A story a long time coming.

Well, this could be a long one so go ahead and sit back and relax. So many people have given us support along the way and really want to know the story of how Eden came into our lives, and who am I to disappoint, so this post will be just that.

Before I get into all of that I have some things to share, because there is a bit of back story that needs said in order to really understand everything...

1. My post on the 24th about the baby "probably coming very soon" was a bit of a lie. We knew. That day at the appointment we discussed the fact that if it wasn't natural by Wednesday then she would be induced by Friday, however her midwife of choice would not be there starting Friday morning, which left the appointment on Wednesday morning all but certain for some major developments.

2. I have been slightly vague about our birth parents, that is mostly to protect them, but also because the situation we matched with was slightly uncommon in the world of infant adoption. Frankly it might be hard to understand without being in the conversations we had along the way. Our birth parents are a married couple of 4 years and our 28 years old. They both work full time and own their own home, they are essentially just like us, we're even the same age. They were actually married a month after us. I will refer to them as E (mom) & J (dad) going forward. Its hard for people to understand their reasoning's and I won't get into them either, but we spent a lot of time with them the past couple months and really didn't have too much doubt going into it.

3. We became friends, one might even say good ones, and they will be a part of our lives for years to come. We fully intend to have a very open adoption with them and who knows, they may make some appearances at family events in the future.

Ok, now that we have all that cleared up. Here is the story of February 26, 2014. The last time it would just be Adam & Erin.

So, Monday at the midwife appointment we had a non-stress test scheduled. During this we listed to the heart beat and saw what we were told were contractions. They seemed pretty consistent and pretty evenly spaced. Actually J and I were joking about it and at one point he said "I thought when your contractions we're spaced like that it was time to have a baby?", we laughed and figured we had no idea what we were talking about. A few minutes later the midwife came in, looked at the machine then back at E and said, "Honey, are you in labor?" At that point we all looked at each other with blank faces and nervously laughed. She wasn't, but she was having early contractions. We went to the waiting area at that point so she could examine her (we are friends, but not that good). She was very slightly dilated, but not enough for concern. At this point the midwife said she should come back Wednesday if she was still pregnant. But at this point is also when she said it wasn't going to be recommended that she carry past the end of the week, due to size concerns (spoiler alert: shes was a tiny baby). So at that point Wednesday was looking very real.

We all chatted a lot the next couple evenings about the impending changes that we were all about to experience and also started to refine the name list, since we all decided to name the baby together.

5:30am
Wednesday morning came pretty fast. We had to be up a little after 5 because we needed to be in Westlake by 7:30 for the appointment. We're on our way and about 20 minutes into our ride we realize that the car isn't really warming up (our new one by the way). Its also a balmy 8º this morning, and I am wearing a pair of mesh running shoes. We freeze for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

7:30am
We get to the hospital for the midwife appointment and meet E&J there. When we go back for the visit they put the monitor back on her and we wait for her midwife to pop in. It is determined that they are going to strip her membranes in hope that it will stimulate her labor naturally and she won't have to be chemically induced. Another thing about E is that she is a very natural person, to the point that Motrin is more druggy than she is interested in taking. So any chance to avoid medications she can muster is what her plan is.

We headed back to the waiting area again and about 30 minutes later J came out and said that they had broke her water during the exam so things might start developing.

Que instant anxiety on our part.

A little while later they came out and E walked to the desk and said see ya Monday and we all walked out. Generally, once your water breaks they want you to be admitted and wait it out. Her midwife is really great and knows how E wants this birth to go, so she tells her to keep her mouth shut and get outta here and walk around at the mall and get some rest.

8:30am
We're done at the midwife and that baby is probably coming today. What is there to do for two adoptive parents and two birth parents? Clearly go grab some breakfast at the Bob Evans down the street, so that's what we did.

10:00am
We finish up breakfast and talk about what else the plan for the day will be. We all decided to just spend the day together, hang out and see what happens. However at this point we made the decision that we should run back home and swap cars since we had no heat in the one we drove up there. J mentioned at breakfast that taking a baby home in a car with no heat might not be the best call. We agreed.

