The story that wasn't supposed to be told

This is not a feel good story. It does in fact have a happy ending, however it just isn't written yet. It will though, soon rather than later.

When we decided to do this bog in conjunction with the adoption we agreed that we would share everything about our process. Partially because its a confusing thing that most people simply just don't understand but also to help others out who might be considering taking a journey down this road. With this decision comes a lot of happy and exciting tales but unfortunately also comes with a lot of potential heartache, for all kinds of different reasons.

We both felt that this was an important story to tell even if its a hard one to tell. The day the baby was born was going to be bitter sweet no matter what the outcome. Either we were going to be taking a child away from their mother and she would have to live with that the rest of her life, or she would decide to keep her baby with her and we would be left on the outside looking in. Unfortunately the latter would hold true this time around.

On December 10th, my phone rang in the afternoon. It was Erin, the agency had just called her and told her our birth mother was headed to the hospital, she was having some contractions. At this point she didn't think the baby was actually on the way so we were told to just hang out and wait to see if the hospital admitted her and then it would be determined if we should grab our stuff and head to Dayton. Once I got home we decided that we would get everything packed up and ready to go in case we received word that she would be staying in the hospital and that this was all about to go down.

All evening and into the night we were in contact with the agency and with our birth mother, we had really formed a good relationship with her and usually talked to her a couple times a week via text messages, so at no point did we really feel out of the loop. She told us that she didn't think it was actually happening that night and to just stay home. We will never really know if that was actually the case or just step one in her reconsideration. Frankly it doesn't really even matter. So we went to bed wondering what was going to happen and if we would get a phone call in the middle of the night that would send us on a 3.5 hour drive down to Dayton.

The next morning we still had received no further word so we just went on as normal. We actually didn't even know if they had admitted her or not, they still had not as of about 11:30 the night before.

While on the way into work my phone rang again. It was Erin and she said that she just heard from Denise and that she had had the baby in the night, but had not contacted the agency yet, she told us that is usually not a good sign. I sat around in a daze for the next half hour or so at work until Erin called back.

The agency had talked to her and she was going to keep the baby. I'm not really sure what emotions I felt at that moment; mostly shock, disappointment and sadness I think, but not anger.

The agency gave Erin our birth mother's direct line at the hospital and encouraged her to call her, they do a pretty good job at holding the mothers accountable for their choices. This is how I know that Erin is a stronger person than I am, because there is no way I could have made that call.

It was a pretty short phone call. There were tears on both sides. She reassured Erin that this was never her plan but that it had all happened so fast and that once it did she just couldn't go through with it. Before anyone can judge her actions, just ask yourself if you could have a baby then immediately give it away to someone else and potentially never see them again. Neither of us ever could no matter what, so we understood. It hurt, bad, but we got it. She had been a large part of our life for three months and we had formed a pretty good bond so Erin also just wanted to say goodbye to her as well.

We'll never know what actually went on in her mind at the hospital that night or through her mind in the days before or after, but there also isn't anything we can do about it. When we decided to do this the secondary motivation was to be able to help out someone who was going through a rough patch in life.

Our friend Rob sent Erin a text a few days after and said that our actions have lasting results, it might be years down the road and we may never even know about it, but everything we do has a lingering effect, it was maybe the most comforting thing that we heard. And he's right we may never know the results, but we may have been the only people in her life telling her we were proud of her,that she was a good mother and that she can be successful. Maybe those simple encouragements will give her the confidence she needs to get on a successful path through life. Maybe we were put in her life to help her through her darkest times. We will never know, but if it is the case hopefully we will be rewarded for the struggles that we had to go through as a result.

Its been a rough couple of weeks, for me it sunk in right away, for Erin it took a week to really hit her. We decided that we just needed to get away and not be home for Christmas, mostly just because it was not going to be the Christmas it was supposed to be. Our families supported us, even though we know they didn't like it. We just got home from a nice 4 days in Canada. It was good to be with each other and having some fun without our phones even being on. No matter what happens we still have each other and we still live a great life. One day, hopefully soon, we will be able to share that life with our child.

That's it for now, hopefully more updates soon.

Hopefully only happy ones. I'm tired or writing sad stories. Thanks to everyone who has supported us all along the way and especially in the past couple weeks. 2013 can take a hike, on to better things in 2014!

Love wins,
Adam & Erin

The wrong call

This will be short.

The baby was born last night, we knew our birth mother went to the hospital. But the updates ran dry. This morning we found out she was born in the night, but then we also found out she was going to parent the baby.

