It finally happened! Baby girl has officially become a Roth :) I will share details of the adoption hearing another time, but I figured the more requested post would be her name and face. So here it is. It's an enormous privilege to finally be able to introduce the little girl that stole our hearts so many months (almost two years!) ago. We'd like to introduce you to...... Ellie Joanne RothWhere did her name come from? Ellie: We have been calling her Ellie from very early on, though never on any legal or official documents. Her legal (birth) name was a long name that was difficult to spell and pronounce and let's just say, was a VERY uncommon name (re: googling it returns ZERO results). However, two of the syllables sound like Ellie so that's what we called her and it stuck. We love it because it means "light" or "God is my light" and since day 1, we have said she brought light into our lives. So it was meant to be. Joanne: This is a bit more complicated because we didn't want to even talk about a middle name until we got closer to adoption. We lived in a bit of a paralyzed state for a long time, always preparing our hearts just in case she was reunified or moved to a different home. With our kids, we are intentional about what names we choose because we want them to be meaningful. We liked the cadence of 2 syllable middle names paired with Ellie and tried to find ones we liked and agreed on. We ultimately chose Joanne for a few reasons:
Where is she from? I did a post when she came home, detailing her story here Quick recap: She was born at 27 weeks gestation in Berks County to a mom and dad who were both 17 years old. During the 2.5 months she was in the NICU, social workers tried without success to place her with family. Once the county determined that she could not and should not go home with family members, we were contacted on May 30, 2019 at 2:30 pm by our coordinator through the county to see if we would be open to fostering her. Our first question was the likelihood of adoption. At the time, the coordinator estimated she had about a 75% chance of becoming available for adoption. (Side note: I recently asked her how she estimated this and she said it was based on her 30 years of experience in the foster care world. Knowing the details about the case, she thought 75% was actually a conservative guess). Even though I was two weeks pregnant with Jacob, we quickly decided that this child was meant to be with us, however long that ended up being. I called my mom since I had Ben to take care of and the 3 of us drove up at 3:15p to go get our girl. However, I was not allowed to take her home until a series of tests were conducted (a car seat test, etc), I watched a few safety videos, and the nurses observed me giving her not one, but two feedings. Since she ate every 2 hours, we were in the hospital from 4pm until almost 9 and didn't arrive home until around 10 pm. Can we see her now?? Yes. You've waited long enough. So have we. Please enjoy a small selection of photos and videos spanning the near 2 years (!!) we've had our girl. We are so grateful for all your prayers throughout our journey. I will continue to update this blog periodically. My next post will detail the adoption hearing process and what that was like. Plus, I will likely have another post dedicated to more FAQs (will we adopt again??). But for now, enjoy our beautiful Ellie Jo and the light she shines for all to see.
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