KZ is still less than 24 hours old!

This morning, I woke up in a bedroom next to Chrissie's. I went straight to the nursery where tiny KZ was sleeping. I learned that she passed her hearing test! It was (and is) hard to really start realizing that Kathleen was most probably going to be our little baby. I walked in to visit Chrissie too, and she seemed well. We shared feeding the baby. Afterwhich, the pediatrician came in and gave her a healthy report and stated that she just needed plenty of nutrition.

Then, Chrissie recieved the call i had been so concerned about;our attorney called her- it was about 930am. I left the room; feeling uncomfortable; but she stayed strong. She sounded open and resolved. He apparently told her he was coming over in less than an hour if she felt she was ready. She said she was and legitimately sounded so.

A social worker came in to talk to her and then reported that she was feeling strong in her decision and although recognizing it would be hard; felt it was right. I was so pleased that the hospital provided her with a social worker.

About an hour later, her attorney arrived and asked the nurses' station for a notary; which they provided quickly! He went into her room and shortly came out he asked us to sign, as well. We felt a sense of urgency to go to the court house since we wanted to get the filing done and the judge's docket was clear after 11:30am. It was tough to leave the maternity wing, i wanted to see Chrissie; but it was evidently not a good time to knock on her door.

We made it to the Court house with the Super star Mary Rose!

The filing for custody and requesting the ICPC (permission to leave the state of Kansas) as well as giving our formal statements all took about 1.5 hrs. Our brief statements were all recorded and will be presented on our finalisation Day which will be Sept 17th. Having done our statements then possibly prevents us from having to return to Kansas on the 17th. We shall see.

It was so smooth I think we were all amazed. From the court house, I texted Chrissy a msg, "thinking of you", and she responded, "thank you, you can come in now". When we returned to the hospital, we brought a small gift and i was so overjoyed to see her sitting up looking quite alert and happy to see us. Chrissy and I had a private chat and I think we both felt alot better. Somehow the documents and the legal language really created the feeling of the finality of it all. I understood her completely; having myself just made formal statements in front of the Judge. I was never more happy to know it was going to be an and ever-changing open relationship.

Our main goal tonight is to keep baby Kathleen eating enough- every two hours and we hope to see her weight increase exponetially! ;-)

Hope the pictures are fun for you to see; wish you were here...We may even be able to leave by Friday or Monday!

Love jocelyn

P.S. off to the hospital to stay over tonight again- if all goes well; she will be released tomorrow at 730pm our time!

Chrissie signed the placement papers; Our day in Court!

Here's Chrissie's pregnant friend, Private First Class Jessica Graves, who was a great help during the labor. Also Te was skipping about all day.

It's a Girl, Kathleen Zara Rock

This is Matt, substituting for Jocelyn. After labor and delivery, she is exhausted. Actually, she is spending the night at the hospital with Kathleen. Wow, what a day. I will just give you the basics and let Jocelyn fill you in on the rest tomorrow. Kathleen was born at 8:36 PM EST. She weighs in at 5 lbs, 2.5 ozs. SHE IS TINY. 19.5 inches long, but I measured her before I left the hospital and I think she grew an inch. She and Chrissy are healthy and both doing well. Jocie actually fed her her first bottle about 1 hour after she was born. That was FUN. I am going to try to attach a few photos. We CANNOT wait to get home with her. We will keep you all posted with the timeline as things progress. Thanks for all your prayers and support. I am heading back to the hospital after a quick shower and change.

Chrissy JUST CALLED; she's going to the hospital!! 930am here!!

Mary Rose was right; she said she would go into labor last night or this morning! And here we are, this morning; Chrissie calls and says, "I have good news!!!" Kathleen Zara is almost here!
10 minutes apart, Matt's in the shower and then we are off to the St John Hospital in Leavenworth!
Matt said to Chrissy on the phone, "thanks for waiting for me!" Since he just arrived yesterday! She sounded very positive and perfectly excited. She said she is not going to tell her mom yet, unless she is told at the hospital that they are sure this is it! (her mom is at work on the base- so we can always go get her and bring her)
I asked if she wanted anything; and she said, " just the ice cubes from Sonic". (a fast food place here.)
We are packing up some items and we called the lawyers office! Monday morning at 930am; how polite!
I feel verrry nervous and anxious -- or maybe just scared to death!! LOL ;-)
we'll try and be in touch , matt's cel is 202-361-8251 in case mine is unavail.
love jocelyn

one shot from the water park!

