Do you love this little boy?

A gift of life for one, a gift of motherhood for another.

I was not prepared for how emotional and special Declan's court hearing was going to be. Our son's been our son from day 1 so I thought that court was just a technicality in our adoption journey. Little did we know, it was a highly intense and amazing 10 minutes. 

After we were sworn in and up on the witness stand, the judge asked "do you love this little boy"? Cue tears. He also asked "are you committed to bestow all the rights and privileges to Declan as your child as if he was born to you" and "are you committed to be a role model and mother figure to Declan"? These are just a few of the deep questions we were asked. It was amazing. When he said he was signing the adoption decree and wished us congratulations, we felt pure elation. It was the punctuation to a very long journey that brought us joy, fear, excitement, frustration and unadulterated love. 

We were blessed to be surrounded by family (also known as our paparazzi). The judge made an exception and allowed them to take pictures and videotape the hearing so we'll have these memories to show Declan some day.

The rest of the day we continued to feel loads of love as we celebrated our sweet son over lunch with family and followed up by a big party at our place in the evening. 

It's hard to explain how special I believe Declan to be. He was chosen by God to be our son. I didn't grow a belly and feel his kicking and bring him in to this world. I did labor- not in the physical sense (though infertility most definitely has it's physically painful moments) but I labored emotionally. If I'm completely honest there were times of spiritual labor as well. As we sat in that court room yesterday I felt that every single moment until then was worth it. Every penny spent at the doctor trying to get pregnant, every negative pregnancy test, every tense moment during our match, every day of those 7 days we waited to hear if Decs would be our son. It's all worth it. I would wait forever to feel what I felt yesterday. 

"Do you love this little boy?" With every shred of my being.

My heart overflows. Happy Adoption Day, little man.