Celebrating our Adoption Day

I am so behind on some of my posts.  Many of these have gone up on Hellobee in the last couple of months but I wanted to post them here as well.  This was back from November when we celebrated the Adoption of our oldest son.

November is a big month for my family, and it happens to coincide with National Adoption Month, which I absolutely love.  In the month of November James’ adoption is at the forefront of my mind.  Not only was he born in November, but we also have visits with his birth family and just three days shy of his birthday we were able to celebrate his Adoption Day.

In the adoption community, there are a lot of different terms and ways to celebrate our children and how they came into our lives. A lot of people celebrate “Gotcha Day” for the day they met or brought home their child.  For us we met him when he was a day old and brought him home from the hospital at 4 days old.  So our “Gotcha day” is really his birthday. Instead, in our family, we celebrate the day that our finalization was signed -- it’s our Adoption day.

On the day of his actual finalization he was almost 1, his brothers were 3 months old and I was exhausted.  I was just so glad to have the whole messy contested adoption ordeal behind me.  We were able to bring people in with us so we had our parents and our twins with us.  We also had our lawyer, the director of the adoption agency and the social worker who had worked our case.  It was a simple gathering in the court room that took just a few minutes. It is all kind of a blur.  I don’t know whether it’s because I was sleep deprived or nervous, but I have trouble remember all the details of the day.  I remember talking to the judge and swearing to our adoption and I remember taking pictures.  I can’t for the life of me remember what we did afterwards to celebrate.  I am pretty sure we got take out and had dinner together at home.

Family photo taken a few days after James' Adoption Day

What I do remember is my emotions.  They are as clear as if I was sitting in the courtroom today. I remember thinking, “This is it, this is the day we finalize and everything changes.” But I signed the papers and I didn’t feel very different.  There was some relief that it was over and signed, but I looked at my little boy and all I saw was my son just as he had been the day before. He was my son the day he was born. He was my son the day I brought him home. He was my son when I wanted to protect him from a year of court appearances and psychological testing.

So legally things had changed.  He now had our name on paper.  We now had sworn before a judge that we would treat him like any biological child.  Our state now recognized us as his legal parents.  The thing that hadn’t changed was my heart.  A year before, I gave him our name.  A year before, I treated him like a biological child.  A year before, I was his mom. I do remember crying.  Not because he was finally ours, but because I had a paper saying that everything I felt was justified and that he had always been ours.

Three weeks old and my heart was already his

Now every year we celebrate as a family.  We celebrate how adoption has changed our lives.  This year we decided to take the kids to the Lego store. (It is a little scary how quickly they have grown to love legos and they are over taking our playroom).  They got to run around the store and play with the bins of legos and the mini people build station, plus we let them pick out one small set.  They were so excited.  We also took the boys out to California Pizza Kitchen.   Of course there was some yelling and running around that drove this momma crazy, but then I tried to remember why we were out to dinner.  We were out to celebrate our family, in all its craziness.

I love my family.  I love being their mom. Even when the not so pretty reality of four kids sets in and we are in public and I just want to get home before I lose my cool, I love being their mom.  And this crazy adventure I am on as a mother all started with my son’s adoption.

All we have to show is this blurry iphone picture because they seriously never stop moving.

Now every year I get to celebrate my family and the way it started.  I get to take a moment to think about the day I signed those papers and how it changed everything and nothing all at the same time.  I get to rejoice in being my kids’ mom and how it happened.  They might not know all the things that are in my heart as we celebrate adoption day, but they do understand that it is a day to celebrate and a day to rejoice in our family and the love we share.