We had such a wonderful time visiting with family over Thanksgiving. It’s always special when we all get together and this year was even more so. For one, everyone knows we will be adopting some time this coming year, so it was fun to talk about Charlie. I also got to meet my beautiful new niece for the first time (that’s her on my lap) and spend time with my older nieces and nephews, who I adore. As a super special treat, my cousin Jennie and her husband stopped by with their sweet, adorable daughter, who they adopted as an infant almost five years ago from the same agency we are using.

Jennie and Eric’s daughter, I’ll call her “D” (in case they’d rather me not use her name) was so sweet and I’m so glad we got the opportunity to spend time with them all. They even brought me a few gifts for Charlie. D was a little shy at first (a lot of new faces) but then she read me a couple of the books they brought, On the Day You Were Born and On the Night You Were Born. It was so touching when she went through the book and pointed to and named her mom and dad and then her birthmother and her birthmother’s husband. She didn’t seem confused about the situation at all–it was clear she knew she grew in her birthmother’s tummy because her momny’s tummy was broken. But that she had grown in her mommy’s heart all along.

Jennie also brought D’s adoption day story books with them to show me and it gave me some great ideas about things to create for Charlie when the time comes. I think it’s so important that D has those books and you can tell they’ve been read a thousand times. I’ll definitely do something like this and it’s a good reminder to be sure to have someone get precious photos of our adoption day when it comes and to write in a journal (or this blog) about the experience.

Continue reading “Here in spirit: Charlie’s “first” Thanksgiving” →