3 years ago today

Our very first meeting, our very first picture together

Adrien will be four on Friday....Unbelievable I know....and we will celebrate that day......though today holds a very special spot in my heart.....today is the anniversary of the first time I laid eyes on the man that would change my life, my world, challenge my ideas, teach me patience and about unconditional love....three years ago today was the first time I got to meet my son....it had been such a long wait....so very very long....but three years ago today, I got to see him, touch him, smell him and hold him.  It was such an emotional day for me, I was so conflicted.  Here in my presence was our child, the one I had waited a lifetime to meet (that's what it felt like) and yet he was a complete stranger to me, with a history that I couldn't comprehend....here was a child who was labelled "the child with the lifeless eyes", whose eyes just shone with love....for them, his foster parents (I can't thank them enough for the love they have given him and continue to show him and us).  It was a bitter sweet moment for me, and though I have probably written about it before, I can remember it, see it and feel it like it was yesterday.  The "high" of the excitment of knowing that we were to become parents had almost worn off (we waited almost 9 days from the time we were a family until the time we got to meet him) and reality set in....we were going to be parents....could we do it?  Could I do it?  I had so many doubts, that those first few days that he came home where hard on me, here was a little person who was soley dependent on us and we didn't know him...our mission for those first few months were keeping this person alive another day without anything happening to him, ensuring he was fed, clean, rested and exercised.  It was hard, probably similar to a newborn coming home....and I realized now, having the bond that we do, that when people asked me a couple of weeks into Adrien coming home if we were attached and me saying yes, that we were in the process of becoming attached and probably weren't really there until he turned two.  In retrospect there were little indicators, he didn't eat much, he was compliant and quiet, he didn't really fuss about much....like us, he was trying to figure things out....we were fun for him and took care of him but really, this was the third family he was placed with, and though we are his family, I know he didn't understand that....Here we are, three years later....and we have the most wonderful son a family could ask for....people always tell us how lucky he is and how perfect he is....and to me, we are the lucky ones....and though they are right, he is pretty close to perfection (in my eyes anyways) he is a typical soon-to-be four year old, who has his own mind, his own ideas and his own way of dealing with things....he laughs and he cries, he helps and he has trantrums but for our family, we (the three of us) are the perfect fit for each other.... and now we wait to do it all over again, to introduce another person into our family to complete the perfect fit....