We finally got the car seat and made it to the agency. 

As we walked in the agency door there were three children playing and one said, "Oh there here there here! Come see your baby!" At this point it became very real what was about to happen. Denise (our coordinator in Texas) took us back to the "placement room" and said "Okay give me your camera and I will bring her in." We got the camera ready and handed it over and here is what happened:

This was so amazing. I am not sure I can put into words how amazing this was. They brought her in and then put her in our arms and said here is your daughter. WOW! We have waited over five years for this moment and it could not have been more perfect or amazing. 

Please help us in welcoming Abigail Zion Hart to our family and to her new life with us.