Happy 9th Birthday, Joshua!

Nine years ago today, our beautiful son was born. His birth mom had not told a soul in her life about the baby that was growing inside of her. She spent most of the summer alone, hiding her growing belly at home. Her home/ family situation was such that no one noticed much about what was going on. At 36 weeks, she labored at home, took a bus to the hospital, and gave birth less than an hour after arriving at the hospital. Most courageous of all, she asked the nurses to help her to find an adoption placement situation for the baby. Someone at the hospital called our agency and our journey began.

Three days after he was born, we got a call. A Cambodian/ Laotian/ Cuban boy has been born and his birth mom has chosen us from our profile. Did we want to meet him? We hurried home from the beach vacation that we had been on and got ourselves out to the town where he was. Josh was already with his (amazingly wonderful) temporary foster family. We met him for the first time at the offices of our adoption agency.

From the first moment I laid eyes on him, I knew that he was supposed to be ours. I know it sounds hugely cheesy but it's true. He was a five pound, wrinkly, old man-looking Asian baby with a slightly yellow hue from the jaundice. But he was gorgeous. And I was so incredibly ready to be a mom . . . to this specific child.

Today he is nine years old and ninety pounds. He's gone from being vastly underweight and "failure to thrive" to being a bit overweight. He has strong opinions and has worked really, really hard to be as functional as he is. There is so much that he can do that the doctors told us that he might not ever do (like see, walk, feed himself).

The most important thing is that he knows that he is greatly loved. He knows that I'm his Mama and I know that he's my baby. Joshua is profoundly loved by the four other people in his immediate family and by a huge extended community. As I take a minute to remember and celebrate Josh's birth and how he was brought into our family, I am so grateful.