Son

I used to imagine that after we received our referral, I would immediately blog about it, write out every juicy detail, every emotion I was feeling. And even now as I sit down to post for the first time since The Call, I'm still unsure how to convey the depth of the experience in a meaningful way. I decided I would sit with the loveliness of it, the joy, the worry, the sadness, (after all, he comes to us as his second family and fourth set of caregivers)---sit with all of it for awhile until I found a way to say it all with the weight it deserves. But I don't think I can. And that's okay.

I could talk about the poignancy of receiving the referral a year to the date of our official wait. I could talk about all the bumps in the road, the delays, the years of planning, the tiniest of details, a checked box here, a bureaucratic mistake there, which brings Yonas to us. Us, of all the many families waiting. I could write about how excited his sisters are, how I cried in the aisles of the second-hand store when I was buying clothes for him. I could talk about how just staring at a picture can make you fall in love. But it wouldn't be enough. I don't know what would be.

But I know I have a son. I don't know what he looks like when he smiles. I don't know what his feet look like. I know he doesn't have much hair. I know he has beautiful hands. I know he has a birthmark on his belly, but I haven't seen it or his belly button. I know he has fat baby thighs and juicy baby lips that I want to kiss. I know someday he will laugh when I put my mouth to his neck and nibble there. I know his eyes are soulful and tired-but-still-trying. I know he has ears with fleshy earlobes and I will whisper things he won't understand on the day we meet.

I know I am ready.