Monday, September 5, 2011 - Labor Day
Matt had the day off work so he went golfing early that morning with Ryan Breurton, Ryan Keddington, and Wayne Parent....some of our very best friends....so it was appropriate that they were all there when I called him to tell him about the email I had received from Paul, the Attorney. I was actually glad that they were with Matt so that they were able to share in the excitement and craziness with him when he got the phone call....and then they were able to go home and tell their wives and start spreading the word for us.
I was supposed to go to Girl's Night out with the wives of those guys that night, along with several other girlfriends as well. We had all planned to go see the movie, "The Help" that night and go to dinner beforehand. Needless to say....I didn't make it. :)
Like I mentioned above, Matt had gotten up early that morning and had gone golfing with the guys....which was crazy, since they had all been up late the night before playing games for Boy's Night. I was able to sleep in a little and then had planned to spend my morning checking for work during my ER/OP shift that I work on Monday mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I expected work to be quite a bit slower than normal because it was a VA Holiday, which meant that most of the doctors would be off and wouldn't be sending in work. I was planning to spend the rest of my day with Matt, trying to finish getting ready for Matai.
I got up that morning and turned on my laptop to begin checking for work. As usual, I checked the Yahoo email account that we have set up specifically for adoption purposes, which is what we were using to communicate with Paul, the Attorney. I always checked the account every morning to see if we had gotten any more word from Paul....and I discovered that we had. When I saw that I had an email from him, my heart immediately leapt into my throat and I began to feel excited and wondered if it might be time. I opened the email and read a couple of things he had emailed us about. The first one, though, is what made my heart almost stop and then made me immediately go into crazy busy and excited mode:
"I just confirmed that, apparently, Danalyn's doctor wants to induce her on Wednesday. If this is accurate (and I don't see why it wouldn't be), then you will need to get out there sooner than later."
I actually re-read that sentence several times, trying to get it to sink in....and then I started to go into panic mode and my mind was reeling, thinking of everything that needed to be done RIGHT NOW!
Here's what I posted on Facebook shortly after at 9:02 a.m.:
Looks like we're flying to Arkansas either tonight or tomorrow!!!!
Then again at 9:34 a.m.:
Feeling a little bit in panic mode right now....could flying as early as the afternoon!!
Immediately after that, I called Matt and told him about the email. Obviously, he then got super excited and his mind started racing a mile a minute as well. He planned to finish golfing with the guys since they were almost done anyway, and then he was going to hurry right home.
After I hung up with Matt, my first thought went to how soon we could get on a flight out of Salt Lake...whether it would be that afternoon or the next afternoon. We had previously arranged with our good friend, Rachael Singleton (she worked for Sky West at the time), to use a couple of her Buddy Passes and fly standby, since it would save us a TON of money and would allow us to have the flexibility to fly whenever we needed to and change dates, etc, without any extra charge, should we need to. I'm so grateful that we did so because at that point we had planned to fly out that Saturday and suddenly we were changing out flight arrangements to fly out a few days earlier.
I sent Rachael a text message on my cell phone and asked her what the options were for us to fly out either that afternoon or the next, and I explained to her why. She was SUPER EXCITED and immediately began working on making the changes for us. As it turned out, she got us booked on the flight out that afternoon at 1:45 p.m.
By that time, it was about 10:00 a.m. and we had little time to work with. I wasn't quite sure yet at that point exactly when Matt would be home so I grabbed a suitcase for Matai and just started throwing everything in it that I thought we might need/want after he was born. As soon as I had his suitcase all packed, I then grabbed a suitcase for me and started throwing everything in it. (I hadn't even had time to shower and get dressed yet.)
It was about this time that Matt got home and I told him we were flying out that afternoon at 1:45 p.m. I told him I already had Matai packed and ready, and was working on my suitcase. I had a suitcase set out for him as well and told him to start packing! Ryan Keddington had brought Matt home and was super excited for us, wanting to know if there was anything he could do to help. He wanted to know if he could help with the dogs or anything.
I forgot to mention that right after I talked with Rachael and got us all booked on the flight out that afternoon, I then began to panic about what to do with the dogs. Originally, we had made arrangements to take them down to the Fordham's in Spanish Fork and they were going to watch them. However, at that point, there just wasn't enough time to make the drive down there and back since it would have take us a good 2 hours to do so. Our next door neighbor, DeAnna, had previously offered to watch Trixie and Bailey, but I had told her that we had it already worked out at the time. At this point, though, I immediately thought of her and sent her a text to see if she was home. Thankfully, she was and she came over. I told her everything she needed to know about taking care of the dogs while we were gone and gave her a key, feeling so grateful to have that taken care of!
Anyway, Ryan Keddington gave both Matt and I hugs and wished us luck as he left and went home. Matt and I finished packing our suitcases, changed our clothes, and headed out the door. (I even managed to do something quickly with my hair and put on a little makeup.)
At 11:22 a.m., I posted this on Facebook:
Headed to the airport now!
We drove over to Matt's Mom's house and parked the Avalanche there for them to keep an eye on while we were gone. Carolyn and Julie, Matt's oldest sister, drove us to the airport.
Once at the airport, we said goodbye and got ourselves all checked in without any problems.
At 12:49 p.m., I posted this on Facebook:
All checked in...have been in contact w/the attorney & his contact person to let them know we are on our way...seated @ the gate & waiting for seat assignments.
We were able to get seat assignments on the plane without any problem.
At 1:25 p.m., I posted this:
We are on the plane!!
Then at 3:46 p.m., I posted this:
We've landed in Tulsa!
The flight to Tulsa, Oklahoma went really well and it was kind of fun telling people where we were going and why. The stewardess on that flight was super sweet and spent the whole time that she wasn't busy doing her job on the plane talking to us about the adoption. She was LDS, too, and was very excited for us! :)
The reason we flew to Tulsa was because it was much cheaper and because that was the closest airport that Sky West flew into at the time. Once in Tulsa, it took us about an hour to finally get our luggage. We had to wait FOREVER!! As the luggage finally started coming in, people around us began to notice that we had a car seat and a stroller with us, but they couldn't see a baby. It was funny to watch some of the expressions as they were trying to figure out what the heck was going on. And then it was fun to explain that the baby wasn't born yet, that we were adopting, and that we were flying to get him. Once we finally got our luggage, we then headed over to get our rental car. Matt had piled our backpacks and my laptop bag up on top of the stroller and, again, it was quite entertaining to watch other people's expressions as they watched us walk to the rental car counter. We even had a couple of people ask where the baby was and Matt, being funny, told them he was in the stroller and that he had just piled everything on top of him. Then we quickly corrected them and explained our story again. It was quite comical! :)
We were able to get our rental car (which we barely fit the 3 suitcases, the car seat, and the stroller in) and then at 5:01 p.m., I posted this:
On the road....headed to Arkansas!
We were staying on Centerton, Arkansas....which is about 2 hours from the Tulsa airport.
My last post for the day was at 7:31 p.m.:
We have arrived @ our destination!
And this is where I have to sign off and go get ready for church.....more tomorrow! :)
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