This is the Day

September 28, 2009.

After 19 months and 1 week of deeply loving, tirelessly caring for, and endlessly praying over a beautiful, blue-eyed boy, we can legally and officially call ourselves his parents and call him our child. Although, it was from the first second we held him, 19 months and 1 week ago, that he was our precious son and we were his mommy and daddy.

What's different now?

Now we can go on vacations without obtaining special permission. We can get David's hair cut without seeking approval. We don't have to attend monthly meetings to discuss the "case plan" or host a CPS case-worker, foster-care licensing agent, or other social worker in our home to check-up on us and David. We won't be attending semi-annual board meetings to evaluate the child's current placement or go in front of the family court judge to "report and review". There won't be discussions about birth parents and reunification. There is no turning back and David is ours and we are his.

It has been 19 months and 1 week, but it has felt like we have waited for this moment and prayed this child for a lifetime. David was in our hearts before Andrew and I ever met or even before we were ever born. What has felt like a lifetime of waiting and praying and loving and wanting, on September 28, 2009, we were finally able to breathe. We had been holding our breathe for 19 months and 1 week and now we can breathe.

David, you are the most special and wonderful gift we could ever imagine receiving. We love you more than you will ever know. You are so precious and we are very proud to be your mommy and daddy.