This week’s Wednesday’s Wild Chronicles Series will focus on one of the more conflicting parts of adopting, the decision about how much preparation do you do, both from a physical and social standpoint. In the same moment there exists an excitement that wants to tell the world and get the nursery together joined with trepidation about having to face the people and nursery should the adoption fall through.

While we were in the process of getting the homestudy done, we had to make some decisions as to how much should we do. We started small, only telling immediate family and friends closest to us. We decided to only get the absolute necessities like bottles, a pack of diapers and a few outfits, figuring we could always shop for the rest after our little man was home. We did not put a nursery together, knowing that if it did not work out, it would be nearly impossible to face taking everything back down.

As our anticipation grew so did the circle of people who knew we were on the brink of finally becoming parents. We had always been very open about our struggles with infertility, so as people found out the excitement increased exponentially. And with that, so did everyone’s willingness to help out. Our friends and family knew we were being cautious, not wanting to buy much ahead of time, so people kept donating things for us to borrow until we were settled at home with our baby boy. Our intent on not setting up a nursery had quickly turned into a room full of baby stuff anyhow.

We got our hospital bags packed. Now, we were just waiting on the call that she had gone into labor and our lives were going to be forever changed. In the meantime, we answered approximately 8 million variations on the question as to if the baby had been born yet. I am not sure how many times a co-worker would tell me they were disappointed to see me, hoping one day I would simply not show up because overnight I had become a mom. I remember thinking, “Yeah, you and me both!”

Come on baby! The wait was becoming excruciating!

(Next week: The Lie)