Words are Inadequate

June 6

Thats what Nathanael and I used to say, and feel, when we first met, and were falling in love, and getting to know each other. Because sometimes words are just….inadequate.

Thats how I’ve felt every moment since Saturday night, when we found out that Brooke picked us to be the parents for her baby.

So much has happened, and it’s all so surreal. Every day something new and different and exciting happens. It started on Saturday, June 6th, when we were in Vancouver for my cousin Heather’s wedding.

My mom and Shala and Amber and Ruby had come down from the north to meet us in Vancouver for the wedding, and I was super excited to see them. It had been a long time since I had last seen them, especially Shala. We were having a lovely time hanging out, and my other cousin Nikori and her kids were with us as well. We had just come back from a walk to get ice cream, and were standing in the parking lot of our hotel just chatting away, while Nathanael was playing with the kids in the grass. He says we were having “Steel Magnolias” time, and so he went to play with the kids. I guess we would have been, with the 5 of us, and all being related. Poor Nathanael.

So at one point, Nathanael comes running over to us, on the phone with Dana, and is miming baby things to me, in a frenzy, and trying to tell me that Dana and Brooke wanted to talk to us on the phone.

Dana was in Memphis with Brooke for the weekend, to attend the Sacred Selections fundraiser. We had been thinking about them all weekend so far, and wondering how things were going, so were excited to get the call from Dana. She had told us previously that at some point, Brooke would probably want to talk to us on the phone, so I was expecting little more than a nice conversation with Brooke and Dana. But it was so much more!

We went to our hotel room, and said a prayer before we did anything. Then, we called Dana back. We talked to Brooke for a minute, and she was very shy and quiet on the phone. Mostly we talked to Dana, and she talked to us, while Brooke listened. We talked about a few things, and she told us how the fundraiser went, and who was there. Then, Dana asked us if we would be willing to come out and visit Brooke sometime in July, because she wanted to meet us and get to know us a little bit. And we said, of course! And I was thinking, “this is great news, she must really like us! I wonder if that will help her make her decision!”

And the very next thing Dana said was that Brooke had decided she wanted us to be the parents for her baby.

As soon as she started to say that sentence, I started crying, and couldn’t stop. which was unfortunate, because I was unable to offer any kind of response after Dana said that. Nathanael was pretty overcome as well, and he was struggling with a response. This is the drawback to getting such great news over the phone, I suppose.

At some point, we were able to pull ourselves together enough to continue a conversation, and Nathanael was pacing around the hotel room, while I conversed with Dana and Brooke. I honestly don’t remember much of the rest of the conversation, except Brooke wanted to know what girl names we liked. So we told her our first pick was Aurora Dawn, and we also liked Genevieve. Dana never said explicitly that Brooke was having a girl, so I asked her if she asked us what girl names we liked because Brooke was having a girl, or if she was just curious about girl names. And she said it was a girl!

I was super excited about that, I was wanting a girl, because I don’t know how I would handle a boy. That seems so foreign to me. Plus, then I get all Ruby and Kennedy’s cute clothes. So I don’t remember much about the rest of the conversation, but it went on for a little while longer. All I know is that it felt like whatever we said was completely inadequate, and was not nearly good enough to express how we were feeling at that moment. So we said goodbye, with plans to go visit Brooke sometime in July. Nathanael and I shared a moment of unhinged joy, and more tears, and then he called his parents, and got choked up again when he told them they are going to be grandparents!

After that, we walked outside, where my family was anxiously waiting for us. It was a long walk across the parking lot where they were sitting, and I could hear them speculating about what had happened. When we got close enough, Nathanael told them that Ruby is going to have a cousin!

And then….lots of hugs and tears and squeals and jumping. You can imagine. We were 5 girls, 7 if you counted Georgia and Ruby. So, we filled them in on some of the details, and we began talking about all the fun things that were going to happen now! Nikori eventually had to leave to go home, and we went into my moms hotel room, where we continued to talk about all the fun things there are to talk about with a baby girl on the way, and speculating how everything was going to work out.

I was so thankful to God and happy that I was able to tell my family in person. It was such a special moment that none of us are every going to forget. Of all the days to get such wonderful news, it was the one day that I was with them. At some point, Nathanael and I went to our own room to go to bed, and thus ended the day our lives changed forever.

More to come on the subsequent days tomorrow!