Toasty Warm Feelings

Dear Little Moon,

For 3 months now, I've been consumed with the idea of being yours.  You've lost so many times already in your life, and although some of those losses you might not feel now, they have spurred me on even wilder to finally, officially make us the family you can claim as yours.

Even more than I want to claim you, I want you to be able to claim us.  I want the people who care about you (and there are so many) to feel secure knowing that you have a Mommy, Daddy, and two brothers who are committed to you, no matter what. I want them to know that 5 years from now, you'll have someone to tuck you in at night and make you feel like the most special child in the world. That is what has kept me up at night, the worry that we might not be real, that we might be just another fleeting potential path in your life.

I can wait a year for you.  I can spend crazy sums of money to send piles of papers to anyone who needs them.  I can live off blurry pictures. I can shove love into gallon ziplock bags a month at a time. I can schedule my life out a month at a time, rather than a season. I'm happy, honored even, to be able to do that for the chance to be your Mom.

What I found I couldn't deal with was not being connected to you "officially."  I need my name next to yours.  And now that it finally is, I'm finding that is enough for me, for now.

And on the day when those papers making us yours were finally stamped official, you were in an office half a world away, posing for pictures that, for the first time, everyone knew for sure were for your parents.

I want to know what the giggle that accompanies your trademark grin sounds life.  I want to smooth back your wispy hair and count your little fingers, one by one.  I want to hug you and tell you that this time, it's for real.

I'm also terrified for the day when I get to do that, but that's for a different note.  Today I'm just happy that we're connected and that you're warm and happy.

That's enough for me.