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