Today marks the third anniversary of the day that Rafael joined our family.

The foster care protocol was adjusted and bent and changed repeatedly to facilitate his arrival to our family. I shared about when we went to meet him at the hospital, accompanied only by his birth parents.

I didn’t write about the process of actually getting him, though. I shared pictures of his homecoming with all the kids holding him (go back and look again – weren’t they all so sweet?!?), but there were no pictures of me. All I referenced in the post was that it had been very draining. Very.

On the day we got Rafael we had another bending of protocol that added a huge emotional load to the experience for all of us. Instead of us picking him up from the hospital, he was checked out by his birth parents, who then took him to the offices of the foster care organization. It was in that office, accompanied by their social worker, our social worker, the head social worker, that both families finalized the agreement.

Finally the technicalities were completed. All that remained was to physically transfer the baby from them to us.

All that remained. As if that was a minor technicality.

No, it was all the reams of paperwork were the technicalities. The transfer of the baby was the most sensitive and heartwrenching experience.

His birth mother placed him in my arms, her eyes filled with tears. I don’t remember saying anything. What I do clearly remember is that they immediately left the office, and I turned toward the window overlooking the street, unable to speak for the tears in my eyes and the pain in my heart.

It was a moment of incredibly heightened emotion. We had so much anticipation of this little baby joining our family, but for me there was no happiness in that moment. In that moment, I saw only the heartbreak of another mother.

Through all the talking and paperwork, the baby slept.

We were told the baby needed to be awake for an extended period before he could be taken home. The ideas was to minimize trauma, so that he didn’t go to sleep on in one place and wake up in another, that there was some kind of preparatory transition for him.

This took quite some time. I don’t remember how long we were there, while the social workers observed us with him – more than two hours, but I don’t remember how much longer.

Once he was finally awake, my husband and I both held and interacted with him for a while.

We were at last allowed to give him a bottle, the final activity before taking him home. We couldn’t feed him sooner because it was likely he would have fallen right back asleep and he needed to be awake for an hour.

When we got home, all his siblings got a very brief chance to hold him. For the following week, he was hardly held by anyone but me. After having multiple caretakers for two months in the hospital, it was critical for him to bond with me and know me as his primary caretaker.

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Last week I had a meeting with staff at his school, and they commented that they never would have guessed that he wasn’t really my child.

He really is my child. While I didn’t give birth to him and he doesn’t (yet) legally share my last name, I couldn’t love him a drop more.

I am so deeply, deeply grateful for the opportunity to parent this adorable ball of sunshine. It just keeps getting better.

Avivah