Butts No More!

Well, that's not entirely true. She'll probably go by Butts here at the house for awhile still--until using her name becomes important to get her attention. But as far as the web site goes, I now feel comfortable calling The Baby by the name that she will OFFICIALLY go by as soon as we get all of the red tape sorted: Norah.

Yep. We had our meeting with SRS today and we have become the official adoptive parents of our Buttsy Bear. This is one of the big steps in the process, and one that has taken us quite a bit longer than we originally expected (but not NEARLY as long as it took with Gabe, which was a relief). From here we have to wait for the various agencies to get their paperwork processed, then we'll have to meet with a lawyer, then the Adoption Day will be set. But this step was important because it more or less eliminates the possibility of complications (except on our end--meaning if the court should decide we're unfit parents or something like that, and I can't imagine that would happen) by ending all ties with the biological parents and family.

Up to this point, I chose to refer to Norah strictly as Button or Butts because, as far as the official world was concerned, her name wasn't Norah (technically it still isn't, and won't be until Adoption Day, but she doesn't need to know that), and even though there has been little doubt that we would be adopting her eventually, it's better safe than sorry. We did the same thing with Gabe, calling him almost exclusively Bubbie for the first year in the off chance that he would go back to his parents and have to figure out why nobody was calling him Gabe anymore. It was a judgment call on our part. If it had looked like he WAS going back, we would, of course, have called him by his original name. Anyway, that's just one of those silly little complications in life that we don't have to worry about anymore. Thank god.

So now we wait another 6-8 weeks, probably, for things to be made official. Hurray (I'm not cheering the additional waiting, of course, but for the ending that is now in sight)!

There's that, then. From now on, in these posts, she'll go by Norah. And I do have some other updates and such to share, but I figured this deserved a post all on its own.