So I learned something new this week! There is a World Adoption Day, a National Adoption Day, and all of November is Adoption Month! How awesome to have all those occasions to celebrate something as special as adoption? We have one more date though, the same day as National Adoption Day, actually. It’s November 19th, the one year anniversary of CJ’s adoption being finalized!

There was never any doubt from the second we met him that he was our son. We didn’t need a judge to tell us that. Still, it was kind of nice when she did. 😊 Our “finalization day” wasn’t exactly like you see on tv or movies. You know, where the family gets dressed up and stands before the judge to hear the finalization decree. I honestly don’t know if we had the option to do that or not. It would have been kind of cool, but it likely would have cost me more money! Instead, sometime in early December 2015 we received a letter via courier that said CJ was our irrevocably legal son, by judge’s decree, official on November 19, 2015. I was wearing jammies and feeding CJ his bottle. Not exactly the glamourous look associated with such an occasion! It took me by surprise because I had been thinking someone would contact me with a court date, but then I teared up because there is just something amazing about hearing that your son is now legally your son. I had certainly never thought of him as anything less; I had pushed it out of my mind that to the courts he was simply “Baby Boy Doe” for the first two and a half months of his life. He had never been a Doe to the Hubs and I! 

CJ has made our lives so much richer and full of adventure. He made Ezra a big brother, which helped to bring him out of his shell as well as led to him developing a sense of pride around having a baby brother to “protect.” He makes me a better mother by keeping me on my toes and making my heart grow two sizes too big. The Hubs was already a great father, but he’s even more phenomenal now, always playing with or wrestling his two boys all over the house. When he gets home from work both boys just light up when they hear the garage door open. 

I hear about a lot of people in my adoption group that wonder if they can love a child that isn’t theirs biologically. The answer is a resounding YES! When you fall in love with your child, DNA doesn’t matter. You make a connection that is unique and separate from each other’s genes. It’s difficult to explain, but the love that is forged simply through the parent/child relationship supersedes any other. I love my boys equally, and in the course of each busy day I don’t stop to account for who is a bio and who is adopted. I just love them both with all my heart. 

This week, as we reflect on and cherish CJ’s Finalization Day, we are filled with gratitude and thanks that God chose us to be his family. We are so lucky. It could have been any other number of families, but it was us! That’s better than winning the lottery, and we are going to raise CJ to understand and believe that everyday of his life. 

The two cutest boys around!