One year ago, yesterday…

… at 9 a.m., Brian and I sat excitedly in our social worker’s office and hung on her every word as she went through the details of a referral for a baby boy. After reading through the documents, she teasingly said, “I don’t suppose you’d want to see pictures…” [Umm, heck yes!!!]

We could hardly contain our joy when we saw him in his Pooh sweatshirt…

She gave us a few other photos: a couple of him with his foster mother, and some of him playing in the playroom at Eastern. As an added treat, she had a video to show us! She had just returned from a trip to Eastern to escort some babies home. While she was there, she met and played with all of the children who had been or were to be matched with families through her agency. And, she videotaped these meetings to share with the waiting families. (Yes, this woman is amazing). It was a great feeling that she had met our son and could tell us first-hand just how special he was!

Since our referral day was pre-blog, I wrote (yes, hand-wrote!)  about the day in a beautiful journal that Brian gave me for our first Christmas as a married couple. [On a side note, I have to share what he wrote on the inside cover: “May this journal help you record our journey through life… TOGETHER!” (Swoon!)]

Here’s an excerpt from that journal entry, right after we saw the photos and video: “I cried so much – tears of joy that we would finally be parents(!), tears of sadness for his birth mother and the difficult (and courageous) decision she had to make, and tears of amazement at this beautiful little boy sitting in a red and gold throne.”

It’s hard to believe a year has gone by, and our little boy is almost 18 months old. Life is good.