"Oceans of Fun" with Te and Mary Rose!

And another shot from the Go -Kart Speedway

we just had to stop and witness!

Here's Mary Rose and our HUUUGe minivan at Chrissie's home on Ft Leavenworth Base

Day 6! We picked Matt up at Kansas City Inter'l Airport!

Matt arrived and we picked him up this morning! It was quite the wake-up call to see him standing at the front of the terminal with a baby stroller and car seat!

We drove him though the scenic route downtown back to the hotel. We stopped for lunch at an Irish Pub and sat on the roof. The area of town we were in is called the Country Club Plaza shopping area; very pretty with spanish tile rooftops. Here are some pics of us and some yesterday from taking Chrissy and her mom and son out to TREX! love jocelyn

Day 5, Matt arrives tomorrow! No baby yet!

Dear all;
Tonight we had a great evening with Chrissie and her mom and Te. Mary Rose and i took everyone out to the famous "T-Rex" Dinosaur Restaurant for Dinner. Its the kinda place that has Meteor showers every 20 minutes with roaring dinosaurs and mammoth sized octopus hanging over our heads. Mary Rose and Te even did a little digging for dinosaurs in the archeological pit (or Paleo Dig). Basically a sand pit with cement bones covered with sand. The kids get brushes to "delicately sweep off the sand and expose dinosaur bones/fossils! He came back and announced that he wanted to be a paleontologist..sp?? no clue on that one.
Chrissie seemed fine and she was talking alot about after the baby and her upcoming roadtrip, and other things she was looking forward to. She was very HOT and we took her home right after dinner so she could rest.
On OUR way home, we passed a Speedway full of "Go Karts", decided why not pull in and be a LOCAL!!sadly we had no way to tailgate! yea baby! We watched a few races and some good wipes-outs. Matt lands tomorrow and he is all excited! It'll be nice to have him here and makes everything seem so much more real. Love jocelyn and Mary Rose!

Day 4, No KZ yet in KC!

Dear All,
it was a relaxing day; just mary rose and moi! We swam in the mini pool here and then went into the city and even visited the "Hallmark Museum"- yes, as in greeting cards- of all things. We topped the day off with a "screen on the green" movie in Downtown KC "indiana jones and the last crusade". At 5pm, we used our hotel towel to hold our grassy spot until the start time of 9pm! (and we were not the first ones with "blankets" laid out.) What a great city and no rush hours as far as i can see!
We chatted with Christina, and she was pleased we did some sightseeing; particularly for Mary's sake. We will be on post tomorrow and see how she is!!! Perhaps she'll agree to let us take her and Te out to dinner at the T-REX dinosaur Restaurant! I love the summer!
love jocelyn and Mary Rose.

3rd DAY AWAITING...

Today was Chrissie's doctor's appointment. Mary Rose and I drove her there accompagnied by her son Te. We sat in the waiting room, and when she came out, she was excited to tell us that her doctor had touched the BABY's head. She is dialated 1-2 right now; so really she is progressing beautifully. She was also pleased today, because since we were there with a car; we drove her around and helped her do errands. She was very happy to get approved for a new loan for a 97 honda she was buying, so i was of course pleased for her. Then we "celebrated" & i treated us to a trip to the nail shop for pedicures.
Chrissie became really down just before she left when she had some trouble with her banking. But she managed to perk up enough and invited Mary Rose and I stay for dinner. We felt we shoud accept even though she was evidently still depressed. We made Mac and Cheese, Fish sticks, mashed potatoes and green beans. Although, she seemed worn out by the end of the day, she hung in there. We left by 7pm.
Mary Rose and i decided to drive back by way of DOWNTOWN KANSAS. That was really a different scene: busy city and tall buildings--it awakened our senses after being in such a small town atmosphere for the past 3 days. We discovered a revolving restaurant on top of the Hyatt; and shared a chocolate treat. We rotated about a quarter turn from north to west! What a view and a different perspective on the Kansas we've seen so far.
ONE last small story! AFTER Chrissy's appt today; we went for lunch to a restaurant called "CHINA BUFFET" Choice name- as that was pretty much all it was! (except they had in the dessert aisle some sort of vanilla pudding with vanilla wafers sticking out of it, almost like a tiramisu thing? pretty sure that was NOT a chinese dessert!!) LOL Anyway...i digress.. As we get seated in our booth next to many rows of buffet tables, I hear someone say; "Jocelyn! give me a hug!"
WHAAATTT? I turn around; i was so confused; hearing my name in the middle of some tiny town just off the Ft Leavenworth Base. Basically, he turned out to be a X-coworker, concierge; Fouad from Morrocco! We worked together in 1990-94 in Washington DC. Since he speaks Arabic, French and English; he was hired by the army and taking classes At the Ft Leavenworth base with a Morroccan Doctor friend of his! What a shock! We chatted and spoke a bit of Arabic and French just to freak out the nosey people in other booths staring! I think Mary Rose and Chrissie were even more suprised than I. Fouad was very sweet and told Chrissie how wonderful I was and wished us much success and best wishes to all of us at the table.
It was quite a moment!
Love to all!!! jocie 1130pm July 26th (Cooey's bday still!)