I don't really have anything else to say right now, there really isn't anything else to say honestly. That is that and we will get past it and move on. We're still committed to this plan, but we honestly didn't see this coming.

That's all for now.

Adam & Erin

A few more clicks on the roller coaster.

Well its been a little bit since the last update, maybe too long, but we’re busy so what are you gonna do? We are currently in our last “safe” week at the Buttacavoli casa. As I type we are sitting at 37 weeks 0 Days. Which means that no one should be surprised if she shows up next week or very soon after. That is terrifying.

So, last we talked we had just matched and were signing our paperwork. Also going on in the background at this time was a surprise baby shower for Erin, I suppose us, but mainly her since I was in the loop on this. It was just a very happy coincidence that we happened to match about a week before the shower, even though it had been months in planning.

In fact, the matching almost threw a wrench into the plan. You see with matching comes payment. A very large payment. The plan was to meet up with our friends Emily, Joel, Rick and Debbie in Wooster to have dinner and have a couple glasses of wine at the wine bar before hand. With mailing this monster of a check, left us all but broke as a joke, Erin wanted to cancel the date since we didn’t have money. I managed to talk her out of it.

Somehow, mostly with Erin being some kind of money hoarding genius, we managed to come up with every last penny we should need for the rest of the process. As we started to combine the accounts and add money from here and there I said there was no way we had it all. We did, literally by $25. Frankly its really nothing short of a miracle, its going to make things tight around here for a while until we replenish the supplies but we did not have to take any loans out. We also applied for a grant, that we should find out about next week. We don’t have any real hopes for it, but it would be amazing if we received it for sure.

The day of the shower comes and we’re supposed to arrive at 7, but I’ve been told to push it and arrive 15-20 minutes late to ensure everyone makes it and it hidden away before our arrival. I can be slow if I need to, very slow. Its about time to leave and I decide I need to iron my shirt, I worried that this would throw up a red flag since this is an uncommon event. We finally get on the road and gas happened to be extra cheap that day, somewhere around $2.89ish, so what happened next? We stop to fill up.

Mission accomplished, I have made us 25 minutes late and have annoyed Erin with my antics at the same time. Good thing it won’t last long.

Once we arrive our friends are waiting for us with an open bottle and a couple glasses. We talk for a second and Debbie tells Erin she needs to see how they remodeled the party room. They open the door and Erin is blown away by 25-30 of our closest friends and family.

She lost it. 100%. I was close, but I’m a man and I shoved those emotions down into the abyss where they belong.

To say that she had no idea would be an understatement. She just kept looking around in amazement and couldn’t even figure out how some of these people even knew about it since there were a couple different social circles present. This is when she learns that I’ve known about this for months and that I’ve created our entire registry and helped with the guest list all without her having a single clue. She doubts my powers of observation; I pay more attention to her (and her Pinterest) than she thinks. Also the best part of an adoptive baby shower, we can both drink wine since no one is actually pregnant. Score.

The amount of gifts was just crazy, there’s no other way to describe it. The only reason we are going to ready for her to arrive is because of all the support from our friends and family that we’ve received. For that there’s no way we can thank everyone enough.

Adding all the clothes and stuff we’ve received from Emily, Holly, Nikki and Brandy-Mart, this little girls room is fully stocked up and about 90% complete. Certainly enough to get her home.

Casa de Baby

Erin is very proud of the doors.

Maybe her middle name will be Ikea...

Erin has been getting her nest on of late, and her car is already packed up with all of the babies stuff we’ll need to bring with us for our as yet undetermined length of stay in Dayton once she’s born.  Which is good, because left to my own I’m sure we would have 0.0% of this stuff ready.

We have been in communication with our birth mother pretty regularly since she chose us, we text a couple times a week and have really grown to respect and care for her a lot since our first meeting. We’ve found that we have a lot in common actually and seem to have formed a pretty strong bond, which long term we believe is the most healthy thing for us and our unconventional family. We’re actually going down to have dinner with her on Sunday so we can meet and chat one more time before the chaos of the birth all goes down.

Looking back to May when we told our parents that we had signed a contract to become adoptive parents we did not think that by the end of the year we would have our baby, but that is exactly what looks to be happening. It’s been a crazy ride so far and I think we are actually just a few clicks from the top of the first hill on the rollercoaster. And in just a matter of weeks we’re going to crest that hill and then it will get really crazy. Who knows what the next update may hold. But please keep us in your thoughts in the meantime.

Away we go.

Adam & Erin