They were going to take some time to themselves to lay down for a bit and we would just give them a call when we were back up in the area. We thought we were doing so well, we had everything packed in the car the night before so we were fully ready to camp out in Westlake for a few days, but now we get to run back to Massillon because our new car is more akin to a walk-in freezer than a vehicle.

1:00pm
Car swap and repack is complete and we are back in Westlake. E&J had spend some time doing some stretches and other things the midwife recommended to spur labor and were about to head over to the mall to walk around. We met them there and spent the next couple hours walking about, checking out the tea store, making jokes and just hanging around.

This is on of the things that I will absolutely never forget. We'd spent time together before; dinners, grabbing coffee and chatting, but this was different. We were no longer two couples who had been paired through a series of emails and a face to face meeting via the adoption agency. We were a couple friends who had been brought together by quite a series of events that probably neither of us would have chosen to experience, but we had, and we were all just trying so hard to be the most supportive of each other that we could. They never wanted to get themselves to the point that they needed to give a baby away for adoption, and we were "supposed" to have had our baby in December. Our time together that day was really no different than if Erin and I had been at the mall with our friends Marc & Brandy or Emily & Joel trying to help them stimulate their labor.

It was almost if we had all just accepted the uniqueness of our relationship and saw it for what it was. Four people who really loved this little baby who was getting ready to come into the world and wanted nothing but the best for her in life.

3:30pm
The midwife told us to come back around 3:30 and say she was having contractions so that she could see how things were developing. While we were at the mall the contractions did seem to pick up in intensity a bit. They were back in the office for over an hour on the machine being monitored. Around 4:30 they came out and basically what was happening was she was in full early labor. The midwife said that she though it would happen very late that night or early in the morning. So she sent them back home to have dinner and get some rest. Just to show what kind of people these two are, they asked us what we wanted to do and said they felt bad about just leaving us hanging and heading home.

We told them to go eat dinner and take a nap, because the more rested she was the easier this would all go for her. We decided that we would just grab a hotel room down the street so that we were always close by if the time came. We said our goodbyes and parted ways for a little bit. Erin and I had some Outback giftcards so we decided to go grab a good meal, since we weren't sure when the next one would be.

Another development at this appointment was that E's blood pressure had come down, it was a little elevated at the appointment in the morning. This was important because it was her intent to give birth in water. If her pressure was up they would only allow her to labor in water but not actually birth. So now she was free and clear. We were so happy for her that she didn't have to have any medications and was able to get into labor naturally and now was cleared to be able to deliver in water like she wanted.

E & J may have not wanted children, but they care more than a lot of people who I know with kids. She spent her entire pregnancy taking pregnancy yoga classes at the hospital and towards the end was getting regular alignments at the chiropractor to help aide in delivery. She also cut out caffeine and ate a full natural diet. This girl is a machine and unbelievably impressive as a person.

6:45pm 
We have finished dinner and have arrived back at the our palatial estate known as La Quinta. Erin decided she should shower, again because who knows when the next one might come. I turn on American Werewolf in Paris and think "this movie is ridiculous".

7:07pm
Erin has literally just got out of the shower and is digging thru her clothes to find something comfy to wear. Both of our phones ding (we use Google voice so that all texts and calls are forwarded to both our phones, also it help in the anonymity of the adoption process, even though we were long past this with these two). The text just said "we are heading to the hospital". The plan had been that they would let us know when they were leaving and then we would come over once they were admitted. I still thought I could grab a quick shower, Erin had other ideas. She turned in to a tornado and had quickly repacked all of our things and was ready to go. I said calm down I think we have a bit of time. After all I've seen doctor shows and I know that once you go into labor it takes hoouuurrrsssss to have the baby, duh.

She said, get in the car.

We got in the car.