2nd DAY in Kansas! Had a fun day with Chrissie's son, Devonte!

Dear Friends and Family,
Mary Rose and i are here in Kansas; its only our 2nd day but we feel like locals already! We've been on Base at Fort Leavenworth several times now having to be subjected through a strip search (of our rental car- not us!!) The Military Police check under the car with a mirror (just like at the embassy in Cairo) and make us all get out and even ask us to pop the hood so they can look into the engine! Today we entered the base at 730am! We took Chrissie and her Mom to their perspective jobs, then invited Te to the Water park with us. What a scene! The good news is that we did NOT lose her little boy there; and he seemed to have great fun! I will upload pics when Matt arrives here with the photo cord. Mary Rose has been so much fun to hang with; we have been on a big food shopping expedition and bought tons of icecreams.. jsut kidding; well.. maybe not.
Last night ABC Dateline did a fascinating "expo" on follwoing birthmothers and adoptive parents though the process. It was heart wrenching to watch the birthmothers place their babies; but ultimately, everything seemed to be the best for baby! ;-) The documentary said that one third of birthmothers will not follow through on their adoption plan...Not sure it was a great thing to watch LOL..but we are cautiously optimistic and just happy to be here for now! Miss you guys! More to come! Love jocelyn

Pre-Registering at the hospital.

Tomorrow, We (Mary -matt's younger sister & I) will be driving Chrissy (our birthmother) to St John's hospital in Leavenworth Kansas so she can pre- register. The doctor has told her that he may even induce her on the 26th or by her following appointment on August 2nd. We shall see! We are at the Homewood Suites in Overland Park, Kansas the number there is 913-341-5576; just in case!

We hope to go to "Oceans of Fun" and take her mom and Devonte Chrissy's 9 year old son with us to have some fun at the water park on the 25th!

Here is a picture of her and Zachary- our birth father and her son, Devonte! It's all getting very close, and yet not really real! love jocelyn

July 18th! A few days only Until Kathleen Zara Rock arrives!

Here is matt and i waiting.... for katie zara on the porch

Cairo Egypt Renion in WASHINGTON DC!

Here's Jonas Gustafsson from Cairo and Carthage, Tunisie and my mom!
The big years of 1985 and 1985!

Pam Raley and me! My last picture of the night! sad to go....

Before the Big night!

Priscilla and Anne Frtiz with Karen and Jackie Mac!

Check out Dina!!! and here's Tara and Brian Mitchell and Kathy Hannah!

Steve Goshen and Priscilla and moi.

Oh what a night!

a FLURRY Of Pictures

Priscilla and Gi gi Netzband and Jackie Mac! CAC IS TRACK!

6 days after our Cairo Reunion!

Never had a blog before; so this should be cool and hopefully not a FIASCO!!! ;-)
It was purely perfect being able too see everyone again; how great that so many of us made it such a priority to be there.
I doubt, when i left Cairo in 1984, if I ever would have guessed that I would ever have been so fortunate to be able see everyone again. What a feat and kudos to Dina for creating such a remarkable weekend for all of us.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself, thank you all! I will try and upload pictures and hope that if anyone decides to visit DC to make sure they call me! jocelyn