Monday, March 12, 2012

The 150th Step

I started this blog (and foolishly let it lapse right just as things got interesting) to document the journey that my wife and I had started as we sought to adopt a little girl. The blog was kicked off shortly after a friend asked about the adoption process. I started to explain all the things we were doing and still had to do before giving up and saying, "If the adoption process has 150 steps, we're on step 6."

Now, almost three years later, we've reached and completed step 150.

Today, the judge finalized the adoption of our baby girl, making us legally and forever a family. Over the last 6 months, she's captured such a huge part of my heart that I can't really remember what it was like before she dropped into our lives so suddenly. Actually, it's not that I can't remember. It's that I don't really care to. I can't imagine life without her, even the occasional barfing.

I'm actually having some difficulty processing that fact that the adoption is DONE. There will be no more paperwork, no more home visits, no more legal steps, at least not when it comes to ensuring that she is ours and we are hers. I fully expect paperwork and bills to keep coming for decades to come but that's the journey of parenthood and I honestly have no idea how many steps there are in that journey.

But I'm looking forward to finding out.

No comments: