a new kind of family

my friend, stacey, posted this video on her blog this morning. now that we are a transracial family, it hit me deep. take the 17 minutes or so, and please watch.

Bloodlines Documentary with John Piper from Crossway on Vimeo.

meeting benjamin

first off, let me tell you that was happens now in our story isn't the norm. going to the hospital to meet the baby is a rare thing, and direct placements (when you get to take the baby directly home from the hospital) aren't so common either. there is a good reason for this which i totally understand. in georgia, the birthmother has 10 days after she signs away her rights to change her mind. jon and i had decided before we met erin that we did not want a direct placement. we were quite okay with whatever child we adopted being with a foster family for those 10 days. and we were okay not so much for ourselves, but more so for our girls. how do you explain to them that this is your "maybe" brother? we just didn't want to go there, but erin fought hard for direct placement. she didn't want us to miss a minute of bonding with benjamin, and i am grateful for her persistence and God's leading us to trust Him and to change.

so april 5, 2011. we loaded up the girls and drove to the hospital to meet benjamin. two quick stops first. we went by our kroger (with a vase in hand), and they prepared the most beautiful flower arrangement even throwing in some extra flowers for free because the ladies there are just so sweet to our family (all the time!) oh, and i remember getting some ginger ale. yeah, must have been nervous. then we stopped at chick-fil-a to get lunch for everyone to take to the hospital, and then, we're there. a phone call to the caseworker to find out which room, and in we go.

having the girls there was a gift. it was a buffer and gave me some time to process without all eyes on me. because let's get honest, babies are not all cute...especially a mere 12 hours or so after they have been born. and he was really, really different than my girls. for one thing, he was huge! my biggest baby was julia at a whopping 7 lbs 2 oz. benjamin was nearly 10 lbs! and he was purple. i am grateful that someone, somewhere had prepped me that bi-racial babies are often purple for a bit after birth. yeah, that was good to know beforehand. :)

when we first walked in the door, i handed my camera to someone (janine, the caseworker?) and then the girls were just like magnets to benjamin. i let them look, and then made them wash their hands! then the lovin' began.

the girls first meeting benjamin (look at abby trying not to touch)

the girls fighting to see who would hold him first

jon and i getting to hold him

feeding him a bottle

the mood was VERY upbeat. so much so that i was a bit worried for erin. i thought she would be sadder, but she wasn't. (probably helped that she had just gotten drugs before we went in.) she was so so gracious. letting us hold him. letting us change his diaper. letting abby see what uncircumcision is all about before it was too late (is that tmi?)

but there was also strain for me. it was hard to be there and not be the parents. to be the "almost" parents. decisions needed to be made, and we weren't the ones making those decisions. when i fed benjamin, he projectile vomited. erin wanted to move him to soy-based formula which was fine for her to make that call. no judgement from me. but it wasn't what i would have done. so having to defer to her just reminded me that he wasn't ours.

some might wonder if we felt that bond instantly. i mean, i've watched tons of videos of people meeting there soon to be adopted child for the first time. there are tears, weeping, and a tidal wave of love pouring out of them. i'll be honest, i didn't feel that. it took me about 30 minutes or so to start to feel the least bit connected. if you want to read more about all of that, go here. i think there was a difference for us though. we were adopting to bring God's redemption into brokenness instead of adopting to have redemption brought into our brokenness. does that make sense? (and don't get me wrong, adopting had definitely brought redemption into our brokenness, it just wasn't our primary reason for adopting)

we stayed for about an hour and a half. benjamin needed to leave to be circumcised. erin had just had a baby and needed to rest. there were super sweet moments that God let us have....

like the ceremonial eating of a huge chocolate chocolate chip muffin (abby and i shared one in the hospital bed when julia was born).

and this...(notice how ginormous he is in abby's arms!)

and honestly, it wasn't so hard to leave. we knew that the hard day was to come.