7:33pm
We pull in and park at the hospital. J says he will be waiting for us at the entrance and go up with us. He said they just took her up. I told him "that seemed to develop quickly." He laughed and said once it started to get more intense it happened really fast.

7:37pm
We're in the maternity ward and have decided to just sit in the small sitting area by the coffee machine and fridge. J tells us he's going to go check on her and he'll let us know whats going on in a few. A couple minutes later he comes back and tells us "apparently she's really close, like, really really close", then he runs back down the hall.

They offered us something earlier that day at the midwife's that we had never expected and only existed in our dreams. Erin was going to be in the room when the baby was born, and that they were going to give her straight to Erin for skin to skin immediately after birth. We could never have asked for that or hardly even thought that it could be a possibility, we were luck enough as adoptive parents to even be at the hospital, let alone to be there when she arrived.

One of the nurses found us and said that they were going to move us right outside the door so that right before the baby was coming they could come grab Erin and bring her in.

8:00pm
The midwife came out of the room and gave us an update her words are something I will never forget, she said "this baby is coming like a bat outta hell." She told Erin to get ready and that they will be coming for her very soon.

And a few minutes later they did.

At this point I'm sitting in the hallway, by myself with two iPhones frantically texting our closest friends giving them blow by blow updates. I can hear E in there screaming and the midwife and nurses encouraging her along. I knew it was going to be really soon. The best thing I could say to everyone was "I'm going to puke". Thankfully I didn't actually end up doing so, but I think I was pretty close.

8:14pm
Crying. There is crying coming from the room. She was here. The baby that we had been waiting so long for was not just an idea anymore but a real thing on the other side of the door across from me. I heard the nurse say 5lbs flat, and then I experienced longest few minutes of my life waiting to go into the room and meet my daughter. Also my dear friend Holly gave me permission to puke at this point and if that door didn't open up I may have taken her up on that. Little Eden was a full water birth and had absolutely no problems coming into this world.

The nurse opened the door and said that everything was perfect and that they had the curtain pulled around the tub so E could recover but Erin was on the couch and I could come in and meet her.

I can never forget walking into that room and seeing Erin sitting so peacefully on the couch with the most perfect little baby snuggled up against her chest, with her big blue eyes looking up at me. I lost it, slightly. We spend a few minutes there and then our nurse Chanin took the three of us down to a small room at the end of the hall that they decided we would be staying in until we could take the baby home.

 

 

 

 

Our very first family picture.

Look at those eyes.

You're probably trying to imagine how all these people fit into a hospital room. This is not a normal room, its giant. By giant I don't mean big, I mean huge. Check it out.

You cant see the giant sitting area right behind the camera, or smell all the aromatherapy being pumped into the suite. It is right for all you moms to feel super jealous right now.
Its ok, I forgive you, its an amazing room.

It was a slow night in the ward and Chanin was only responsible for us and E & J. She spent a lot of time with us that night helping us figure out what were doing and we will never forget her or any of the staff at the hospital. So many times with adoption the adoptive parents aren't treated like new parents and aren't even given rooms at the hospital many times. They treated us like we just birthed her ourselves, and that is something we can never thank them enough for.

The following days
We spent a lot of time with our friends E & J the following day and even for a little bit later in the night after she was born. On Thursday we decided the little peanut's name would be Eden and then a week later we decided on Jeanette as a middle name. Her name is a bit of a tribute to all four of us. Eden is an "E" for Erin and E and Jeanette is a "J" for my middle name and J's first name.

There was so much that was unexpected from the whole adoption experience. We never thought we'd be there when she was born, never thought we'd be the first to hold her and we never thought we'd grow to love and care for the birth family so much. But all of that happened.

One of the hardest things at the hospital was when E & J were leaving. They spent close to 2 hours in our room with us chatting and waiting for all of our favorite nurse Chanin to come on so that they could say thanks and goodbye to her as well. When they actually left to go home was the toughest moment we had at the hospital. We all knew that the right decision was made, but the uncertainty of the future was the problem. We didn't know if we were losing our friends and if our relationship would ever be able to be the same now that Eden was here. We had talked and talked about all staying in each others lives, we all hugged when they left and I told them we are all family at this point and we're bonded for life. But you never know how things will work out in the end, and there was a real chance that we'd never see these two amazing people who came into our lives only two months prior, but who we'd grown to deeply care about over that short time.

