Jada Rae Taylor's birth story {7/11/14}

7/11/2014

The day began like all other 3:00 AM zombie trips to the airport to visit my family in Texas. Jessica, our birthmom, wasn't scheduled to be induced until the 18th, so our plan was to go to Texas (our friend's, Toad and Cass, were also en route to Texas, too!!), have some fun with fam and friends, and fly up to Des Moines on the 17th for Jada's birth on the 18th. As for how 2014 has gone for us, we should've known by now that things never really go as planned. ;)

We all landed in Houston around noon and ate a delish lunch at Spring Creek BBQ. We headed over to my parent's house, lounged around, and got ready to go to the Houston Astro's baseball game. As we were walking into the stadium, I get a text from Jessica saying she's having heavy contractions, and she was thinking she needed to head to the hospital soon. I was flipping out! Around inning 3, I get a call from Jessica's mom saying she's dilated to an 8! I immediately called Andrea, our birth photographer in Des Moines, and asked her to please HURRY to the hospital. It was GO TIME! 

This was our last selfie as a family of 2! Poor Matt was soo tired from traveling.

 

I quickly walked back to our seats and told everyone the news. My mom starts bawling, which makes me cry, and we decided to head home.

This is us, my mom, Toad, Cass, and Norma at the game. **I need to take a pause and say how freaking grateful I am for Norma (she's the one with the cute black hair). Norma is a flight attendant and lives with my parents in Houston. She let us purchase her buddy passes so we were able to travel at such an affordable price. Thank you so much, Norm, from the bottom of our hearts!!!**

During the drive home, Andrea kept giving me updates about Jessica's progress.
We were so bummed that we weren't able to be with Jessica during the birth, but Andrea captured some AMAZING images. This is what was happening in Des Moines while we were driving home...
















Dr. Z was amazing. He and his wife have adopted 5 children so he was so sweet towards our situation.


So much love in one picture...


We arrived at my parent's house, ate some Blue Bell, and then I get this picture in a text at 9:48 PM...

 My heart literally stopped. I quickly grabbed my phone, walked into the den, and just stared at this beautiful baby on my iPhone screen. I whispered to Matt to come here and said, "This is Jada!"

We walked back into the kitchen and I'm sure I said something along the lines of, "She's here!" (This night was kind of a big adrenaline pumping blur.) I showed my parents her picture, and we all started crying tears of happiness. Our little girl was here.

We FaceTimed Jessica around 10:30 PM, and we all got to hear Jada's cry for the first time. Poor thing was HANGRY!

The next morning, we were on the first flight out to Iowa. As we were parking at Mercy hospital, we see Jess in the parking lot! We got out of the car to give hugs, and I lost it. This amazing woman and mother was sacrificing so much for us. My heart was SO full of love for her in that moment and we just cried together in that hot parking lot. :)

 Jess headed back upstairs, we found a park, and were on our way to meet Jada. I was so NERVOUS! This was the moment we had been praying for for such a long time.

We love you so much, Jess. This was one of my favorite pictures from that day.

Later on, Jessica's three girls, Lexi, Kayla, and Aviana came up to the hospital with their grandma. They're the strongest and sweetest girls I've ever been around. It was so cool capturing the moments of them meeting Jada for the first time.

Jessica and her sweet girls.

Miss Aviana! Jada and Aviana are full sisters. Jada is seriously a clone of Aviana (just with slightly lighter hair and eyes)

Kayla holding Jada for the first time.

I spent the night at the hospital with Jessica and her daughter, Lexi. We stayed up late, talked, watched TV, and eventually dozed off with Jada by our sides. 

The next day, Jessica was released from the hospital. It was an extremely emotional day. I took some pictures of Jess and Jada before we left the hospital. I wanted to capture the love that Jessica has and will always have for her sweet baby girl. I cherish these images.

This picture sums up everything...

"The sacrifice a birthmother makes is a perfect example of what mothers do all the time: they put their children first."

We love you to the moon and back, Jess.

We are loving every minute with our sweet girl. She has been an angel baby and brings such a sweet spirit into our home. We are so thankful to our family and friends who have walked with us through this adoption journey.

If you would like to donate to our adoption fundraiser page you can by clicking here:

www.adopttogether.org/thetaylors

I'm giving away 3 free photoshoots to one lucky contributor to our adoption fundraising page! Tomorrow is the last day to enter, and you can donate $1 or $1 million (lol jk) to be entered into the giveaway. We are beyond grateful for your donations on our behalf. 

Tomorrow this little lady will be 1 month old. We love her SO MUCH!