Celebrating his first birthday feels a little awkward. We are extremely excited for a day designated to celebrate him, but it's a little strange to not have memories of his birth. We will probably never know many details surrounding his birth.
1 year ago, I was wishing Joel was in Pittsburgh. We had just moved from Chicago to Pittsburgh the week before. Joel's first week at work included leading a group of teenagers to Tennessee for a week. I was miserable. I think that week actually marks the worse week of my life. Our place was still covered in boxes. I was alone. I did not know 1 person. Joel had zero cell phone reception & no internet access. I think I cried a few hours every day that week, just feeling extremely lonely.
Little did I know my little son was tucked away in a hospital celebrating his first day of life. A little crazy to think that when I was crying over feeling so alone 1 year ago, our sweet little son who would one day be my little companion all day every day was being born.
I cannot wait to celebrate my little man's big day tomorrow. Part of me cannot help but be a little sad that we missed out on the first 6 months of his life. We'll never have any birth pictures to show him when he's older or we'll probably never know the exact time of day he was born. We'll never be able to tell him at what age he rolled over for the first time or what his very first food was. With foster care and adoption comes loss. I am a little nervous to have to explain to him why all of his friends have birth pictures of themselves, yet we do not have a picture of him at the hospital or a picture of him at 2, 3, 4 or 5 months old.
But really, the joy that comes with adoption far out weighs the loss involved. I know God will carry us through the difficult times with His grace and joy.
Happy Birthday Little Man.
You are no longer a baby, but a toddler who is growing up way.too.fast.
But you'll forever be our little man.
And our little baby.
You are a treasure.
You have forever changed our family
and even made Kitty a little jealous around here.
We love you for who you are.
We love your sweet hugs
and adorable smile.
We love the way you light up a room instantly.
We love your charm.
We've had 6 months of loving you
and tomorrow celebrate 1 year of your life.
We cannot wait for many, many more.
We thank God for you.
We thank your birth parents for giving you life.
We cannot wait to see the person you will become.
Happy 1st Birthday!
Love,
Mama and Dada
4 comments:
Happy birthday! What a wonderful day for your family, and the start of a fantastic year.
Maybe you could also (and I bet you probably already have plans to) celebrate the day you met your son. That could be his adoption birthday maybe, complete with plenty of fanfare.
Do you have access to his medical records from his birth? Maybe you could contact the hospital where he was born to find out details such as the birth time and stuff?
Anyway, congratulations on your sweet little son!
Kacie,
thanks for the comment-we most certainly plan to celebrate the day we met our son :) we love every excuse to throw another party :) We should have access to his medical records, but don't. HIPPA is a little crazy. Technically, a caseworker should have already retrieved the info for us, but didn't and probably won't. Caseworkers are just very busy and extremely over worked, so a lot of things are frequently left undone :(
What a beautiful post :) I agree there is so much sadness and loss in foster care/adoption, but yet its also so much of where we see God's redeeming love. Zach is certainly seeing that in the amazing parents he got! And I am sure you see it in him as well...PS thanks for the generosity towards us caseworkers, but even though we are all super overly busy, we can usually find things if someone hounds us enough haha (your caseworker would probably kill me if she knew I was saying to hound her) All it takes is one release sent to his birth hospital, they have staff dedicated just to sending out records. When I request a kids birth records from any major hospital in this area, its usually just a letter that takes ten minutes and then they send them back to me. Easy Peasy...
Have you thought about a life book? Josh has a great template for making them for kids from adoptive or blended families. It tells Zach's story and even has pages for him to color or draw on when he's older, so he can tell his own story.
I like too how you look back and see his birthday as what was one of your lowest days. I sit here and think sometimes when feeling frustrated "Does our baby already exist? Am I longing for them and they are out there already, or in someone's womb?" Its a heady thought.
Meg, you are building my frustration a little higher in our caseworker by telling me it just takes her 10 minutes to find this info!! Our other caseworker and pediatrician has contacted this caseworker every couple of weeks requesting the info and has even gone to supervisor level and still NOTHING!! We haven't started the life book yet, we're doing more of a scrapbook video type thing, but I"m sure in the future we'll want to put one together :)
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