Pair that with a new baby and no sleep and you'll get an emotional breakdown.

I could write for pages on how amazing these two are as people, but I won't bore you with all of that. I will say the J is the picture of what a man and a husband should be. The way he cared for E throughout the whole process was truly nothing short of inspiring. If more people in this world could live by his example, there would be far less issues. The way those two put the greater good before themselves is nothing short of amazing. We are honestly honored to consider them our friends and humbled that they gave us the greatest gift of all, out sweet little Eden.

They told us to send them a message when we got home so that they knew we made it home safely. After a few messages back and forth it really seemed like they were ok, which was a huge relief to us. Thinking that they were hurting so bad, because we were so happy was a hard thing to handle. No one wants a friend to suffer on their behalf.

I sent J an email with some personal things I wanted to tell him at the hospital that I just simply never got a chance to since it all went so fast and we heard back from them a couple days later. Part of their response was exactly what I would have expected from them, and it really made us feel great.

They said that not to sound weird but they really missed hanging out with us the next day after all the time we spent together. They also said that they wanted to send us a message but also didn't want to intrude, she said it was like a first date and they weren't sure how long they were supposed to wait to call. Erin and I laughed really hard, because we had just had the exact same conversation the night before. It just really shows how great they are and how well we all get along.

Last Thursday we finally made it to court for our placement hearing that was supposed to happen 72 hours after birth, it was the first time we'd get to see them since the hospital and we were really excited.

I think it really through the lawyers for a loop when the 4 of us just immediately reverted back to the past like we were old friends that hadn't seen each other in a while. I'm pretty sure that's a little rare in the adoption world. We actually all five went out to dinner after the hearing so we would get to spend some nice time with each other. I think its exactly what we all needed.

We can't say how thankful we are for them and are indebted to them for the rest of our days because of the amazing little girl they gave us. We never thought we'd come out of this process with a perfect little baby and two great new friends, but that's what seems to have happened.

The future is a complete uncharted territory with the 5 of us, but it looks good. Families come in all kinds of ways, ours just got a little more interesting but how else would it be. Hopefully we can all grow together and morph into something really great for the four of us and for Eden. There will be some growing pains along the way I'm sure, but as long as we all put the love for Eden first I'm sure it will all have a happy ending for all of us. It certainly has so far.

I guess that's about it for now. The adoption will be finalized in 6 months due to Ohio law, but I'm sure there might be some more updates along the way. We just really want to thank everyone for all the support along the way. It was a hard road at times, and sometimes looked like a dead end. But it all works out someway in the end. We never imagined it would be this perfect, but it seems to be.

Love won.
Adam & Erin ...and Eden!

Thanks everyone!!!

Knock, knock

"Good morning everyone! My name is Eden. All 4 of my parents are still working on my middle name, but they're very close. I was born Wednesday night at 8:14 and weighed a whopping 5lbs even and was 18" long. I'm probably going to play center one day in the WNBA."

I can't tell you all how excited we are to have this little peanut. We were released from the hospital Friday at about 5:30 so we are all 3 safe at home. I will admit the post on Monday was a bit of shot gun posting on my part. We were pretty certain Wednesday was going to be the day.

It's quite the story, but that's one for another day. For now we will just sit back and enjoy sweet little Eden. 

Thanks so much to everyone for all the support and prayers along the way, it's all totally worth it in the end. 

I forgot I'm supposed to blog...

Well, its been a little bit since I lasted updated everyone. I could blame it on schedules or hectic life, but more than likely its my laziness. However, we do have some things that have been happening and this update will tell you all about it.

