For those we haven't spoken to....here's the latest news:

The last two days we've been hanging at the hospital. There is a small waiting room, and I mean small, in the nursery. We have wristbands that allow us to come and go in the nursery and take Sierra to the room at anytime we want. So we basically have been holding, feeding, and changing her during the day. We slip away for lunch and dinner. Then at night we do a later feeding 10 or 11pm and then put her down, hand her off to the nurses, and head to the hotel for some sleep. We'll take advantage of the wonderful nurses here while we can.

As far as the adoption goes, we ran into some more trouble today with the birth mom wanting more money. Again, we had that sick feeling that money was going to get in the way, but our social worker came to the rescue and worked things out. It didn't go as we would have planned, but we've learned our lesson many times over on "plans."

If all goes well, Sierra's birth mom, Jodi, will be discharged from the hospital Friday evening or Saturday morning. As soon as she steps foot outside the hospital the adoption agency will get her to sign the baby over to them. At that point we will be able to take the baby home. Well, home for now will be the hotel in Vegas. But only until we get the paperwork done to take her back to Texas. Although we'll have Sierra and be taking care of her, the agency will have legal custody for 6 months (Nevada law). And after the 6 months and us jumping through some more hoops, we'll go to court and a judge will make her officially ours. But that's a ways off. For now, the next big step though is getting the mom discharged (so Sierra can be) and getting the mom to sign the paperwork.

Until then, as it's always been, we wait.

But at least we get to hold our beautiful baby girl in the meantime. Not a bad gig.

Thanks for all your prayers and thoughtful encouragement. It has been such a blessing to us and Sierra.