That Final Piece

This morning we stepped into a courtroom with a mixture of butterflies and confidence. You can't help but feel nervous when standing in front of a judge but we also felt the surety of having done our part. The paperwork, the waiting, the post-adoption visits with the caseworker, all the medical paperwork we had to fill out and send in, the emails and calls to ensure everything would go through. The hassles with the insurance company who just could not understand why we didn't have a social security card or birth certificate for our son, as if we are the first people ever to adopt a child. But today it's all done. Today we stand here before this woman who has the power to make everything final. Legal. Done. 

A dear friend of mine with three adopted children recently posted a profound quote:  

"A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me." 

As we stand here today, I remember that. I etch it into my soul. So many people like to focus on or emphasize that fact that we have done something here. That WE have been saviors in some kind of way, rescuers. For me, it never feels that way. It feels like we have brought a child into our family, just like anyone else, but maybe in a slightly less "regular" way. I look at my child and see the huge losses that have already been stored up in his baggage- his birth parents and their extended family, his foster family, whatever life he might have had without us -good or bad. I hear his belly laugh and get sucked into those gorgeous brown eyes and wonder who he looks like and whether one of his biological parents laughed like that. We'll likely never know. But we didn't do any rescuing or any hero work here. We are simply parents; flawed, exhausted and grasping for a daily dose of hope and grace, just like anyone else. 

So today, the magnitude of that quote hits me. The depth of the privilege it is to call this child son, to embrace the responsibilities, challenges and joys of what it means to be his parent, that he is irrevocably, legally and (like he has been from the moment he was placed in our home) heart-rendingly ours. That there are already significant tragedies in his life that we'll have to work through together some day. 

But the point is this: we WILL do it together. Today it's final. It's done. The final piece of a dream. With a few short words and under the smiling eyes of a judge, we were pronounced a family. 

It feels really good.