the emotions of the last few days.

Shilo is currently sleeping, Jason is back home to get some work done and hang out with our daughter, and I am choosing not to hold sweet one right now because she tends to desat when she gets upset...so I'll wait until they do vitals again and then comfort her instead of being the one who causes it.
Anyway, I thought I would share a little more of the personal and emotions side of things here.
First of all, I wasn't sure what to expect when we got here.  There are so many stigmas that go with children with Down syndrome that I was ready to defend our choice to knowingly adopt Shilo.  But that hasn't been the case at all.  While I have had lots of saintly comments, 'wow two children with special needs, y'all are just amazing' I think it's good to clear up right away that we aren't amazing or saintly.  We wanted to be parents.  And without Abigail and Shilo we wouldn't be.  As far as special needs go: raise your hand if you have a biological child with special needs.  Now raise your hand if you got some sort of choice about it during pregnancy.  Right.  Nobody else gets to choose.  So why should I be able to say, 'yes, I'll take a Caucasian baby, brown hair, green eyes, and perfectly healthy please?' 
I also believe that If I'm going to be willing to step up with my beliefs about being pro-life then I should also step up to the plate of helping those Mama's who choose life.  For some that might mean coming alongside single parents.  For some it might mean stepping up and taking in those kiddos who's parents loved them enough to choose life and make certain that they had a great one by placing them for adoption.  I can't write passionate post about not aborting children with Down syndrome and then hope everything just works out in the end for whomever ends up in that situation. 
'If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?'  These verses are from James 2:16.  We are called to have the works that back up our faith.  If I say, go have your baby with Down syndrome, and enjoy your life, but am not there to help out in some way I am a liar.  Well wishes do nothing to help in the midst of the situation.

All that was to bring us to the first doctor conversation I had in the NICU at University of Kentucky hospital.  It will forever be etched in my heart as a moment that God ordained with great joy.
Jason and I arrived here on Tuesday at around 1 in the afternoon.  We sat next to Shilo (who still didn't have a name at that point) and stared and rubbed and kissed and sang.  After about an hour a doctor pulled us aside so he could give us all of the going-ons with our little girl.  He went through what all she had going on medically and then with the biggest smile said, ' She has Down syndrome. We know that. But she will be great. She is great. Where I am from [India] we don't have this sort of care for these children. She will do just fine.'  It went on, but the conversation about her actual diagnoses was all positives of why her life will be great and how many opportunities she will still have in life if we don't limit her.  I still tear up thinking about it.

Every interaction we have had with nurses here has included a story about a friend, a niece, a cousin, somebody they know that has Down syndrome who is just this awesome joyful person whom they have strong affectionate feeling towards.  Not one person has questioned the logic of what we are doing.  Not one person has mentioned that she should have been disposed of while in the womb. 

We are so grateful for our Shilo and the joy she will bring to our family.  We believe ALL children are a blessing from the Lord.

Enjoying our children with different chromosomes than most,

P.S.  While I'm not going to make any sort of public push for assistance, we have had lots of people wanting to know how they could help.  So I added our paypal info at the side as well as the charity that we would love for people to donate to. :)