Weve waited three years. Three years of home studies, paperwork, prayers and doubt. Three years of imagining what our lives would be like when we finally adopted and who our child would be.
And now we know.
He is perfect.
We brought home a baby boy this summer, and he is making himself right at home in our family.
And if there is one thing I have learned in the few weeks he has been on this earth, it is that the power of love is truly irrepressible.
This baby was born surrounded by love.
His birth parents love him but chose to place him with my family in hopes of a better life for him. As his mother held him in her arms at the hospital, she looked at me and said, I love him so much. I really do. I know youll take good care of him. His father, likewise, expressed how much he loved the son he wouldnt raise.
His new sisters love their baby brother, so much that I am often saying things like, OK, give the baby some space or Please dont smother the baby with hugs. Seriously, there is a lot of big sister loving going on at our house. And while I do have to fend off the never-ending barrage of kisses, I couldnt be happier that their love for this baby was instant and unconditional.
I love him. My husband and I adore this new addition and felt instantly the unique parental love that keeps us up at night to check his breathing just one more time.
I loved him before I even knew where he would come from or how he would find his way to my family, but I wondered if my love would feel different than with my biological children. I knew I would love him equally, but maybe just in a different way.
But I do love him just as intensely, as immediately and as heart-achingly as I do my first two children.
And perhaps the most surprising love I found during this adoption process is the love I have for this childs mother. I love her for sacrificing her heart to make the best choice she could for her son.
I love her because she is now forever intertwined with my family. We are bound by love for a child we will each call son.
She will always be his mother in a way that I can never be. But now I am his mother, too. Her child is my child hers by birth and mine to raise.
That truth is simultaneously beautiful and tragic, but most of all, full of limitless love.
And now we know.
He is perfect.
We brought home a baby boy this summer, and he is making himself right at home in our family.
And if there is one thing I have learned in the few weeks he has been on this earth, it is that the power of love is truly irrepressible.
This baby was born surrounded by love.
His birth parents love him but chose to place him with my family in hopes of a better life for him. As his mother held him in her arms at the hospital, she looked at me and said, I love him so much. I really do. I know youll take good care of him. His father, likewise, expressed how much he loved the son he wouldnt raise.
His new sisters love their baby brother, so much that I am often saying things like, OK, give the baby some space or Please dont smother the baby with hugs. Seriously, there is a lot of big sister loving going on at our house. And while I do have to fend off the never-ending barrage of kisses, I couldnt be happier that their love for this baby was instant and unconditional.
I love him. My husband and I adore this new addition and felt instantly the unique parental love that keeps us up at night to check his breathing just one more time.
I loved him before I even knew where he would come from or how he would find his way to my family, but I wondered if my love would feel different than with my biological children. I knew I would love him equally, but maybe just in a different way.
But I do love him just as intensely, as immediately and as heart-achingly as I do my first two children.
And perhaps the most surprising love I found during this adoption process is the love I have for this childs mother. I love her for sacrificing her heart to make the best choice she could for her son.
I love her because she is now forever intertwined with my family. We are bound by love for a child we will each call son.
She will always be his mother in a way that I can never be. But now I am his mother, too. Her child is my child hers by birth and mine to raise.
That truth is simultaneously beautiful and tragic, but most of all, full of limitless love.
