Day Two- December 7th

Rylan has been taken off the C-Pap breathing machine, and has adjusted well. She is not off of oxygen yet, but they downgraded her machine to a small tube in her nose. It's a good thing because the C-pap has rubbed both sides of her cheeks raw. That has to be painful. She still has not eaten, and will not eat until sometime tomorrow. The NICU nurse said they'd call us when that happens so that we can do it for the first time.

Blake and I both got to hold her today. What a great feeling. She's so much more content being held. It's hard to put her down and let her go. It's so cold and noisy in NICU rooms. They have volunteers that come and make beanies and booties for babies in the NICU. Only one cap (of several to choose from) fit her fat head, and even it is snug. It's not the best color on her (salmon), but beggers can't be choosers, right? I guess fashion is low on the priority list right now. :o)

She's becoming a little irritated by noises and is very jumpy. I'm hoping this subsides soon.

Once again, I'm asking for your prayers. I'll try to give specific prayer requests each day. Today, without going into too much detail, some issues have cropped up with the adoption paperwork/relinquishment of parental rights. Between our attorney, the social worker here at the hospital, Medicaid, and our birthmother... we are spinning in circles trying to get this completed.

Our main problem is that we were told that the social worker would be able to notarize the relinquishment of Shannon's rights Tuesday morning. This is not the case. We have to find our own public notary to come into the hospital to do this for us. I called a friend from church (Brian Smith) and he has a friend that is a president of a bank in Lubbock and has a personal secretary that is a public notary (Is that a God thing, or what?). It gets better. He called me immediately and said he's be happy to help, and that he'd send his secretary over first thing in the morning. He told me he wanted to help because he, too, was adopted at birth. Amazing.

Unfortunately, Shannon is having surgery tomorrow morning at 7am, and it cannot be changed due to Medicaid reasons. The notary lady is no longer able to come because we need someone here at the hospital by 6am tomorrow morning. All that being said, we have several people helping us to look for a public notary willing to do this, but we NEED to find soemone ASAP. Please pray specifically that we can find a notary that will pull through for us in time. She is unable to sign papers after the surgery because she will be on pain medication. She has to be completely coherant to do this. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now, but I know the power of prayer.

We don't THINK Shannon will leave the hospital before the papers are signed, but you never know with her. She makes impulsive decisions that often do not make sense.

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As I am typing this e-mail, we just got a call from Brian's friend (the one who originally set up the first notary) that said, "Casey...no worries. I have a guy that I know that wakes up at 5am everyday and will be there at the front door of the hospital at 6am." Unbelieveable. God is good. He already knows our needs before we ask. The crazy thing is that Brian's friend, Mark, is not even in town. He's on vacation in California at a wine vinyard on a tour right now. He's been making all of these calls for us (complete strangers) the entire time. How do we ever thank him?

So, I guess I'll wrap up by asking for prayers for tomorrow morning that everything goes through as planned. I'll send pictures later on tonight of us holding Rylan.

Love,
Blake & Casey