So last we spoke, we had just been matched and had gone to meet them at the hospital for an orientation / birthing class. Since then we have had many talks with them and even met them out a couple times to get to know each other a little more and talk about the future and our lives that have suddenly become extremely intertwined.

Its been a completely different ride this time around, we are being included in things we never even would have imagined. We've been invited to birthing classes, midwife appointments and also asked if we would like to have another ultrasound so that we could actually get to see her. Which we did get to do last Monday.

My plan was to post about that soon after, but Erin and I found ourselves with mixed emotions afterward. On one hand it was absolutely amazing to see her in there, to see her feet and to see her sucking on her little thumb are something we will never forget. But it also made the whole situation very real to all parties involved, including the birth parents. We've really bonded to them through this and they are two really great people who we would be proud to call friends. Knowing that what can result in the greatest day in our life will probably be one of the worst in theirs. It just really makes you think about a lot of different things that you've never really considered.

It was amazing of them that they even offered us the chance to experience such a thing, but afterwards the doctor voiced some concern about her size being smaller than she'd like to see. However, if you were to see her mom you would not be shocked at all at that kind of possibility. All of her blood flow and fluid levels seem perfectly fine, shes just a tiny little thing. But all of that put some extra stress onto someone who's already at the end of their rope. Bittersweet is probably the best way to describe everything that we've experienced in the past few weeks.

Something else that we knew we would have to deal with if we did go see an ultrasound was the realization that shes a person and not an idea. Clearly obvious, however up until this point, in this adoption as well as the last. The baby was just an idea, she was just the baby that hopefully one day would come live with us. We knew that once we saw her moving around and heard her little heart beating and got some grainy, hard to make out pictures to take home we would be in deeper than we've even been before. And if something went wrong like before, it would be that much harder to deal with. We decided to just have a little faith and trust our own thoughts and instincts. If she does end up coming home with us, the opportunity to have been able to see her ultrasound would be completely worth it in the end.

Another thing we've decided to do with them is come up with her name. In our conversations we all thought that it would be really special for her to know that a group of people that all love her worked together to give her a name. We have two front runners for a first name, but we think we're gonna wait to see her to decide which one fits the best, so feel free to guess away, but know you'll probably be wrong.

Some people find it hard to understand why we would have so much involvement and be willing to work with the birth parents on things like the name but Erin and I have always went into this process with the understanding that we will be our child's parents, but we are not the ones who gave her life. And nothing we can do will ever change that, so we embrace it. We've seriously lucked out in the situation we've been dealt, and it probably wouldn't happen this way with someone else, so we will continue on working together to make sure that this little girl is loved and cared for more than any other little girl on the block. Its really all about love in the end anyway, right?

Right now we sit with about 3 weeks until her due date. This morning we went to her midwife appointment and heard her heart beating again. Its all just so surreal.

I don't think anyone is actually anticipating her making it to her date.

So here we sit, again.

Waiting for the phone to ring, again.

But hoping this time its the call that we have been hoping we would receive.

My guess is the next posting won't have this much time elapsed. We appreciate all the nice things people have said to us and all the prayers that have been offered. Right now is probably a good time to ramp those bad boys back up.

Love Wins,
Erin & Adam

Who remembers the roller coaster?

Ok class, who remembers that talk we had a few months ago about a roller coaster and how it represents life? You know how sometimes when you're on one and everything is going so fast and you think your coming to the end but it actually is a secondary hill that you slowly begin to click back up one notch at a time?

Well that's just where we are right now. Oooo the suspense.

There is some over lap to this post and when we last posted the whole story about the failed adoption. I will do my best to keep all the timelines straight.

The day after we found out we were not going to be taking a baby home I emailed our agency just to kind of see what happens next. This was uncharted and unplanned territory. She wrote back and gave her condolences and told me that they would figure out any financial ramifications that we needed to know of, but in the mean time they had two other situations that they were taking profiles for and that we could toss ours onto the stack. That was a very strange thing to hear. We had been planning for the past couple month and suddenly we were back at the beginning and being told we could just apply to new situations.

