Where has the time gone? I can't believe it has been almost two months since I last posted anything. I know I don't have a lot of readers, nor am I a very good "blogger", but I'm so glad I did it, I have loved getting the chance to "look back."
We just returned from Florida last week. The adoption was final on August 12, 2:00 p.m.! It was an incredible day. We were a little bummed that we didn't have friends and family around, but it really was a special moment for just us. He is settled, and smiles, and laughs, and is so soft and cuddly, and my family feels complete. I wondered what would happen after we finally adopted. I wondered how I would feel and if all those years and years of pain and suffering would just go away..poof! But no, that is not the way it worked for me. It didn't disappear like magic. It's like all that time, and all those years I turned into this frozen block of ice. And now that pudgy baby's smiles are heating me right up. Huge chunks of ice are just falling off. kerplop. plunk. splash. A little piece of pain, and worry chunks off. A piece of that unhappiness and worry from infertility falls off. I hold Oliver and cuddle him to bed and think to myself how much I love him. How much I love the fact that I got the chance to adopt him and bring him into our family. And how grateful I am to Danielle for giving him life. I'm not sure she could have picked a family that loves him as much as we do. And the best news of all is after it was all over, I stood in the house that we rented packing to go home, the same house we sat in for a week wondering if she was actually going to give him to us, and I cried. I cried to leave Florida, I cried for the times I spent in the Tampa airport trying desperately to convince a dr. to let me take him home. I cried for the park we played in while we waited, and the time I spent visited him alone, and all the happiness I feel just looking at him. Here I was, back in Florida, in the same places I was when I was going through all that waiting and turmoil, but THIS time Oliver was with me. Smiling, and sleeping in his carseat, looking cute as ever. And the last big chunk just fell right off! That's it! No more paperwork, or homestudies, or homevisists. No lawyers, or check writing, or emails. No adoption agencies, or home inspections, or fingerprints, or profile books, OR worry. But best of all, no more wondering if this story will have a happy ending.......I know the ending to this one, and it's all ours, and it's wonderful!
I have learned so much through all of this. As all my sunshine and happiness heats me back up, I know I will continue to pray and think of all the women who long for children and are slowly beginning to freeze up with the pain and longing it can bring...
