Today was a really wonderful, fantastic, super fabulous, terrific, marvelous, glorious, awesome (and all the other good superlatives) day. 😁
It was on this day, October 7, 2019, that we finalized the adoption of our youngest daughter, Eliana AriaGrace Tant. This has been a day years in the making and it was such a beautiful, perfect day surrounded by our family and friends. We want to share not only our happy ending with everyone, but we also our daughter's story.
Our daughter was born on December 12, 2018 and she was 7 weeks premature. She spent a total of 100 days in the NICU and had two surgeries while there. Our daughter was born with Down syndrome, a stomach and intestines that were not connected, and two heart defects. It was evident early on that our baby girl was a fighter and a heart breaker. Every nurse, doctor, therapists etc we met during our hospital stays (and anyone who meets her in passing) can't help but love her.
On February 16th, 2019, we received the call that forever changed our lives for the better. We have shared in other posts the story of the day of that call and the days that followed. On February 20th, just 4 days after that call, we were able to meet and hold our daughter for the very first time.
We were smitten and in love from the first moments. I remember crying tears of joy the first time my daughter was placed in my arms and whispering to her how thankful we were for her and how we had been praying for her for so long. It was such a surreal moment to go from having no idea our daughter even existed to holding her in our arms and knowing that she was going to be ours forever.
For the next month Aaron and I made the 90 minute one way trip to the hospital to visit our daughter as much as possible. I was going 2-3 times a week, trying to spend at least one night a week at the hospital with her, and Aaron would make the trip usually once every week. It was a very difficult season - I just wanted to be me with my daughter all the time and it became more and more difficult each time to leave her in the hospital. It was hard being away from the big kids so much and it was hard for the big kids because they were not allowed in the NICU.
Then in mid March, we got the news we had been longing to hear, our baby girl was being released from the NICU. March 20, 2019 was such a great day because when we left the hospital, our baby girl came home with us.
It was on this day, October 7, 2019, that we finalized the adoption of our youngest daughter, Eliana AriaGrace Tant. This has been a day years in the making and it was such a beautiful, perfect day surrounded by our family and friends. We want to share not only our happy ending with everyone, but we also our daughter's story.
Our daughter was born on December 12, 2018 and she was 7 weeks premature. She spent a total of 100 days in the NICU and had two surgeries while there. Our daughter was born with Down syndrome, a stomach and intestines that were not connected, and two heart defects. It was evident early on that our baby girl was a fighter and a heart breaker. Every nurse, doctor, therapists etc we met during our hospital stays (and anyone who meets her in passing) can't help but love her.
On February 16th, 2019, we received the call that forever changed our lives for the better. We have shared in other posts the story of the day of that call and the days that followed. On February 20th, just 4 days after that call, we were able to meet and hold our daughter for the very first time.
We were smitten and in love from the first moments. I remember crying tears of joy the first time my daughter was placed in my arms and whispering to her how thankful we were for her and how we had been praying for her for so long. It was such a surreal moment to go from having no idea our daughter even existed to holding her in our arms and knowing that she was going to be ours forever.
For the next month Aaron and I made the 90 minute one way trip to the hospital to visit our daughter as much as possible. I was going 2-3 times a week, trying to spend at least one night a week at the hospital with her, and Aaron would make the trip usually once every week. It was a very difficult season - I just wanted to be me with my daughter all the time and it became more and more difficult each time to leave her in the hospital. It was hard being away from the big kids so much and it was hard for the big kids because they were not allowed in the NICU.
Then in mid March, we got the news we had been longing to hear, our baby girl was being released from the NICU. March 20, 2019 was such a great day because when we left the hospital, our baby girl came home with us.
It was so beautiful to see our big kids meet their baby sister for the first time. Like us, they were immediately in love with this bundle of joy. Our big kids have stepped into their roles as big brother and big sister with complete abandon. They fight over who gets to hold her and who will sit beside her in the car.
Our baby girl has not had the easiest journey. Three weeks after we came home from the NICU, we spent 23 days in the PICU because of complications of her chronic lung disease and pulmonary hypertension. This hospital stay was very difficult and it was several days before we fully understood the severity of her condition and why we had to be hospitalized. During this stay, we made the decision to put in a feeding tube to help protect her lungs as much as possible. We also made the decision to increase the amount of oxygen she is on at home. These steps, along with medications, have made a tremendous difference in our baby girl's quality of life.
Today, we get to formally introduce the world to our daughter, Eliana AriaGrace Tant and we are just so happy.
The name Eliana means "God has answered my prayers" - we chose this name because we have spent the last 4+ years praying for this beautiful baby and God in his perfect timing has answered our prayers. We chose the middle name AriaGrace for two reasons. Our daughter's birth name was Aria and we wanted to honor her birth family by maintaining a part of the name given to her by her birth parents. I also knew that I wanted Grace to be a part of her name because we have been shown much grace throughout this journey.
We have people tell us all the time how blessed Eliana is to have us as her family, and every time I respond, "no, we are the ones who are blessed to have Eliana in our lives." It is impossible to spend any amount of time with Eliana and not feel better and happy. In our family, when someone is having a bad day, we say, "go hold the baby and you'll feel better." Aaron says that Eliana is like the balm to our souls.
Today our family got our happy ending and we are so excited for our forever.
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