We are anxiously waiting to hear from our adoption specialist at our agency, American Adoptions, what the birthing/hospital plan will be.  We have 4.5 weeks to go until we get to meet our daughter.  Last night we had a great emotionally filled conversation with our expectant mother and it makes this whole process just so much more special knowing that she is doing great and is able to express her heart to us.

When the time comes that she's in labor we have a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us, unless I'm at work where it'll add some time.  We have a couple of friends we could stay with while we wait for our little girl to get discharged.  We are hopefully to get a hospital room with her for as long as possible, since we are expecting a NICU stay of around 2 weeks.  To be able to do skin to skin for as long as we can should reduce the amount of NICU stay she would need.

Once discharged we need to stay in Michigan until our ICPC paperwork is completed and approved in both MI and WI.  We will stay in Menominee, MI with my mom's boyfriend and we could be there for upto 10 days, especially if its around the holidays.  I am grateful that we have a place to stay and to help reduce our costs.  

Once home, we would appreciate visitors and friends that could be able to come rock our little one.  We are expecting her to be sensitive to light and stimuli so we will be spending alot of time with our sound machine and our rocking chair.  Merle will be going back to work Jan 18th and I am very grateful that he will be able to spend atleast the first month with us.  I am expecting to take 12 weeks off, however if baby girl is doing well I would like to go back to work in 10 weeks and we have a plan to fill in those 2 weeks with family/friends to help take care of her