I thought it would be helpful to apply just to feel like we were actively trying to move forward. Erin was unsure. Even though we went into the process not having a preference about a boy or girl, we had spent 3 months planning on a girl so Erin decided that for right now we might only apply for situations that the baby was female. Neither of us really had any thoughts that this would go any further than us applying then getting back to our grieving. We decided that one of the situations raised some concern for us but the second seemed steady, we wrote back and said they could put us in for that situation. They we're scheduled to meet with the family on the coming Sunday. 4 days after our supposed to baby was born.

The next week, which was the week before Christmas (for those trying to timeline), we got an email while at dinner. It was pretty short and simple but said that the family had decided to as 5 adoptive families the same questions and we were on that list. Honestly, we were a little shocked to have even heard back from them. That night we sat down and answered them as honestly as we could and sent the email off. They weren't overly long answers but we were as straight forward as we could be. One thing we've learned is that this process is an all cards on the table kind of thing.

We planned a little mini trip to Toronto over Christmas just to get away for a bit and that was coming up the following Monday. I have a group of friends that I run with Saturday mornings, the 28th was my week to plan it. So everyone showed up, we knocked out 5 miles (I need to get back into shape BTW) and then they all took off. Erin was at work until about 1 so I was just hanging around the house until then, we had plans to go to diner with my family that night for a little pre-Christmas meal since we wouldn't be around on the actual day.

About 12:45 I got a phone call, from the agency.

They were calling to let me know that this family really liked us a lot and wanted to set a meeting to talk with us, but they wanted the agency to ask us before Christmas so that they could have a bit of piece of mind going into the holidays. I was in shock. We had not considered that this would even be a possibility, but we had a meeting set for Dec 30 at our agency in Medina. Erin got home right as I hung up with the agency.

To say that there were mixed feelings about another potential match would be an understatement. Two weeks before we were planning on a baby being at our house for Christmas, now three days before we're being contacted about potentially being matched with other baby. Remember the roller coaster? Ya, were in it.

On the 30th we all met at the agency and talked for about 45 minutes. We found out that they were not scheduled to meet with anyone else either. Both parents are involved in this situation so that was a big change from the last time. Everything seemed to go pretty well. I can't really explain how these meetings actually feel, those that have been in them know exactly what I mean, but they're a little awkward. Strangers meeting for the first time essentially interviewing to be the parents to someone else's unborn child. Its just simply weird. On New Years day we got a text from the agency that they would like to meet with us one more time to get to know us a little more. So that meeting was set for the 7th, or this past Tuesday for those reading in the present.

This time the meeting was at a coffee shop with no social worker present, just a neutral location for 4 people to sit down together and talk about life, babies, hobbies and just regular stuff. We ended up sitting together for two hours and basically closed out the shop. We left that meeting feeling much better and having a much better connection to them.

It turns out that they felt exactly the same way, because 10 minutes after we left we got a message from the agency telling us that they were absolutely choosing us as their adoptive family.

We are matched...again.
We are having a girl...again.
And that baby is due March 14th.

This situation is 100% different already, the attitudes towards the plan are far more positive then negative, where everyone is in life is different and the involvement is totally different. The whole situation is just different.

Last night we drove up to Westlake to take a hospital orientation / birth class with them. Their belief is that we should be as involved and included in the early stages so that we can experience everything leading up to her birth, and that way when shes asks questions later in life we can give her real, solid answers. This has always been Erin and I's hope but I don't think its all that common. We really want a relationship with them so that we can tell the baby about them one day, so that she can know that there were 4 people who came together to love her and do the best thing possible for her. And right now it seems like that might actually happen for us.

So were back on the ride, maybe we never really got off. Now hopefully in the next 9 weeks the train pulls calmly back into the station and we can hop onto the next ride of becoming parents. I'm sure there will be more bumps, but hopefully we've hit all the major ones at this point.

Until next time.

Away we go,
Adam & Erin

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