Ephram's Gotcha Day!

The most vivid memories you carry are the ones where you fall in love. Whether it is the day you met your spouse or noticed them in that way for the first time. There is this indelible click in your brain which is it shutting itself off so your heart can race ahead unchecked. The same is true when you meet your children for the first time. In our case since we have four children and three of them adopted the stories are all vastly different. With Cailey it was a delivery room in Beverly, MA and since she was first when I was holding her after the nurse left the room I nearly freaked out when I realized we were actually supposed to take care of her. Good thing Heather knew what she was doing. With Braden it was a sleepy six month old in a terminal at Dulles Airport. He slept the first 30 minutes we knew him. In Kinsey's case, she came off the plane smiling, wide awake and it has been that way for five years. No, I am not sure she actually sleeps. I think she lays up there and smiles all night.

>Ephram was even more distinct than the others. One delivery room and two airports gave way to the living room of a Korean family in Seoul. It was there we met Ephram for the first time, fell in love and accepted him into our hearts and family. For me there is this definitive moment, an action on his part that drew him to me. He liked my facial hair or at the very least did not know what it was. He poked at it and with curious eyes tried to discern why this man was wearing carpet on his face. Unlike Braden and Kinsey there was no rush of people around us clamoring for a look. We did not have to get in a car to go home which meant putting them in a car seat for the first time and listening to them scream about it. In Cailey's case, there is so much that goes on in a delivery room and then they take your baby somewhere else. Meeting the first three seemed less about meeting them than it did about the bustle of activity associated with it. We were robbed of the chance to simply meet our child. In Ephram's case it was different. That day we spent time loving him, getting to know him. We found out he danced when a musical toy was played. He smiled and laughed and looked like a baby for which everything in the world was going right. Because it was. He had been loved sacrificially by one mother, loved again by a foster mother and now would be loved by a mother and father who would take him a home to live with a brother and sisters, to grow up with birthdays and gotcha days, stuffed doggies and toy panda bears. We fell in love with Ephram that day and given how much joy he shows us I am pretty sure on that day he fell in love with us right back.



One less little BOY!! We love you, Ephram! Happy first Gotcha day!